I've had a little exposure to the game dev industry, and I've rarely met anyone who actually studied game development. Kind of in the same way that nobody goes

I've had a little exposure to the game dev industry, and I've rarely met anyone who actually studied game development. Kind of in the same way that nobody goes to university to study web development. People come from different backgrounds, either academic or self-taught, and end up in web/game dev. Game dev ends up, I feel, attracting a lot of people who couldn't self-start. i.e. those with no programming or art skills, who then study a huge mix of 2d, 3d, art, programming, sound studio stuff, marketing, corporate finance, and basically everything at the 101/intro level. Kind of become a jack of all trades, master of none. That's great at the higher (10+ years of experience) level, where you're catapulted into a directing role that steers many different departments. (running the factory) But at the entry level it just means you're doing specialised low-level work without having a specialised skill. (putting nuts on bolts). I'm generalising of course, there's probably a number of excellent programs attracting excellent talent. But I think by and large game dev studies (particularly the pioneer programs around 2006-2014) probably aren't the funnel through which talent flows or is created in the industry. As for less paid, yeah in general it's typically less paid historically. I'd say it falls within the category of the art industry. Typically that means low median wages and high levels of earnings disparity.