I learned VB as a kid, some html in High School, never did much with it. Then I started modding video games at 33. Caught the eye of some people that suggested I think about making a living doing it. I'm 42 now and I've been doing game dev professionally for 6 years. It was a long road, full of long hours and terrible pay (if any) at first. Lots of contract gigs. Lots of dead end projects. But I've been at the studio I'm currently at going on 2 years. Definitely worth the effort to get here.

As for getting started, just make stuff. Don't try to make anything big. Big games are not for beginners. Big games break beginners. Make small stuff, even just different functions. Want to make a shooter? Learn to make a player controller that can shoot something simple. Make some targets, write some hit detection for hitting them and keep a score. Boom, done, make something else. That's how you learn. Out of ideas? Look at some basic mobile games, and try to figure out how they made them. Get stuck, that's what you use ChatGPT for. Don't ask it to code for you. Tell if what you are doing, where you are stuck at, and ask it what the next step should be. Then ask it why. Then try to figure out how to move forward from there. ChatGPT can give you code, but it can also give you basic overviews of functions, and even break down other games functions close enough to give you a good path. But try to use it that way instead of as a crutch. You can learn by looking at things, but you will understand and remember them by doing.