Better: don’t romanticize it.

It’s a job like any other and when you try to make your passion your career, your passion becomes a job.

Build websites and API’s instead where the conditions will be better because everyone involved fully acknowledges you are trading time for money whereas in the games industry you will be expected to be thankful to work there and you will be expected to “have passion”, which means you will be expected to work 60-80 weeks during crunch time because “that’s what passion means.”

If you want to make games, it will be more creatively fulfilling to do it as an indie as a side project from your well paid backend server engineer role. You’ll have a better work/life balance. You’ll earn more money. And you’ll have creative control over your art instead creating what someone else tells you to create.

Finally, no one actually gives a shit if you make computer games. It’s a creative job but not one that has cultural cachet. If you want cultural cachet, be an author or make art or make music.