You're right - I fully agree with you, but I actually think that's kind of an entirely separate issue.

If it took your team an 18 month death march sprint just to get to the "red button" stage, I have a hard time imagining many people who wouldn't toss it all in without some kind of company recognition and were instead told "lol JK welcome to level 2 - hope you're ready to work harder now".

I'm not sure even the videogames industry could get away with not pandering to morale that badly without mass exodus.