More than that, if it's a creative position, a game degree will actually make me skeptical, given how many freshly minted game devs come in with game degrees that haven't given them a breadth of art/narrative references beyond games.
It doesn't JUST happen with people with game degrees, of course, but frequently candidates with game degrees have trouble naming, say, their favorite movie director or favorite work of literature.
And more to the point, even if they can name a favorite movie director, they often can't articulate WHY they find that director's techniques effective. They can't name a favorite screenwriter. They can't name a favorite fight choreographer. A favorite architect.
If you can't even NAME a fight choreographer, let alone discuss why you think a particular one's work is good, or talk to me about staging/blocking, I'm skeptical of your ability to design a good boss fight.
If you can't name architects, let alone talk about how the design of a building directs how people move through it, I'm skeptical of your level design abilities.
All of which is to say, it's POSSIBLE to do good game design without a good breadth of references outside games. And certainly, many people with game degrees have that breadth.
But there are a LOT of candidates who come in without that breadth, and the lack of curiosity, and, I dunno, just the hubris of thinking you don't need to study what other people have done in parallel spaces is a red flag.
Games just don't have a big enough body of work, let alone a big enough body of GOOD work or groundbreaking work, to be the only thing you should be studying when you're studying how to make good games.
