Game companies lose a ton of great developers due to their atrocious salaries and this is (IMO) reflected in many ways, from ever-lengthening development cycles

Game companies lose a ton of great developers due to their atrocious salaries and this is (IMO) reflected in many ways, from ever-lengthening development cycles to quality issues at release to feature cuts and crunch. I believe this affects the bottom line pretty significantly, and game publishers would look at the problem more seriously if they weren't making profits hand over fist due to the expansion of the industry as a whole lifting pretty much all boats. Seriously, for every one dev I know who actually works in the industry I probably know 10 who would much rather work there than their current job if the salaries were even close to competitive.