One word ? Deadlines. The game had to be shipped for winter, that's why.
Don't blame them tho, crunching is the worst thing ever to survive to in the game industry <___<
I've had one or two months like that when I barely went home at insane hours just to sleep some hours and then go back to work xD All this because of the final deadline
As an aspiring Indie developer who does plan on having a family some day, I'm NOT looking forward to Crunch Time. I've heard horror stories.