Starving artists have been around since time immemorial but it used to be less un-viable in the past.

Starving everybody has been around since time immemorial. It doesn't mean it's relevant to our modern era (or at least not relevant in the same way).

LOL, I graduated with a degree in graphic design and an emphasis in illustration, and even got a couple of jobs in the games industry.

I had to change into software because I couldn't get fulltime work anymore and needed the benefits (I'd been coding for fun since high school - started with Flash). It was all gig jobs. Plus I make substantially more coding because "I don't get the pleasure of having the dream job of making art for video games".

Societally, the problem is that neo-liberal capitalism assigns no market value to art, but is more than willing to pay huge sums for a pixelated bald monkey.

We seem to assign a quite large market value to art. Film, television, music and book publishing are all huge industries. Add to that all the artistic pursuits that are part of every business (graphic design, some types of marketing, etc) and we almost certainly spend more on art than we ever have in the past.

That's entertainment and media.