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I have to admit that I'm not the most successful developer on planet Earth. But I have a couple of successful games, well, by indie standards. I've managed to stay afloat for many years. So I think I can give some useful advice to aspiring developers.

 

First of all, it should be noted that gamedev is a rather romantic kind of activity. Usually programmers work for money. But game developers are driven forward by dreams. So you have to choose - either money or a childhood dream to create your own virtual worlds.

 

Now let's get to the point. If I ask you to pick up a brush and paint a picture for an art show, you might be surprised. Obviously, in order to become an artist you need to spend many years in training. And it's through practice that you learn. So it's the same story with games.

 

To make a good game you have to learn how to do it first. Every week hundreds of new games are released. Players are spoiled beyond belief. The demands are higher than ever. There are only two ways to succeed in this field.

 

The first way is that you have a youtube channel with a million subscribers, then you can use it to PR your games. But if you suddenly don't have that, then there is only the second option: learn how to make games that other people will want to play.

 

So here is my main advice: forget about money, fame and other such things. Just make games for yourself. It's actually very convenient. You don't have to make tutorials. You don't have to worry about graphics. You don't have to add sounds at all. Start with simple ideas that you can implement in a day or two.

 

Do this for a while and you'll notice that your skill has started to increase. The higher your skill, the bigger projects you can do. Sooner or later you will increase your skill to a level where people will want to play your games. But it will take many years. Be prepared for that.

 

Only after you reach this level you can think about making money from it.

 

And lastly, a quick note. If you think about publishing your game in google play, first read the google play rules. At the time of writing, there were about 30,000 words in there. Read all those 30,000 words carefully and process each one of them. And only if you are willing to abide by them for the rest of your life (you can't delete your games), publish the game there.