Most of the people I know from the industry got out after five or so years, and started up their own small outfits, or went indie. Game development sounds sexy and fun, but unless you're at the top of the food chain calling the shots, you're usually an overworked drone. Worse yet, you may end up working yourself to death on a slew of titles you have no particular interest in.

I adopted the opposite approach because I'm a control freak and can't stand working on other peoples' projects. I kept my day job as a programmer outside the game sector, and indie it up in my spare time.

Don't feel bad if you want to bail. You're most definitely not alone in that respect. The way to spin your experience to potential employers is to emphasize how demanding game development is: tight scheduling, zero percent bug tolerance, rapidly changing standards, performance is always an issue, etc.