>What on earth does making the same wage have to do with
it?
The fact that, on Earth, passion only gets you so far. And it can easily wane off, given bad circumstances.
And of course, on Earth at least,
(a) "passion to create AAA games"
is not the same as
(b) "passion to be an employee on a AAA game company, with impossible schedules, idiotic management, unpaid overtime, and lower salary that I could get elsewhere".
In the end, whatever their passion, the AAA game developer is just a cog in a team (the head / driver of the team would be 1 in 20 or 1 in 50 devs).
The fact that, on Earth, passion only gets you so far. And it can easily wane off, given bad circumstances.
And of course, on Earth at least,
(a) "passion to create AAA games"
is not the same as
(b) "passion to be an employee on a AAA game company, with impossible schedules, idiotic management, unpaid overtime, and lower salary that I could get elsewhere".
In the end, whatever their passion, the AAA game developer is just a cog in a team (the head / driver of the team would be 1 in 20 or 1 in 50 devs).