Imagine you want to add a weapon to the game. With one click you could generate 100s of tasks for all the related stuff. It touches pretty much all the game. This is very very incomplete list for what Jira created tasks:

- concept, 2d, 3d art

- sounds, and there's quite a bit of them: just gun sound, reloads, impact on different surfaces etc

- animations - this is a large one

- writing: for example, background info on the weapon

- gameplay design: how the gun fits into the game

- world design: where the gun can be found, who (some fraction?) uses it

- quest design: maybe the gun is a reward in some quest, or is used in a particular way

- balance

- obviously, programming for all the above

- and even more obviously, testing all of the parts.

And that's one workflow. You had those for many parts of the game.

Perhaps what people hate are all the ceremonies and bureaucracy that arise around JIRA in dysfunctional organisations, and not the product itself? The red tape and bullshit was just starting to take over at the old place (part of the reason I jumped ship), which made 'standups' that should have taken 5-10 minutes a 90-minute soul-destroying odyssey. But that's not JIRA's fault either.

Infinitely configurable and extensible system that can accommodate any workflow and any process that comes to mind.

It can be used and also misused, but blaming Jira for its misuse is like blaming Lisp because it's too flexible and too powerful.

Keeping the complex workflow but using a dumber tool (E.g. having to track it via post-its, emails, chat, six different spreadsheets on different SharePoint servers plus sign off in two different custom in-jhouse webapps, would be worse in every aspect).

So when people say they hate Jira, they really hate the combination of Jira + the workflow under it.

I'd happily live without complex processes. But IF I have to use a complex process, I do love having one tool to handle it with, instead of eight. I did this switch FROM the 8 different spreadsheets and webapps, into the Jira/Azure DevOps/Whatever, several times. And I loved it every time because it's a less bad solution. It's not a good solution (that would be reducing complexity in the process). But for sufficiently complex organizations and tasks, some times you need a complex process and a complex tool to maintain it. And I guess in that situation no one will love the tool even though it's the least bad one.

I wouldn't say that I love JIRA, but every time I work at a company that doesn't use it, the alternative in place always feels much worse.

Mind you, I've only ever used Jira when its been setup, poorly, to fit in to a badly designed "scrum" process. People say it can be usable if you turn most of its features off. But the same is true of "smart" appliances, and that doesn't make me want to buy any of them.

I don't know if it's a strong argument for Java however, saying that god-awful software written in it is universally despised, but for reasons other than the language choice.