>In the end, I've had to chalk all these apps up to the "hobby" category as it has been a money-losing proposition.

This is what Taleb calls an extremistan world, you can't apply a gaussian distribution to this situation. It is difficult to find a mediocre filmmaker that just makes enough money to get by, or a writer, or a painter... You either become fairly succesful or you die without ever being able to "make it".

You can't really tell when your next game will become the next Words with friends, Angry Birds, Flappy Bird or Candy Crush. But if it does, you can go from a "hobby" to a full time job even needing to hire a team.