Having the ideas for games are easy. Making games are a different story. Personally, I'd love to make games, but I'm not going to put a ton of time and effort into it at the moment because I don't think it's that profitable. I'm going to do someother career choice and make games on the side. If my games earn me more money than my job, I'll switch career paths. Otherwise, it'll be a fun hobby. But, here is my tips on game making (My friend makes games and is wanting to be a programmer of sorts, not for games but for medical things. Very profitable):
1. You need great ideas. Programmers are a dime-a-dozen work force. It takes real talent to come up with great ideas that will sell those games. I mean, think about it. Would you rather buy Generic FPS 4 or Annoying Orangeeteer, a game where you use the sound of a Annoying Orangeet to attack and interact with the game? It's the ideas that sell the game.
2. Start easy. Download an
easy game-maker and do some basic games to get down the concept.
3. Move on to a simple langauge like Visual Basic. Start with a "Hello World" program and work your way up.
4. Move on to harder languages until you are a master programmer. Then start making simple, yet fun games (Preferably free) to get you known. Then come out with a great game and charge money. If you're well-known and have a good rep, people will be more willing to buy your games.
If you find out that programming just isn't your thing (As I did), create a team. Teams make game making easier for a few reasons:
1. More ideas, more imput = More selling points
2. Less workload for each member = Either a faster production or more content
3. Able to learn other fields (If you are good at graphic design, you would be learning about programming, storyboarding, and music development just by working with people who know those fields)
The downsides to having a team are:
If you charge for the game, you aren't making as large of a profit
If you don't know the members in RL, it might be hard to get into contact with them.
TL;DR - Read it if you are interested in making games for a living.
