Hogwash. Humans are masters of innovation, and are highly motivated to solve problems. None of these men worked from the ground up, but built on the groundwork laid down by others (Turing especially).

The world was arguably also less complex back then, so there was plenty of low-hanging fruit to snatch in terms of information theory

Don't let the Hideo Kojima's of the world fool you into believing they did everything themselves. It's an effort of many, many who do it for the love of the craft and are content to receive no praise for it