Meanwhile, John Staats said in an interview with Countdown to Classic that Blizzard doesn't give enough recognition to people for their hard work. Original WoW would have been the same thing as original FFXIV if it weren't for him, they were wanting to copy/paste the entire world and he did 90 hour workweeks just so the game wouldn't be a pasted mess, but the vast majority of players have probably never even heard of the guy.

I don't think it's the developers are rockstars, but moreso the developer leads are rockstars. Everyone has heard of the leads of the teams, but the developers themselves go by without really being named or getting much recognition.