Anecdotally it seems to me to be a variation of being a musician, author or indie film maker- it's the sort of job a lot of people think they want to have befor

Anecdotally it seems to me to be a variation of being a musician, author or indie film maker- it's the sort of job a lot of people think they want to have before realising how much work it is for how little pay. At least when making indie games you can come out of the adventure with enough experience to get a well paid software developer job somewhere else afterwards (the chances of success from actually selling the games is unfortunately not higher tho).