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I would suspect that boxers and musicians of today lack something that old-time pugilists and rockstars had: chemical enhancement to aid that greater grind.
Games specifically take longer because they're often scoped bigger, are more complex, and the technology that builds them is more complex. In a few hours, one could crank out a barebones Mario-style platformer in 2D. Making that same game into a Metroidvania-style game would take an order of magnitude more time (let's say weeks). Make it 3D, and the time horizon for development extends to months at the minimum.
id Software managed the pace they did at Softdisk because their games were relatively simple, used simple graphics, weren't (yet) trying to push the limits of what was possible with computer games, and knew the hardware they were targeting (in the days before the Pentium and 3D accelerators). That Romero and Carmack were fairly skilled definitely helped, but in hindsight, you might not expect that looking at Rescue Rover or Dangerous Dave.
Games can be made in short timeframes like the old days, but you will notice the difference that lack of extra time makes. Go look at any game jam on Itch and play a few submissions, they're often very barebones, sometimes obviously crude, and typically quite short on content.
You think boxers used to be on more effective drug stacks than they are now? I'm quite skeptical of this for any sense of "used to", but particularly a sense of "used to" that includes, like, John L. Sullivan. For that matter, I'd be sort of surprised if it was true for musicians either.
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