I did it for fun for many years - had my work exhibited and in books, got to travel around the world, and met interesting people. Then it turned out I was doing it because my day job was so unsatisfying - as soon as I got a job at Google, my 'artistic' output dropped to zero.
However, the stuff I learned while doing it was invaluable - I maintain that the best designers can code, and the best type of code they can write is visual interface code - being able to clearly describe animated sequences in code (motion curves, costs of different effects) makes communicating your design that much easier, and helps you polish the working product to your exacting specifications.
Stop thinking of it as a career path, and more as a highly-useful method of expressing yourself, then let it take you where it takes you - the market for visual effects programming might be unpredictable, but the market for coders who have the drive to learn how to do anything in order to achieve a specific and detailed aim is huge.
However, the stuff I learned while doing it was invaluable - I maintain that the best designers can code, and the best type of code they can write is visual interface code - being able to clearly describe animated sequences in code (motion curves, costs of different effects) makes communicating your design that much easier, and helps you polish the working product to your exacting specifications.
Stop thinking of it as a career path, and more as a highly-useful method of expressing yourself, then let it take you where it takes you - the market for visual effects programming might be unpredictable, but the market for coders who have the drive to learn how to do anything in order to achieve a specific and detailed aim is huge.