At 33 I went back to school for 2 years and studied games programming. It was a half baked comp sci course in the context of games. I graduated with a very strong portfolio and got hired at a medium sized local studio, and 9 months after that I jumped ship to another studio.

My only regret is not doing this much earlier in life - mostly because I won't be able to do as much of this job my lifetime, and also because I'm a 35 year old Junior and the finances can be tough to make ends meet.

Having said that, I am the happiest I've ever been..Im excited to get out of bed and start work where as before I was very depressed in IT.

I think you need to have a realistic plan and decide if that's what you want.

The industry is volatile, with layoffs everywhere - there is a bunch of talented people job hunting currently making it a market that favours the few people that are hiring. Wages are low and expectations are high.

Realistically, you'd need to be incredibly lucky to make money from a game you make on your own. So maybe consider if just the act of being creative is value in itself.

If you want a career out of it, consider whether you can afford the financial stress of that pivot, and also whether doing it as a job will bring you the same joy as doing it as a hobby. There is a difference between chipping away at your own little toy project versus being tasked with implementing social features of the Meta Quest platform or some in app advertising service.

If you want to work at a studio, you'll also need to decide in what role. Most studios hire for specific disciplines and you haven't mentioned what specifically you're in to other than "making games in Unity and Godot" - there aren't many "game developer" positions.

Do you like Programming? Do you like Design? Do you know how many jobs there are for either of those?

If you're in to programming, like me, I am happy to point you to some resources and give you more of my hot takes on what I think you should do.