I will also add that there is no such thing as a "hobby/part time developer" with a highly successful/ambitious game. Depending on your scope, at some point in your life, whether before or after your game is released, you will have to devote your full time to developing, likely as things come to a head in the final stretch if your game is ambitious, which an rts is by its nature. Part time development can work for some smaller or more focused projects like indie platformers or games generally associated with 2D graphics (of which there have been many very successful ones), but it is unlikely anything beyond that scope will not at some point demand you to go full time. If you do not ever -ever- plan to do change your career then you may encounter problems.
Last edited by DBlac; March 15th, 2018 at 22:14.
I see somebody here has never heard of flappy bird.
But please don't think about (eventually) quitting your day job for a written down game idea. If you have a dream to make a big game, realize you're only going to get there if you made smaller stuff before that.
Look at it this way, say I tell you that I've written down the exact route in how I'm going to get to the top of El Capitan, but I've never climbed anything in my life. Now, no matter what, before I climb El Capitan, first I have to climb some simple stuff.
Hahah well obviously theres going to be one or two exceptions but yeah, cant really bank on that random success :P
And yes i absolutely agree, what i said remains true but it only is true in the case your game becomes ambitious enough to warrant it and only when it actually does. Do not make life changing decisions on something that hasnt yet made itself out to be life changing in itself. Basically if you reach that point you will know, and only then should you make such a big decision is what im saying, but if the project becomes ambitious then you will almost inevitably reach that point. But i absolutely also agree with YM there that you should first tackle smaller things (even if you basically partition sections of your larger game project and turn them into small games of their own to test and grow your skills and ideas per example). Whatever it is, start small to learn and get a baseline to build more and more on, never jump into a hugely ambitious project as your first foray into something you barely understand.
Last edited by DBlac; March 15th, 2018 at 23:46.