Less crunch actually leads to shorter developer times. There have been tons of studies going back decades, that show that working over 40 hours for an extended period of time actually leads to a decrease in productivity. Basically working around 40 hours is about the best. Working 60 hours for a couple of weeks leads to more productivity for only a few weeks, after that fatigue starts settling in and you start doing lower quality work.
The problem is there's a prevalent work culture that doesn't understand that. I know people that are proud when they are able to work 80 or 100 hours a week, despite the fact that there's tons of research showing that it quickly leads to being less productive than just working at 40 hours in the first place.
The other problem is that working over 40 hours a week does lead to short term gains. For short sighted management, those short term gains are what their after.
https://www.alternet.org/2012/03/why_we_have_to_go_back_to_a_40-hour_work_week_to_keep_our_sanity/
Maybe someone will find some problems with this article, but it has some examples of how reducing the amount of hours that were worked lead to an increase in productivity that date back to the late 1800's.
Overall, I would absolutely be in favor of waiting longer for games to have better working conditions if that were the case. But there's very strong evidence that avoiding crunch would actually reduce the waiting times. So it's really a win-win.
Lower hours would make people more rested, keep them sharper, and it would also in general make them more satisfied and healthy. So all that leads to better workers.
