To be fair, every time I do it, it's hard. I have to prepare my family that I'm undertaking something that will take up a lot of my time. It's tough but, they know I love it.
If you can afford it and you know you can get another job if you fail, it's a fine decision and I'd highly recommend it.
Right now, I don't have enough money to sustain longer than a month without a daily job. So, I guess the answer is to start there and build a little next egg over the coming months so I can have a solid 2-3 months that I feel I need to get going.
As far as my project, its getting a little traction with my IG feed (instagram.com/artjutsu_lightbox). That said, there's more improvement that needs to be done on the main site to really see if this can be successful (artjutsu.com).
I believe it will, but man is life ever-so-hard now with all these certs I need for my day job. Studying for those has taken all of my free time unfortunately.
Not that any of the above matters since I do this on my own time, with my own resources.
http://iphonedevsdk.com/forum/business-legal-app-store/47704... https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/1phmkr/current_emp...
On the other hand, in Queensland at least, it depends on the definition of your work role. If it's specific enough, you could even create a game using your employers equipment & keep ownership & copyright yourself (the Queensland government provides that as a specific software example here):
https://www.business.qld.gov.au/business/support-tools-grant...
We do have to comply with certain restrictions (e.g. don't do it on company time, company property, company equipment; don't compete with the company), and I'd definitely read the full legalese before trying to make a paid app. But it's not anywhere near as bad as "everything you write while you work here is ours."
I recently signed an employment agreement with them. It was the most fair one that I've ever signed.
Work computers stay at work. My computers stay at home (or at least not at work). If I create something outside of work, not using proprietary data/algorithms/whatever from work, and using my own computers, then it's mine. I'd never work somewhere that tried to claim ownership of work I did outside of work.
Needless to say, common sense applies, and it's probably not a good idea to have a side project that competes with your employer (even indirectly), helps their competition, or makes them look bad somehow.