I’ve been in games over two decades - everything from AAA to VR startups to running my own indie studio. I feel like I can probably answer your question.
There’s definitely a class divide within the industry based on your discipline. If you’re a software engineer, you have much greater leverage than artists/designers etc. when it comes to compensation, and you’ll likely be treated better in general.
Especially at larger studios, if you’re good you will generally be looked after. Sure, you might earn more working for one of the big five in tech, but you’ll probably be less interested in the work.
You should expect to move around pretty often - it’s rare (but not unheard of) for people to stay at one company for most of their career.
There have been some pretty rough seas over the years too - post-covid layoffs, and a fairly large series of layoffs in the early 2010s.
I’m guessing 30% of my time has been spent on games that never released. The first time was soul-crushing. But after that, I realised I needed to focus on enjoying the journey Instead. The game releasing was just a nice bonus.
I wouldn’t change my career for the world. I love working with other creatives (I’m actually friends with many of my colleagues), and I’m genuinely passionate about what I do. I think you just need to be the right personality type for it. If you’re someone who can’t set boundaries for yourself easily (switching off after hours), it can burn you out, usually by your own hand.
Most burnout I’ve seen has not come from studio heads demanding people work insane hours (though those rare situations always make the headlines), but instead comes from people’s inner drive to be a reliable colleague and do amazing work. I think that’s a side effect of being passionate about the work.
Is it a good career? I’ve certainly loved it and feel like I’ve been well-compensated, but your mileage may vary. But don’t believe the hype of the vocal minority who say it’s an industry full of abuse and bad wages. There’s some shitty things that happen for sure, and some jerks running studios here and there, but I think that’s more to do with late-stage capitalism than games itself.
I don’t read reviews, I’m not on social media (except here) and I don’t participate in online discussions about my games. At least that’s the principle I try and live by, I’m only human. And running my own studio meant having to break those rules anyway. Oh well.
Truthfully, it doesn’t bother me that much, and it gets easier the more it happens. Not everything is for everyone, and either people are respectful in their critique (which you can learn from to hopefully get better next time) or they’re disrespectful (in which case you can pretty much ignore what they’re saying as online trolling).
Also when you’re at a bigger studio, your contribution to the game is much smaller anyway (1000s of devs), so you feel less personal about the feedback.
As I’ve gotten more experience, I actually feel like ANY type of feedback is good feedback - it means people are playing your game! There will always be a vocal minority wanting to rage and vent, and you can just take their volume level as an indicator of how well your game has captured your audience’s attention.