I refuse to believe that most video game companies follow those practices.
You'd be surprised. Blizzard is just one of the ones we *know* about.
Konami is one of the other most well known companies that mistreat their employees.
EA is notorious for mistreating employees and enacting union-busting firms to keep other employees from getting any ideas.
Gearbox is a company full of shills who care about nothing but the bottom line and will run their staff like cattle in order to get the job done. Randy Pitchford is one of the worst executives in the gaming industry today.
Ubisoft is similar to Gearbox, the bottom line comes first, and release dates are mandatory. They will work employees to death just to finish a product on the correct date and time. That these games come out unfinished projects that require months of rebuilding and patching to make them even remotely playable is of no consequence to them.
Nintendo, the god-forsaken Jesus Christ of video game companies is just as notorious for some of these practices. Japan's culture in general is an intense economy-based work environment in which deadlines are strict and failing to do a quality job could mean your life. Not to mention that Nintendo is among the worst when it comes to authoritative practices regarding their products.