they get to work on stuff that is legitimately cool
Like most things, working on the cutting-edge, successful, top-tier stuff is cool, but most people in the industry aren't doing that. If you look at something like https://steamdb.info/upcoming/ you'll see a small number of "Yeah, it'd be cool to make that" games, and a lot of "Who the hell buys this crap?" games. Most people employed to build games are working on the second type of game.
Like most things, working on the cutting-edge, successful, top-tier stuff is cool, but most people in the industry aren't doing that. If you look at something like https://steamdb.info/upcoming/ you'll see a small number of "Yeah, it'd be cool to make that" games, and a lot of "Who the hell buys this crap?" games. Most people employed to build games are working on the second type of game.