This is true in games companies in the west too. Personally I was not even allowed to be credited, and thanks to NDAs with other involved parties I cannot discuss the nature of the work either. This has the fun side effect that many of the things I actually did do sound like absolute nonsense and are externally unverifiable - not a recipe for a happy situation.

But I actually did fairly well. I know excellent devs that were making <$50k/year leading teams delivering hundreds of millions in revenue annually, and they maybe got another 10 days of vacation.