I've worked in games, I've worked out of games. The workers in games are absolutely being exploited because they think the work environment is unique. And yes,

I've worked in games, I've worked out of games. The workers in games are absolutely being exploited because they think the work environment is unique. And yes, there's something cool to see people at PAX or elsewhere praising a project you worked on. But saying people are making a tradeoff, or giving up salary to work on games is a defeatist attitude -- big game devs should be paying what big tech companies pay. You should not have to give up pay to work in games, and it absolutely kills me every time I see an engineer claim that it's somehow noble to do so. In the indie space, sure, pay is going to be weaker. But there are thousands working for Blizzard, Activision, EA, Ubisoft, Rockstar, CDPR, etc. etc. etc. who are all being grossly underpaid for the value they bring to their company.