Game development is likely much more meritocratic than painting. Quality is objective, and varies greatly from game to game.
In judging painting, you don't end up with a lot of complaints about things like "I like the way it looked but it kept falling off of my wall", whereas if you have an unstable game...
Painting can equally be criticised on technical merit, and as with games that can still be very subjective even though many would like to pretend otherwise.