Come on it's just a video game not the Sistine Chapel. A few decades from now the games of today will be vanished and forgotten.
It's hard to find a GDC talk on Youtube where the creator of a game doesn't get teared up talking about the despair and elation they felt slaving over their game for four years. Try this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOlcB-JxkFw
I also firmly believe there are games that won't be forgotten in a few decades.
1. Watch someone work hard on a project they care about for months or years. It could be software, a quilt or a carpentry project.
2. Find a legal way to destroy it in front of them.
3. Say "Come on its just X not the Sistine Chapel."
4. Record their reaction and report back.
It's not as if they found a legal way to destroy it after the work had started. That legal way has always existed. How one can enter a profession where you're paid to make art and not know the rules is mind boggling. I know lots of famous music artists who've felt exploited, but those contracts are likely a lot more complicated than what these developers deal with.
If you're a carpenter, and I hire you to build something, and you don't know that I can stop the project at any point and destroy it, you've got serious issues. Ask any carpenter.
If Michelangelo was paid to produce a masterpiece, I'm sure he knew he didn't own the work. I should probably look up famous artists like him and read up to see if this was even unusual: Getting paid to make something that would be destroyed by the owner.
Its obviously not a 1:1 comparison, but the emotions and feelings are the same is what im getting at ;-)