My first job out of college was writing Super Nintendo games in Vancouver. My starting salary was $28.5K/year in 1994. Had I have been working 40 hour work weeks, this would have been a reasonable salary, but for 80 hours a week (which is closer to what I was working), it was less than McDonalds paid at the time.
The difference is upwards mobility. It's hard moving up the corporate ladder while flipping burgers. It was not so hard to turn the game programming job into a lucrative career in software development.
It hasn't got much better, starting salary is games usually $35,000 in Australia (in 2008, fairly sure it's still the same now) And you're still expected to work crazy hours and weekends.
The video games industry is pretty difficult to cut your teeth in though. It's highly technical, it has a ridiculous amount of competition and the software produced has a very short shelf life. If you can make it there, chances are you can make it anywhere.
The difference is upwards mobility. It's hard moving up the corporate ladder while flipping burgers. It was not so hard to turn the game programming job into a lucrative career in software development.