I'm in decision to quit game development, because I just can't make a living from it as a lone wolf developer. Saturated market, being in top 10%, competing against specialized small teams, practically being forced to make games I don't want to make, luck factor,...all the factors are just turning me off this area. Don't wanna struggle here anymore, and reading articles when indie teams who worked on tittle for two years, are economically dependent from donations and similar stuff, just boils everything up.

What I'm asking you is what other areas in IT (web development, apps,... ) or electrical engineering (programming micro-controllers,...) should I try as (and are reality for) lone wolf developer?

Long time ago I dreamed about making my own 3D shooter game like Call Of Duty, but in that time I didnt know how to program, neither how to make models, paint them and import them into game engine. I joined a game mod team to gather some knowledge and experience, because devs said that's the best way to learn game development. I saw how it was a sh#tload of work needed, just to create a few playable levels, using supplied objects with game, not even including polishing.Guys spent months just to build and script a few dozens of units, and a lot of time was spent to balance them and it still wasnt good, so really a lot of work invested. It came time when I left team and decided to make own game, but not 3D since I knew I wouldnt complete it till my retirement. I was after something simpler, so I decided to start building my own 2D online shooter game. I drawn and written down some initial ideas and started developing stuff. I realised I'll come nowhere, because I worked full days and progress was just way below expected. I decided to cancel out the idea of the game being online, because this candy complited everything too much and it would took me a lot of time to make game online and even more to make it multiplayer rock solid. I just didnt expect there would be so much problems with online play. It was hard to accept my game being single player only, but hey, playing a good sp game is an experience too! I continued with development, but amount of work to be done was just growing and growing, even if I minimised programing part, and I post poned all unnecessary stuff. It's the art part that is mainly beating me. I decided to make my levels tileable, so I can create a lot of levels with same content, and because I hate tilling, I added a blending layer over, to kill the repetition. This meant no more levels in Machinarium-style but I got on time. I could simplify graphics too, but that is the last thing I'm going to do, who would substitute nice raster graphics with cheap vector cr#p?At this moment I'm at one half done level with nice graphics so you can get "that" feel, but still cheesy sounds and not satifying gameplay.I put a lot of time in it, and game isnt nearly finished, can't believe myself how much of work has to be done to create a "simple" nice to look 2D adventure game with 1hour of gameplay!I just feel like I will never complete it, so here are my questions:

-Did I go after mission impossible?Is it, from realistic perspective,possible to develope a quality mini game by one developer?
-How large teams and how long it does take them, to complete a mini game like I want, if they do?

it pays. you can get up to $10.000 for a very polished game

Talking about sponsorship or revenue share?

What's the point of making a flash game with polished to death graphics, maximally tweaked and dozens of levels included? I can see many flash games around, that have been in development by small teams in few months and even more, which I think it just doesn't pay off as it should. A more polished game usually means more money, but this linearity at flash market quickly ends. 

It somehow surprises me that devs can't exploit this big, quality flash games better, for instance splitting a game in light web-based part for promotion and deluxe download, much more money via this route.

I'm lone wolf developer and I have plan to go "light" commercial with games, but just don't know which market and strategy to pick. I'm not asking you for a gold hole or something in style how to get quickly rich and other shit, but just what you think what way I should go with to be able to get some income to fill student pocket. So yes, I'm asking if I should go browser gaming like flash portals, yahoo games or I should go with downloadables for PC/MAC or even devices like iphones or some other stuff.Of course I'm not asking for easy way, because I believe there is no such one, but something that should work out and it's not totally depended on luck.

I've checked the flash games scene, but it looks like you have to create a really, really good game to survive the strong competition, which would technically sound you need hundreds of thousands of clicks to get a few hundreds of dollars and without really fresh idea and a lot of luck it seems to be impossible.