Michael Abrash on Quake: "Finish the product and you’ll be a hero."
I got the hero speech too, once.  If anyone ever mentions the word "heroic" again and there isn't a burning building involved, I will start looking for new employment immediately.  It seems that in our industry it is universally a code word for "We're about to exploit you because the project is understaffed and under budgeted for time and that is exactly as we planned it so you'd better cowboy up."Maybe it is different if you're writing Quake, but I guarantee you the 43rd best selling game that year also had programmers "encouraged onwards" by tales of the glory that awaited after the death march.