While my goal is to go out on my own I think that working for a big company for a while can be good for everyone. Some may view it as selling their soul but the reality is that there is a lot about business or software development that you can learn from a soul-less money hungry corporation. :)

I've been in the software industry for 9 years, 7 of which is in games. I've worked on titles for the PC and various consoles that have combined for millions of units sold. In that time I've seen what it really takes to ship a high quality AAA game. Even though a person working on a game might be narrowly focused it's hard to not have other knowledge rub off on you. It's a rare day where developers, testers or producers don't have some interaction with each other. It's easy to use those interactions as an opportunity to learn.

The beauty of it all is that you're doing it all while collecting a pay check. The key is to be able to walk away at some point. It's very easy to get used to a regular paycheck.