That depends where you are hiring from, even within the US. You're also reaching out to people who may be okay taking a lower salary to work on a project they are already passionate about or already donate their time to.
Chris Webber, for example, took less than a $40k salary without benefits to work on MediaGoblin full time for a year:
> You're also reaching out to people who may be okay taking a lower salary to work on a project they are already passionate about or already donate their time to.
The games industry gladly takes advantage of this.
Yes. Many people new to the industry don't understand that the glamor of working for a game company almost always translates to bad working conditions and low-ball pay. Games are hard, but there are just so many people who want to be involved in making them, that there is a pretty excessive supply of prospective developers. Game companies take that as a license to burn people out, because they know once that crew finally tires of the beatings, there will be a fresh crop of bright-eyed devs anxious to replace them.
CRUD apps may be tedious, but getting a job at a local medium-sized company working on them is usually much more pleasant than working for a game developer.
Chris Webber, for example, took less than a $40k salary without benefits to work on MediaGoblin full time for a year:
https://mediagoblin.org/news/we-did-it.html