Why specifically the focus on online gaming vs. gaming in general? I would imagine the "safety" of both travel in lock step. And I wouldn't think gaming is "safer" then other fields of programming.
In fact even in good times, I feel gaming is less safe.
That was the point of contention upthread. Someone said doing backends for online games was a good transition for a general programmer, which intuitively seems plausible. The concern was whether that was too niche but the size of that market implies otherwise to me, however much bigger the whole pie might be.
In fact even in good times, I feel gaming is less safe.