Haha, I am not sure if it is "underestimating" or simply a budget.
Yes and no. I can see someone would prefer spending funds on visual assets instead of hiring a sound designer, yet I fail to comprehend how grabbing some stock field recordings and introducing them in a game world with some minor tweaks is a budget constraint. As a sound person myself I tend to think it is an underestimation of hearing itself as a way to interact with the world. If only they knew how sophisticated human hearing is, and how vital it was and is for our survival and comprehension of the environment, I bet that wouldn’t be an optional feature.
