If they've foregone other opporunities, it might well be because working conditions in the games industry are (apparently) pretty awful, especially in large dev

If they've foregone other opporunities, it might well be because working conditions in the games industry are (apparently) pretty awful, especially in large development houses. There seems to be an attitude going around that endless crunch is somehow a 'good' thing, so you get massive amounts of overtime and ridiculous working hours. Presumably, this then selects for people who like games so much that they're somewhat able to give up just about everything to make them. If the conditions were more stable and... normal, then you'd probably get a more 'diverse' group in the industry and likely also better games in general.