That sounds like a nice environment, but it just doesn't hold a candle to working in a place where everybody from the office staff to the devs to the artists to

That sounds like a nice environment, but it just doesn't hold a candle to working in a place where everybody from the office staff to the devs to the artists to the managers just lives and breaths gaming. Let me put this another way: there's a gaming group like you have where you have to drag everybody to the table occasionally at lunch time for some casual games, and then there's gaming groups where 6 of you show up to play Twilight Imperium every weekend and every person memorized the rules on their own time. Working at a game company is the later.