> Can you name other "career paths" where are more technical & creative challenges open to solve?

Fair question. Once I was in graduate school (math program), I went down the scientific/large-scale computing path. It isn't a very large field of course, compared to consumer-facing software. It was more of a personal drive.

Oh, of course there are some areas. I also can name the one or other. But when you want max-out your chances, to get hired and are not a star-programmer in such an area, you will possibly find yourself in some dull and boring area, how I found myself one day (I must admit, that I had total different expectations about the job, but that is a long story by itself ...).

From my experience, I think compensation might be more prevalent when you are indie because you are less likely to have a stable income compared to working in a company. But I may be wrong :)

I did not want to touch that topic, since there are different things to consider and experiences can differ.

I mentioned only working in a company, since from that what I saw in my country, compensation for ordinary developers in a company are far less than when working in other sectors as software developer (in deed, I do not know any sector, where payment is less than in the Gaming industry). At least one plus is that the Gaming industry is more likely to take people without formal education (which might also be connected to the lower wages).

Of course, when working in a company, you are less likely to not be able to pay your rent any more.

Compensation in the games industry varies wildly. In my opinion, this is because there are many people who have <5 years experience and few people who have 10+ years. The veterans have high salaries and other forms of compensation (profit sharing, bonuses) while newbies are given less than in an average consulting/web shop.

I guess so. But it is a little difficult to get data from veteran people, since those figures are most often negotiated in silence. All I can see are the entry level offerings and they are in deed often below those for web-developers. I think, it is similar as in other areas -- when you manage to be seen as key-developer, you are in a much better negotiation position -- but for that, you must be either a star from the beginning or done some real great tasks in the company.

You don't need to be a star to make good six figures. You just need to be good enough to get into a top-tier studio.

While financial data is hard to obtain in general, luckily, the Activision lawsuit has made a lot of it available to the public, everything from project budgets to the salaries[1] is now a part of public record.

1. http://gamerant.com/activision-lawsuit-infinity-ward-salarie...

I've been out of the mainstream industry for 7 years now, but I made 6 figures when I was working with Steven Spielberg at Electronic Arts in Los Angeles. Before that, when I was at ION Storm in Austin, Texas, I wasn't that far from it. I'm usually in a lead designer / creative director position, but a really solid, senior programmer or producer earns about that much, too.

Gamasutra and GDC put together a salary survey every year. I think that's public? I would search for it.

Thanks for the info! Currently, I never worked in the gaming industry and I believe not many big studies are located in Germany. There are some online game studies in Germany, though, but I think, they pay a lot less than the big AAA studios.

There are loads of game studios in Germany, mostly smaller ones and not AAA. In general in the past few years there has been a massive shift away from AAA & huge teams.