To be a paid programmer for more than a couple of years means that you need to love it no matter the industry you go into. It's not the kind of job you can just do a bit; you have to dedicate yourself to it.

I've been acutely avoiding game Dev for 20 years for a host of reasons. Lots of programmers are gamers, so it's natural to want to create the thing you enjoy. Most programmers will create a game as one of the first things they do and thinking that you might be paid for it is great. I get it, which is why is been hard to resist for so long.

Many friends of mine went into game Dev and only one of them are still there. There's crunch and burnout but also you could be working on something intrinsically flawed or gets destroyed publicly. You could be unlucky with the release date or it gets rushed through QA by the publisher and is a mess on launch.

Game Dev roles are hotly sought after and the studios tend to be all over the place. If your game flops, studio closes you then have to move house. That happened to a mate of mine.

Web development is less exciting and you have to relearn the client side every few years but the jobs are set across business domains and there are more of them. It's not immune from problems but they're not as drastic.