It is not denial IMO, in the game industry you've no choice if you're into maximum performance, C++ is the de facto standard. These guys are very talented and experienced developers. They just «suffer» from using C++. Jon Blow wrote that if he had written a new language and wrote The Witness with it, the game would have shipped sooner. Now he is writting it, it is called for now Jai. If you are interested look at his YouTube Channel.