the moment Gish came out was the 1st time i actually made money off my games, it was a living for about 2 years then slowly faded away. i wasnt able to make a full living offmy work alone again till a year before doing super meat boy, and that was actually due to contract work i did game design wise for another company.. but things were heading in the right direction. around 2007-08 i had published 3-4 sponsored larger scale flash games that made enough to support me for the most part (spewer, time fcuk, aether, meat boy).
but yeah it wasnt really ever much of a living till smb released.. i kinda always had part time work on the side in order to make ends meet.