There are activities where this type of realization is constant, and activities where it is rare.

Interviewing a marketing manager is dominated vibes and optics, and driving that clarity about what their actual skills are is an uphill battle. With a software engineer I can usually get there in a few minutes.

But many creative activities are susceptible to avoiding harsh realizations. And tfa was about the creative side of gamedev.

That doesn’t mean that engineers are better than English majors. If anything, technical people should have more respect for great creative talents, because those people got almost no feedback and still figured out how to become great.

Marketing is easy, just ask the interviewee what metrics they use in their job. If they can answer (at all), hire them.

The expected answer is something like LTV/CAC.