I've been doing software development for the past ~21 years and have been doing game dev for the past 6 of those, and I've experienced a lot of what the traditional software industry and game dev have to offer, from massive corporate FAANG or AAA behemoths to small startup like indies.

Like most industries there is bad and good, but the nightmare stories are the ones you tend hear about, there's not a lot of juicy material in "game dev studio provides satisfactory work environment". There are definitely exploitative horrible studios out there, but there are also plenty with satisfied workers.

Just my anecdata as a software dev who happily moved into game dev and has no regrets about the decision.

What were you doing before and how big of a career change was it in terms of the new things you had to learn?