The games industry is shit, Hollywood is shit, so learn Blender, game engines and make your own shit
You'll have more fun making your own stuff and knowing it will at least be even half-decent compared to the absolute crap the industry is churning out these days will keep up the motivation. Rather than constantly getting your hopes up and setting yourself up for disappointment and expecting somebody to rescue you.
Ah, yes indeed. I forgot to mention that back then the Quake 3 license usually came with a reasonably pricey fee for developers.
Heck, Unreal's royalty plan is insanely reasonable. Essentially they only ask for a cut if the game does as well as your average AA game, and even then I think the cut was only... 5% or something? Yup, just confirmed, it is 5%, but only after reaching a really number in profit from sales.