I think the productivity question hinges on what you count as the language versus the ecosystem. Very few nontrivial games are written in "just C". They are written in C plus a large pile of bespoke libraries, code generators, asset pipelines, and domain-specific conventions. At that point C is basically a portable assembly language with a decent macro system, and the abstraction lives outside the language. That can work if you have strong architectural discipline and are willing to pay the upfront cost. Most teams are not.

I agree on C++ being the worst of both worlds for many people. You get abstraction, but also an enormous semantic surface area and footguns everywhere. Java is interesting because the core language is indeed small and boring in a good way, much closer to C than people admit. The productivity gains mostly come from the standard library, GC, and tooling rather than clever language features. For games, the real disagreement is usually about who controls allocation, lifetime, and performance cliffs, not syntax.

> I agree on C++ being the worst of both worlds for many people. You get abstraction, but also an enormous semantic surface area and footguns everywhere.

Not only that, but who even knows C++? It keeps changing. Every few years "standard practice" is completely different. Such a waste of energy.

> Java is interesting because the core language is indeed small and boring in a good way, much closer to C than people admit.

I know. I used to be a Java hater, but then I learned it and it's alright... except the whole no-unsigned-integers thing. That still bothers me but it's just aesthetic really.