There's a fundamental difference between gaming and movies/music/books that isn't mentioned here: star power. Movies have super star actors. Music is driven by

There's a fundamental difference between gaming and movies/music/books that isn't mentioned here: star power. Movies have super star actors. Music is driven by super star musicians. A lot of times, the name of an author is bigger than the title on a book. While dedicated gamers may know well who is making their games, the majority of gamers do not, and don't need to. If you go to a movie or a concert, you can see the face of the actor or musician. An author's good name is extremely important in selling a book. At the same time, you can play through a game for 60 hours and never spend a second thinking about who made it. This opens the door for game studios to treat the labor of game developers like a commodity, which allows them to sell their games like a commodity, which allows gamers to demand so much for their money. Anecdotally, I went to college to learn how to make games. I did, and when I got out, there was heavy competition for $40k-$50k jobs working 70 hours a week building menus for games. Instead I became a mercenary coder for the highest bidder and made more than that working 20-25 hours a week. I used the 40ish hours a week I saved to play video games.