Game developers aren’t flipping burgers. They’re working hard and deploying tremendous skill. The comparison to lawyers, another hard-working highly-skilled trade, is appropriate.
I don't know much about NY first-year associates, but imagine they fall into the "rockstar" graduate category; perhaps a better salary comparison would be with rockstar (first-year) developers at a Silicon Valley giant?
The same can be said to folks making furniture. Yet they don't get paid like lawyers, even though their job is highly technical and skilled as well.
Can we stop using only 2 variables to compare how much people should be paid? It's not like the reality is not a little more complex.
Certainly not if “skill” is defined within the context of supply and demand, i.e. scarcity. (If it isn’t, it’s identical to “hard work.”)