Two years ago I had a conversation with a recruiter who was working with a company trying to build out a games-testing shop in Portland. They were offering people with 7-10 years experience $35/hr, and seemed shocked when I told them how low that was compared to previous non-games testing jobs I had held previously.

It's a good point that the proportion of employees who are engineers is probably lower than in the past. I wonder how engineering vs art/music salaries compare.