I have a pretty similar story except game design is my passion, and graphic design is the day job.

For a long time I wanted to make games professionally, and I've worked towards it for years, even releasing a game I made with a few friends in our spare time.

I've had some realizations lately though, that the closer making games becomes to a job, the less fulfilling it is for me. I'm starting to think I might prefer it as a passtime where I can make whatever interests me instead of trying to turn art into products.

Every job has shitty parts, which don't necessarily exist when it's a hobby. For games and for me personally, it's was all the marketing and strategy around trying to get eyeballs on your stuff. I hate that part and I'm not good at it. I learned that the hard way with my released game, which very few people played even though I'm quite proud of it. It's just really hard to get noticed as a small creator with no budget.

No real advice in here for you necessarily. I just see a lot of the same yearnings and frustrations in this that I've felt and it connected with me. Hopefully this is some food for thought at least.