As I actually get through stuff with my own project ( yay by the way ) and I'm sort of unlocking progress as I go along I thought I'd share a bit of perspective with people who may or may not be considering doing their own project. Don't get me wrong there are some things that will always be perhaps time consuming, but difficult? No it's not impossible, you just have to study the theory behind it pretty heavily. Being someone who's doing it myself I can list perhaps three things I've done with my project or am planning to do which I've considered nightmarish and it's probably not even what most people think of.
AI is a great example of this and why I reeeee about it so much trying to point out how full of shit the discussion surrounding it is and that basically quite a few people pushing AI so much are just scam artists overselling their AI as if it's skynet. What a crock of shit, it's going to get exploited within five seconds and the whole infrastructure will come crumbling down.
Many game ideas I've seen especially the ones recently posted are not complicated to put in. Even though some games are tricky to implement don't get me wrong. Thanks to the wonders of modern software and pathfinding algorithms even getting AI setup is not that difficult.
As an example most turn based games now even stuff like Total War are just using your standard pathfinding for a campaign map. You know those army stacks you're moving around? It's simple point and click behaviour but there's a limit on the distance you can travel per turn. I could probably write up a whole thread on this if people are curious.
I was having something of an epiphany on this as I was playing older Total War games but even the older ones are very much like this. The average 4x strategy game simply relies on button input to make stuff happens. Your army size and what units is all setup using UI buttons much like an inventory, all this shit ties together.
So when you see all these devs trying to circle jerk each other through their propaganda talking about how hard game dev is don't believe them. You don't need to be someone making 100,000 polygon models and have an entire studio of 300 people to make a game, it's a fucking lie. I haven't even gone into the space sim stuff either which in reality the basic controller is just your standard FPS one without gravity depending on how simple or complex you want to make it. I'm convinced it's all something of a scam by them and journalists to get investor and ad money.
Oh and it is absolutely propaganda when they post up the cost of creating a game and the time taken, don't believe a word of it.
Sorry but this is a Dunning-Kruger type of post. It's good that you're making progress on your game and increasing your knowledge but you're falling in the trap of thinking that you can guess what the entire picture looks like just because you've seen a glimpse of its corner. Some things are relatively simple to code by themselves but inserting them in a giant machine full of many different parts made by many different people and then ensuring that everything plays well with each other... well that's never easy. That's the kind of thing you don't learn to overcome by reading theory but can only be acquired through experience. I'm referring to software here since that's the focus of your post but the other point is that art/music/design is magnitude harder to learn and can also only be acquired by grinding a lot. You always have to "just put the time in" but it's called difficult because the vast majority of people attempting it fail.
At the end of the day, it's easy to tape up a simple game, alone, with store assets and a pre-made engine but making a good high quality game that can compete with what's out there on budget/time is difficult... If it wasn't, everyone would do it.
I think the issue is that as difficult as game design can be, it's still not as difficult as many within the industry make it out to be. And it should be noted that many of the biggest successes in recent history either started or were overwhelmingly single person efforts. Things like Minecraft, Stardew Valley, Papers Please, Undertale, FNAF, Spelunky, Braid, and plenty more. And no, these games aren't the pinnacle of game design, and they're not for everyone. They're also the exception for success. But the idea that it's some gargantuan task that cannot be achieved, considering just how many have happened over the past 15+ years? Well, it's just a bit silly to discount it. And sure, many will fail. Most will probably barely get any traction (just take a look at itch.io to see what I mean there). But if you're a creative type and you want to make something, why not try? Hell, even if you're not a creative type, why not try something? There are more resources now than ever before. So why not cut your teeth on something and have a little fun making what you want?
All of these successes you named happened before the so called "indiepocalypse" and are the result of a decade of experience prior or from the project itself. This is survivorship bias. Success takes time, resilience, discipline, talent and a lot of luck but even then you'll still probably lose. Look, the vast majority of people fail to become marketable artists, musicians, writers, engineers.. why do you feel the need to claim that a task combining all of the above and more is "not that hard"? It's unrealistic. I encourage everyone that has the desire to do it and to support each other but never to lie to themselves and distort reality as a coping mechanism.. this path is a long road littered with the corpses of past failures. Most people don't find it fun (which is why they quit) and even those that do wouldn't dare to claim it's fun most of the time. Rewarding might be a better term but only if you can appreciate self growth more than materialistic rewards.. because even in success gatekeepers take a large cut of your usually small earnings, the audience loves you as much as they hate you while the rest of the world either doesn't get it or wants to use you. Dramatic? Yes lol. But am I wrong? No. This is how you present it. You still want to be a game dev after hearing that? Go for it you crazy mother fucker :D