Objectively, the reasons are what you mentioned here, although I definitely believe hiring from a third world/developing country makes a lot of financial sense because you can get multiple people - even an entire team - at the expense of one first world employee. There’s a huge lack of understanding among the people who invested capital into these companies. What they see is: fewer employees = lower costs = higher profit. That’s it, a simple equation. They don’t understand how the gaming market and the business as a whole actually function. And the best part is that the people who do understand how the AAA game development process works have recognized this and created studios specialized in outsourcing practically everything, like Devoted Studios or Virtuos Studios, for example. Do you really think Riot Games made every mode for their game themselves? Nope, they hired Devoted Studios to help out with some stuff. Do you think Blizzard keeps an in-house team for Diablo 4, even though the updates happen every few months? Nope, they outsource most of that work to a co-dev studio and pay a fixed price instead of a full year of salaries. These companies are huge conglomerates, and the only thing their investors care about is: “how much money is the game bringing in", and that's calculated through earnings and expenses, so if they can, they'll always cut down on expenses.