I'm a director at an investment bank. I was a developer and now I manage a team of developers. I'm 40 and bored of finance.

I don't play games but for my entire life I've been fascinated by how they work. I've created a few and sold a couple, mostly when I was in my late teens.

I've got a game engine under development at home and quite frankly, I absolutely love working on it. For those about to chip in with "write games not engines" - I know the whole reasons why and why not but I get far more enjoyment from tinkering with engines than games.

I have a couple of, what I think would be, great game ideas, I have enough savings to setup something small and run it for a year and maybe take a young dev and an artist on, a heap of motivation, creativity, good c++ skills, you guys, etc etc...

It's a pipe dream I know and probably barely a chance of success - anyone quit their job and done something similar?

I just re-read my post... I do play games - obviously a requirement for making them or at least having good ideas, but I spend most of my time looking at how things could have been better. Whether this bodes well is probably debatable - perfectionism probably means things won't go out the door on time.

I'll also likely get comments on the write games not engines statement - why would I try and produce a game (or something entertaining at least) when I prefer to write engines rather than games - that's not a strictly true statement - I think a game written with my engine would be far more pleasing.

I'm also under no illusions, I know exactly how many people and how much money it takes to produce AAA games, I'm just talking about timeout rather than trying to become the next big thing. If it doesn't get anywhere I can just go back to finance.

Think sabbatical meets hobby meets work...

Welcome to the mid-life crisis.

anyone quit their job and done something similar?

Nop, I'm not crazy. IMHO there're other ways, i.e. try to reduce the working time (downgrading), while building up a small paid development team, but don't quite your job completly !

I'm in a similar situation (39), worked in the game industry, now working as senior software engineerer and working at my game/engine in my spare time. To some degree I have already "downgraded" in a way by reducing my working time to standard hours a week, knowing that this will kill any potential career. When you quite your job, you should atleast have more than some good ideas and a good feeling

Welcome to the mid-life crisis.

[quote name='RobMaddison' timestamp='1334826256' post='4932735']
anyone quit their job and done something similar?

Nop, I'm not crazy. IMHO there're other ways, i.e. try to reduce the working time (downgrading), while building up a small paid development team, but don't quite your job completly !

I'm in a similar situation (39), worked in the game industry, now working as senior software engineerer and working at my game/engine in my spare time. To some degree I have already "downgraded" in a way by reducing my working time to standard hours a week, knowing that this will kill any potential career. When you quite your job, you should atleast have more than some good ideas and a good feeling
[/quote]

Hehe, I think I've already had my MLC to be honest ;)

My job is slightly different in that I know this isn't a long career type place, I'll probably be moving on at some point in the next 2 or 3 years anyway. I spent 10 years contracting so I'm used to moving around - I feel it gives you more experience anyway.

It's frustrating... Do we get to 60 and think back and wish we'd just taken the plunge regardless of whether it was going to make us rich? It had more potential to make us happy(ier) so I suppose it's where you draw the line. We're relatively lucky in that out skills are always going to be required.

To be fair, if I hadn't managed to save I wouldn't even be considering it.

It's frustrating... Do we get to 60 and think back and wish we'd just taken the plunge regardless of whether it was going to make us rich? It had more potential to make us happy(ier) so I suppose it's where you draw the line. We're relatively lucky in that out skills are always going to be required.

Hmm... I know what you say, as already said, I'm in a similar situation. Nobody can tell you the truth, even notch said, that he don't know why minecraft is soo successful. It is a lottery, that's it. You could be a winner, you could be a looser, you could reach some kind of equilibrium.

To be fair, if I hadn't managed to save I wouldn't even be considering it.

There're several post mortems on gamasutra of indie games like magicka, read them to get a feeling of what other indies have archieved. Don't underestimate the time investment, the need of business, the need of PR, costs of artists etc. magicka used up a budget of around $400k, that is a lot of money and magicka isn't a large game.

When you have some money and working on contract base, why not take a break for 1/4-1/2 year to finish a prototype of your best idea including an artist to polish it. Then try to pitch it to a publisher or start a kickstarter campaign.

OP, you sound a lot like me, albeit i'm slightly over half your age. I have been tinkering with my own engine for months, never really completing any game with it, and slowly realizing that I in fact enjoy tinkering with the engine-stuff more than just churning a game after a game. It benefits no one, really, but it's just fun and has taught me a LOT about overall software programming and engine architecture; it also made me understand some of the design choices that go beyond indie-accessible Engines out there like Unreal, Unity, etc.

I recently started working with a modeller-friend on getting something concrete done, but both of us being busy with "real jobs" we haven't made much progress sadly...