Games industry might suck on average, but I'd argue that graphics programming niche does not. There are lots more users of graphics than games, like visualization, simulation, etc. Coupled with the fact that good graphics programmers are extremely rare, it's a surprisingly good career. This is in very stark contrast to game developers, artists and so on, which seem to have much harder time getting good quality jobs. Of course, both job market supply and demand is small, so changing jobs might not be easy.

I'd very much argue against somebody making game development their career, at least from job security grounds. But graphics programming is different.