The beauty of game dev, is that you can make the most cursed codebase, and as long as it works, the only person itll impact is yourself.

Also, startup costs are basically zero, there is no need for a top end PC, whatever you have now is probably good enough to start.

A hobby is “good” if you enjoy it. That’s all that matters with hobbies. Don’t look down on yourself for wanting to do something for fun. It doesn’t have to be “efficient” or turn into an income or anything else. Just try it and learn. Learn the skills, learn if you like it

Gamedev is like the ultimate digital hobby if you do it yourself. You get to program, do art, sound, game design, etc.

Well, of course it’s a good hobby. Does it work for you? I don’t know.

I’ve been building random stuff for years. It has never amounted to a finished project, but I still keep doing it just because it’s fun to make things do things on screen. I didn’t start out as the sharpest tool either, but I’ve been getting better.

If you really enjoy it, I think you’ll just keep coming back.

Try it, if you are having fun that’s pretty much all that matters.

Also, don’t expect to have the production value of a AAAAA $800,000,000 development team, even if you do use AI. There’s only so much one developer can do, no matter how sharp they are. There were tons of awesome single developer and very small team games that came out of the 1980s - so, if you can get happy with 8 bit style you might just surprise yourself.

Why not?

You say you’re not the sharpest tool in the shed, but I think gamedev is a good way to learn a variety of skills. And doing it as a hobby takes a lot of pressure off and allows you to take things at your own pace.

I mean yeah, its a good creative outlet.

Its relatively simple to get started, just download godot or unreal engine and try a template, and just start messing with it. You’ll know quickly if its your jam or not.

Even if you dont like it, no harm in trying it. Worst case you find you dont wanna do it and move on to something else.

You can start with something like pico-8 or a free engine of which there are a ton: https://lexaloffle.itch.io/pico-8

Me personally, ive been trying Godot and its kinda hard to get into, but I may try something else like RPG maker or what not just to get my ideas on paper so to speak.

If you have $12 to spend then I can recommend a tutorial series for you which you can buy on itch io. It’s in ‘c’ but you can easily transfer the skills to Python and everything is much nicer. I only recommend c for foundation skills. I respect the old skool methods - it may open your mind.

If you’re still young then I want to convince you that it’s worth your time. You don’t need to be very smart to make simple programs but you can save yourself time and frustration by avoiding stupid mistakes. I know a guy in Australia who can motivate you on this, I sometimes voice call him on Signal.

I no longer prioritise software any more because I’m focused on simply surviving. I’m too old to care any more lol. That said, I do have plans to film interviews with people who work in this field. I’m thinking about doing code review videos and discussions about how to be a good programmer, but not from a heavily commercial pperspective (I hate those endlessly positive videos on youtube who want you to think that anyone can succeed in the industry and become wealthy). I don’t know how viable the industry is any more and I just want to make hobby videos and encourage people to find a path that works for them. I think gamedev is one of the best paths for learning software, unless you want to make web apps instead.

Doing AAA games takes huge resources but you can do smaller games on a lot less. If you’re into programming you can develop games, and some simple hobbyist games like 2048 have been very popular.

I used to love making text adventure with AGT the Adventure Game Toolkit. I’ve wanted for some time already to learn to make stuff with still images and click zones which is essentially the evolution of the text adventure. The audience for this stuff is tiny, but I’d still love to get back into making text adventure. If there’s an easy to learn equivalent of AGT that can be made either web-hosted or somehow platform-independent I’d love to do that. AGT was a real breeze to learn and it’s a terrific creative outlet.

Anything more sophisticated is out of my league as I’m not a pro coder; my development experience is limited to an array of projects in VB6, the biggest of which was a companion software for Team Fortress Classic to customize scripts and per-class macros. It was called TFCompanion. Got 1,000 downloads roughly. But I digress.

Try it and find out. Hobbies are about doing something you enjoy, not being good at something. No one can tell you if you like something (as much as that bothers marketers).

If you already have a computer there is literally $0 startup cost.

Do it! The barrier to entry for gamedev is ridiculously low with something like Unity or Godot, and nowadays you can make a complete game with 100% open-source tools.

I’d recommend getting to grips with the fundamentals of python or JavaScript first before jumping in but Godot is a great open source tool for picking up some gamedev after you are used to the basics.

Or are there better hobbies out there for newcomers to the hobby space? I know most of you will say do what you enjoy, the thing is im not sure what i enjoy.

well, only one way to find out! grab yourself a copy of godot engine and give making a little game a shot
there are a lot of tutorials on youtube and elsewhere that will help you get your feet wet