That is very very true. I love this answer. Learning the ins and outs of how old NES games worked can simply be fun and will build a level of appreciation for these old games that would otherwise be taken for granted not knowing how difficult they were to produce in their time. I think this is why those "Retro Games Mechanics" and "Gamehut" type channels on youtube are so popular. People just like learning about things they are passionate about. And coding a sprite on screen or making an avatar scoll with user input might be more than a person cares to make, but could have had a blast even just getting that task to work successfully. 
 

That last sentence from Gauauu is a good summary of my thinking. Often I formulate it as "don't forget to have fun". Developing your own game can be a super fun journey or a nightmare. It only depends on why are you doing it: programing for the fun of doing it is incredibly rewarding; programing to get the end result (a finished game) is incredibly frustrating.

If I could give an advice it would be to stop wondering on what is needed to achieve your goal, but just take your pleasure at progressing toward it. But seriously, each one is way, don't forget to have fun  

this is such an interesting thread to read...
Im going through the ways you guys "categorized" people and I'm quite a mixed bag of all of these lol.

Reading this kind of things is always a good reminder for oneself if you ever feel like you're losing your direction somewhere down the road, I often start forgetting the whole reason why i jumped into developing a game and
start wearing myself out just aiming for the end result even though that's hardly the reason i jumped in to begin with.
The whole start was for the fun and learning of it, just to see how hard it is? what does it take? can I do it? would I do it? Those are the kind of questions I personally started from, and while obviously the end goal of finishing a game is the ultimate goal, it wasn't the ultimate reason to begin.

Personally, I'm working on something that could be classified as a "large" game as my first project and the statement of "start out small" has never been more true in my life. xD

How much work was done before the public excitement is a good sign. Someone who has massive plans but can only write a couple sentences is no comparison to the person who already did sketches of levels and started on nerdy nights. Being able to program already doesn't seem to matter.

I completed 2 hacks and 1 home brew.

You have to be really passionate about your projects.

Know your limitations and when you get stuck, ask for help.

You have to be super determined.

The game will not finish itself, so you have to be the one who makes it happen. Again asking for help from others really helps.