In the good old days, when the Internet had about 10 users and the web was a vision far, PCs were called computers and no one could learn to write computer games. Three of us established business to write and sell our own games for Commodore 64 and ZX Spectrum (Aka Timex/Sinclair). We do not sell many games but we saved by entering the business of games of conversion. A Publisher would release a hit on the Commodore 64 and wrote the Timex, Amstrad and MSX versions of CBM 16 etc. It took about 3 months for a person to produce a game.
That was 20 years ago and things have changed a lot since then. The games industry is now a massive multi million dollar business and development teams can number 50 or more. My first game I had as a programmer, artist and sound designer-(bien_no_era_buen_sonido!). I did everything. Copy of games were written in assembler and you had to learn 6502 and Z80. Now with a few exceptions, games are written in c and C++. The days of backroom programmers aren't totally gone - there are also 'retro remake' and 'indie' scene, e.g. http://retrospec.sgn.net/ but unless you have an exceptionally brilliant idea, not likely to get in the business of standard clearance as a costume of a man writing Blockbuster PC games.
Not everything is bad news though - if you can schedule at a very good level and have learned some of the techniques-eg 3d mathematics, inteligencia artificial (IA) and can produce proofs of your code, then, you can get a job at the market. There are a lot of books and Web sites that will guide you through the complexities of DirectX and before much time will be a guru in shaders of vertices etc. Sign up for sites in development of games such as http://gamasutra.com/ (it's free) and search for jobs. You should be good to get a job and willing to work for a long time in some cases very long hours. It is a good hard business - when a game is in development, live can breathe and eat for 18 months and two years. And probably won't work 9-5 all the time.
However there are other ways to enter the business of games and I do not mean to console development. There are other genres games that are much easier to get in.
1 Mud - multi-user dungeons. They have been around 30 years and were the precursor of the MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online RPG) that now exist. These are still popular and you can find the source code for several of them. I don't know if any people more money is now used to play them for free. Look here: http://www.ability.org.uk/mud.html
2. The Internet in Web based games. There are hundreds of these around. A good starting point is the large directory at http://www.mpogd.com/ . These range from free monthly subscriptions. Anyone can set up their own website and games using any web technology, such as Perl, PHP, Java.
3 Play by mail. This has now largely but not completely transferred to playground website on the Internet. Flagship magazine is a good source of information - their website is http://flagshipmagazine.com/
4 Flash games. Development of Flash is a skill in itself, although programming in ActionScript (which is JavaScript under a different name) is not so difficult. A trajectory defined by the programming of Flash games and there are a lot of books to teach writing games in Flash. FlashKit Web http://www.flashkit.com/index.shtml is a good starting point in line.
5 Games mobile phones and PDA. This has recently become a major growth area and is likely to continue its growth as more powerful phones. Its also one of the easiest enter but not all phones are the same. Everything you need to know is how to write games in Java that runs on the J2ME platform (Java 2 Mobile Edition). Unlike the console world, development of Software (SDK) Kits are available free of charge from manufacturers of mobile phones. For example, http://www.forum.nokia.com/main.html and the best IDEs for development J2ME (Netbeans and Eclipse) are available free of charge. We hope to see MMORPG (Mobile Multiplayer Online play role-playing games) before long.
Much of this can be done on a part-time basis in his evenings and weekends, but be careful to not let it take over your life and also that your employer does not have any complaints about the software you develop. Some employers have clauses that allow them to claim anything that you develop. There are ways round, often involving a wife or loved that it is you can assign ownership but to take legal advice if in any doubt.
If you are learning to program games, not neglecting the power of the web. SourceForge is home to thousands of open source projects, and many of them are games. Game source for commercial games Quake I, II, and III has also been released by ID and can be found here http://www.idsoftware.com/business/techdownloads/
These are GPL would be so it would not be capable of writing games based on them and sell them without giving away the source code but could write Mods. Several game modders have released free popular Mods and have managed to enter the industry because of its quality. There are many game projects where can enroll and program - this is a great way to learn new skills and make friends.
David Bolton is a developer of software with a wide past programming games. He co-founded the choice of Software in Carrickfergus, N. Ireland from 1984 to 1987 and won an award for his original team game Johnny Reb II (published by Lothlorien). Designed and programmed the postcards Quest game, which has also won awards and is still being played (postally and online) 15 years after was developed. He worked for 12 months as a designer at Microprose (Manchester) in 1992. He is currently designing a great game multiplayer role-playing game, but it is not will be released until 2006.
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