I think you have to take a pay cut regardless

I worked in games ~20 years ago at my first job, and then got a huge increase when I moved outside the games industry

Games just don't pay well. I respect people who do it for the love and art of it. As far as I can see, low pay is part of the deal.

There is the outside chance of a massive hit, but most game devs aren't owners, and risk is proportional to reward

Becoming an indie game developer on spare time could make you happy

I've made several half-attempts at this over the years, but it always ends up falling to the wayside when life gets hectic. Maybe one of these days I'll finally push through though!

Could you work on an open-source game engine in your spare time, then use that to pivot across? And/or get a web-dev job in a games company and then try to get an internal transfer?

My wife has suggested the latter a few times and it definitely seems like the most realistic approach. I have a small game engine I've worked on off and on again over the last few years, but it never feels like I have enough time to make real progress

If you're into game engine development and C++, Godot is very accessible for new contributors. It's a great place to explore that stuff while also making (small or large) contributions which will actually get used and appreciated by a growing number of serious game developers.