There are probably about 50 profitable AAA game studios in the whole world. These pay quite well[1]. But there are just few hundred engineers working in all of them. The rest of the industry is either a new studio building up its team while working on low profit titles or an old studio circling the drain. These cannot pay well. People work there either to get experience and advance into one of AAA teams or are hoping their own studio will become a AAA itself.

[1]http://gamerant.com/activision-lawsuit-infinity-ward-salarie...