I don't think that "past their prime" can be applied to game design.
Past a prime can be expressed in different ways.
Indifference and lack of motivation in their case. Anyone can see that the writing in TOW is riddled with typical female fanfic issues - mary sue type of self inserts, combined with "cunning redhaired trolling" attitude of the main heroine. "I'll make WITTY jokes EVERY step of the way, troll the males haha!". It's typical poor man's writing.
They must have spotted it. But to actually go to Feargus and be like "oh man, bad news, we gotta fire all those whores" and then Feargus would be like "well OK, I'll do it for you, but then YOU gotta hire new ones" and then Cainarskies would have to dig through thousands of applicants, read their shit, oh my god.
No. Better leave it as it is, cause I just don't care anymore.
I'm guessing the design was hit with something similar.
When you're an MMA practitioner like me, you gotta hit the gym every day. And you have a thousand reasons not to get into that car. But as long as you have
one good reason to keep at it, you'll do it.
But for guys who've already been champions, not once, not twice, but many times, when they've already climbed that mountain..? To climb it again, they just don't have it in them anymore.
Call it what you will. I call it past their prime.