You tend to hear the worst cases. For all the bad rep EA gets, like any big company a lot depends on your team and manager. I worked two separate 3-4 year stints on central tech teams and never had forced overtime (although there was some pressure / expectation at times) and things were reasonably sane. My time at Relic was also fairly positive with some long hours but mostly self imposed.
Game development is generally complex and has some special challenges but given those constraints isn't always worse than many typical software projects.
Game development is generally complex and has some special challenges but given those constraints isn't always worse than many typical software projects.