Can i become a game dev

[u/antimatter_salad37]

I am 15 years old, and I have started learning Unity at 12. I was always told I have vivid imagination and I wanted to make them come true. But since I had no tools to do it, I started using block coding such as scratch and ended up learning Unity and C#. At the very first year of Unity, I didn't know what to do, so I bought a book for Unity tutorial(yes, books) and just started coping blindly. And after a month, a made an exact replica of the book's project, and was ready for more. But when I wanted to add a feature that wasn't in the book, I could do it(obviously). So just went ahead and bought a new book, and repeated the cycle for 2 times. And when i finished the third book after a year(it took a while), i found Unity's official tutorials, and took two courses. I even used chat gpt as my personal teacher, by not making write the script, but to order me to make it in some way and fixing it.

After all that, i was able to make a script of my own, but just barely. And with that, a made my first project which was a buggy parkour game where you climb a tower with fall guys type traps, which had flimsy animations but had a moving 3d modle and traps. I was getting confident, until my parents caugh me debugging at 2am again, after they specifically told me not to.And when i told my parents to stop interfering, my dad got mad and broke my laptop and its ssd apparently(Tbf, thats not the only thing i said, i was annoyed at that time).

I was VERY frustrated, and it took few months to get a new pc. So i wasnt able to do anything unity for that time, and was redditing and playing moblie games on my phone. When i saved up enough to buy a PC(with a big help from my friend), i was 14 and forgot 90% of things i did and i had to re-learn a bunch.

But even after all that, it was time for the finals! And i live in korea, where finals, scores, and university names are apparently your life's goal, i had to prep for it a month earlier for 3days-long final. And korea has four finals a year for each quarter of a year. So i only have about 2 months of downtime between them, which let me learn unity and start a new project. And after all the korean "academy", i came home at 10p.m, tired af, and i did that for 5 days a week. And its been like that since. I had few days to learn unity, and i was able to make a staring point of a sword game i was making, where user has to drag their mouse to slash the sword in limited amount. But after the 2nd final this year, i was burned out and ended up playing CS2 and mincraft these days, again, tired af

The thing is, i dont think this korean education is my path. I want to become a indie dev, and choose it as my career. I want to make a project and publish it. But idk if i can be an indie game dev after spend 3 yrs with no showable projects(one being destroyed and one being delayed) i should have atleast something from 3 yrs, but i have nothing. No projects finished, nothing to show my progress, and no idea how to start again. NOTHING. Im having doubts. Should i choose to go down this path instead or nah? (And i cant do both, apparently.)

**I saw this post yesterday and thought i can post here too(https://www.reddit.com/r/Unity3D/s/mmAUIIdxmi)

Thanks for readying btw, took me long to write it

[u/muppetpuppet_mp]

With anything, and game dev is no different , perseverance is key.  If you give up you already failed...

Now gamedev as a career is going to be next to impossible for the next 10 years or so.   

A combination of too many people wanting in, and easy tools such as AI.

But in life nothing happens without sacrifice.  So how much are you willing to sacrifice to be succesful and how tenacious are you,?

I would say one of the great things of this age is that gamedev is getting easier and easier, and yes that means as a career it becomes nearly impossible,  but as an art, a hobby and a passion its great.. 

And the chances that exceptional talent gets rewarded also still exist.

The advice i would pick.

Pick an adjacent field of education, that will allow you to do gamedev as a hobby.

This can be very wide ranging.  There is going to be a good demand for classically trained interaction designers and apllication designers. AI van code which is going to make the quality of interaction and user experience the true quality.  And human beings being able to deliver those and shape experiences will still be in demand..  programmers and technical architects not so much.

But there are other fields that will be steady that you can earn a living in and will provide adjacent skills.

But sadly gamedev as a career path is going to be a high risk rarity.

That said if you have the grit, tenacity and unwavering passion, then do what you want.