"As far as I can tell there's a vicious cycle going on in the game industry: they won't hire people who don't love games and aren't in it because they are super-passionate about making games."
That's funny. The CS program at my school is filled with people who want to work in the game industry because they love games. I have the same reaction as you--just because playing games is fun doesn't imply making games is fun, and vice versa. Someone might loathe actually playing a game but have a real fun time writing the AI for it.
My point exactly. The majority of them are probably learning to program purely as a means to an end. They don't really care about the tech, they just know that if you're smart enough to be a good-enough programmer, it's the easiest way into the industry. (there is often a certain mystique associated with breaking into the game industry. As a decent C or C++ programmer it's really not very hard at all)
In school I started calling that CS student demographic "gamer scum", and the term gained some currency among my friends and coworkers/faculty -- students were allowed to work on games for their projects, but they were cajoled and were not expected to succeed.
I do admit to developing a fighting game once as a project, but it was with physical robots!
That's funny. The CS program at my school is filled with people who want to work in the game industry because they love games. I have the same reaction as you--just because playing games is fun doesn't imply making games is fun, and vice versa. Someone might loathe actually playing a game but have a real fun time writing the AI for it.