As someone whose worked (very briefly) in that field: this is more of a talking point than people might realize.

I think the imagined process of making a game is one of an executed vision (either by some auteur, or some contingent group of developers). That story invariably feeds into itself--and the public gets this growing idealized picture of executing a game as being akin to executing a work of arts/humanities (despite numerous reports that seem to suggest otherwise).

In reality things are more sus--as you've pointed out: it's typically a money question: such and such purchases so and so labor, then they more or less they just bang out whatever.

Game developers actually sort of fetishize and even praise this process (askagamdev epitomizes this idea that a game is nothing more than a pragmatic exercise--I suspect this view gains a lot of favorable traction because it's also conveniently in servitude to the ego of the developers involved).

And the just-make-do with what labor we have even kinda even makes sense. Production does often evolve into just a pseudo-profundity ratio, of budget/time. Mythical Man-month stuff.

The game industry knows there's this disconnection too, of the perception of design versus what actually happens (that making a game more depends on access to labor/time/money than creativity). Which is maybe why the marketing of a game often focuses on creative execution and community (think of all of Bungie's faux documentaries concerning Destiny).