Nobody but Indies are hiring 30 year old game developers.
I can tell you from experience that most of what you learn developing games is not really applicable in broader Software Development, not just the libraries (and often languages) being different but also the design principles often being different and the software architectures definitely being different - gamedev tend to create systems oriented to visuals and driven by human actions and by timed events, operating both on insanely tight timings that push towards overoptimization (the rendering layer) and on very lax timings (stuff reacting to human actions) plus data integrity isn’t much of a concern, whilst most stuff out there is data-driven, often operating at machine-talk speeds (faster than user driven, slower than game screen rendering speeds) and data integrity is often of paramount importance (especially in corporate systems dealing with valuable info, money or things that cost money to do).
So at least in Software Development having “5 years at Blizzard” isn’t all that impressive, at least not for the typical hiring manager who tends to be in his or her 30s or older.
It probably makes for a good look in your CV. You work there for a few years, and then you can apply anywhere else with better chances, I guess.
Nobody but Indies are hiring 30 year old game developers.
I can tell you from experience that most of what you learn developing games is not really applicable in broader Software Development, not just the libraries (and often languages) being different but also the design principles often being different and the software architectures definitely being different - gamedev tend to create systems oriented to visuals and driven by human actions and by timed events, operating both on insanely tight timings that push towards overoptimization (the rendering layer) and on very lax timings (stuff reacting to human actions) plus data integrity isn’t much of a concern, whilst most stuff out there is data-driven, often operating at machine-talk speeds (faster than user driven, slower than game screen rendering speeds) and data integrity is often of paramount importance (especially in corporate systems dealing with valuable info, money or things that cost money to do).
So at least in Software Development having “5 years at Blizzard” isn’t all that impressive, at least not for the typical hiring manager who tends to be in his or her 30s or older.