I'm not unhappy being a programmer, but from time to time I immensely enjoy fixing things at home myself - I see result of my work here and now. Being a programmer I may not see finished result of my work for a long time.
I think it is quite beneficial for programmers to dabble in some hobbies that involve some handiwork - be it knitting or making playing dices out of metal.
I considered restoring old vehicles, but didn't want to end up "just" a mechanic. It was working on cars that was my trigger to get out - I felt so much more satisfaction from restoring a car than I ever did from meeting a ship date. I think because it has a tangible sense of progress and completion, and there's something to point at that's more "real"
I can totally relate to the need to have a life outside the virtual world. I've been programming for 30 years (data analysis in R&D mostly), and while I love the intellectual stimulation from writing code to do something new, I also crave physical contact with the world. But it's still not clear to me how best to make that work. Can I do this as part of a job, or must this happen only after hours?
I considered working in robotics, since that seemed an ideal mix of the two realms, but I'd rather not feed the military maw, which is where 95% of the work is. Maybe I should just reorg my garage to add room for a workbench and join the ranks of shadetree mechs. Lord knows I have enough machinery that need wrenching...
Unless you do something out of the ordinary, in five or ten years time the app, game or website you built is long forgotten or replaced.
Meanwhile board games last, there's value in old editions (I picked up a 40 year old copy of Diplomacy recently), and people still play games that are decades old (not all games, but enough to be worthwhile).
Also, even if I never get a single board game published (unlikely), I will still leave prototypes behind for my family to encounter. Meanwhile, my video games are on my hard drive and could disappear if they don't keep perpetuating digital copies of them.
Also you can make a video game version of the board game you made and now you can sell in two different mediums.
