The games industry is like the fashion industry. Young boys, girls respectively are super motivated to get a job in the industry, they think they're not interested in doing any other job. That desperation enables the industry to take great advantage of them at the lower levels: if they're not willing to work under those terms, there are a number of eager replacements.

I'm not morally judging the situation, I think of it as a natural effect of market forces. A rational person would just go to another industry. I'm a software developer who was never anywhere near the game industry, fwiw, though I have had an appreciation for computer games since childhood. But In these industries, there are enough enthusiastic, perhaps not quite rational people, to keep that workforce unusually pressurized, metaphorically speaking.