How did you get into game programming, if you don't mind me asking? I've always thought it would be such an interesting career but have heard horror stories about what the industry is like now...
> heard horror stories about what the industry is like now...
There definitely are. You have to remember to value yourself and who you are outside of your work, or else you can be taken advantage of. If the amount of work you're doing is so much that you can't do the other things that make you "you," it's too much work.
I graduated at the same time this never-ending wave of layoffs began, so it has been stressful at many points. Some of my best friends have been a part of those lay offs. Some of us pivoted to a new career because there wasn't a chance to even get started. I made do for some time by going to indie game developer events in the city my family lived near. I built relationships, found in-person community, and landed enough contract work as a Unity programmer to pay my student loans until I could find something long-term.
I now work at a small company where we do a mix of Unity and Web development. Sometimes it's our own products/services, but until those are successful enough we do contract work regularly to build out our runway. I enjoy what I do at work a whole lot, and it's been great getting critique from senior programmers with loads more experience than me. Very thankful about where I am.
In the future, I think I'd be okay with changing over to something else in SWE for my career, so long as it was to help people. I know that I love working with others on games enough that I'd still do it in my free time, just like I did when I was "mapmaking" as a kid.