I graduate from college way into CG. Oddly I'm not into video games. After some exploration though I found that people in that industry are over worked and underpaid. I found other uses for CG instead. Not really an answer to your question but there ya go...
Yes. I was in R&D of a game company, worked on console game titles (PS, PS2) and CG film productions. Also did some technology demos at siggraph.<p>Overworking---well, you can't avoid occasional crunch time, and because of the nature of game development, you sometimes have to face the design being overturned and have to rework development. But how far it goes largely depends on the team and/or the culture of the company. I know some who were deep in crunch time for over 9 months to meet the deadlines of monthly milestones; but also I know some who were able to leave office 6-7pm most of the time.
Yeah, I work on HeroEngine (<a href="http://www.heroengine.net" rel="nofollow">http://www.heroengine.net</a>), a MMO platform. The guys behind it are really smart, and I'm lucky to be able to learn from them. <p>If you're interested in game development, the single best thing you could do is hang out in the IRC channel #gamedev on the server irc.afternet.org and learn from them. There are a surprising number of excellent developers in that channel, so even if you're not interested in game development you'd probably find it worthwhile anyway. Just wait for an interesting conversation.
Yes, I spent about 3.5yrs in it. I can't really agree with the underpaid/overworked thing; the pay was fair, and the hours not unreasonable.<p>I left the industry because the idea of spending 2+ years on something that may-or-may-not pan out, with no way to tell before release, was beginning to get me down.<p>I realize startups are sort of the same thing, but I think they actually offer earlier feedback and greater opportunities for recovery than games.