I would say the observation is accurate. I think the owners / employers see it as a supply and demand problem. There are a lot of enthusiastic, gung-ho novice programmers would give an arm and a leg to be in the gaming industry.
Many enjoyed playing games, so naturally they decided to into the this field. These individuals will compensate their lack of experience and theoretical understanding of many CS subjects with sheer enthusiasm, they will work 12 hour days, weekends, for relatively low pay, putting up with lots of crap, until ... they burn out. When they burn out, there is another battalion of enthusiastic kids waiting at the door and, then the cycle continues.
It is not that this doesn't happen with other programming jobs, but there are just not that many people who are as excited about database scalability or say, machine learning as there are individuals excited about games. Exploiting someone like that and having them burn out, would mean having to look long and hard to replace them. Therefore pay is better, hours are better and the environment is healthier.
Many enjoyed playing games, so naturally they decided to into the this field. These individuals will compensate their lack of experience and theoretical understanding of many CS subjects with sheer enthusiasm, they will work 12 hour days, weekends, for relatively low pay, putting up with lots of crap, until ... they burn out. When they burn out, there is another battalion of enthusiastic kids waiting at the door and, then the cycle continues.
It is not that this doesn't happen with other programming jobs, but there are just not that many people who are as excited about database scalability or say, machine learning as there are individuals excited about games. Exploiting someone like that and having them burn out, would mean having to look long and hard to replace them. Therefore pay is better, hours are better and the environment is healthier.