The theory, as I understand it, is that the much-vaunted game engine was not as good as claimed, and the game was also not actually fun, and the man was deploying his IQ more in the service of drumming up publicity for his project than in actually making a quality product.

Whether this is true for Google eep Mind too, who can say. Certainly not me! They seem to pay very well, so this is clearly economically valuable activity. We should not shame Sir Demis for enabling it.