Well, it depends on what you want to do. If you want to learn how to make games and be able to sell them, you might want to look into XNA. It uses C# as its language, and it isn't that difficult to use. You can also sell some of your games on XBOX Live. The software to develop games is free on the computer, but if you want to develop for the XBOX 360 you have to pay money for a license(100$ for a year). You can also get a free year trial of it if you have a college email address.

If you want something a bit easier than that, I would go with Game Maker.  You could also learn Javascript or Flash if you want to try making a few browser based games.

Dude, I agree 100%! Learning to program is mainly about training yourself to think in a certain way, something anyone can do.

I don't think anyone in this thread was treating programming like some magical god-given talent.  I think they were treating it as something that takes discipline and patience that a lot of people don't have, or are too lazy to learn.  I'm also not saying this applies to the OP at all, but every time the whole "rm2k vs programming" thing comes up, a lot of times people don't want to learn to program because they don't want to put the time in, not because they're uninterested or lack the magical ability programmers are born with.  Stop making up things about people considering it a secret club, programming is something anyone CAN do but it's something a lot of people WON'T do or don't WANT to do.

And before I get put into either camp, I think that rm2k does share a lot of similarities with "regular" programming and it is built around writing algorithms and putting them into practice through rm2k.  However, I also believe that someone who's out of things to do would spend their time better learning "real" programming in order to both get exposed to something that could have more real-world application outside of games and just because if you were to learn enough, you could easily build games or game systems or w/e it is you're into that are far beyond what's possible in rm2k.  But some people have no interest in either of these things and in that case who cares?  Not everyone HAS to program, I don't look down on my mom for only using her computer to do crossword puzzles.  It just seems like someone who spends THIS much time in rm2k actually might enjoy this kind of thing and would benefit from learning more.

I personally like Pygame much better than XNA. I'm just going to go ahead and put that out there.

Everyone should learn how to program by starting with Python, and that's that.

Game maker is still a good alternative to diving straight into coding everything manually, because you can switch between text based scripting, and the drag and drop interface that comes with at any point you wish, even integrating the two with each other. Very good for getting out whatever functionality you want from your game, while introducing yourself to hand-written coding at your own pace.

Everyone should learn how to program by starting with Python, and that's that.

Ahaha I hope you were joking with this because this is a terrible thing to end with AND THAT'S THAT.  You could even make a strong case for this and yet it's not something you can just argue with a "so there".

Python is pretty cool, I haven't really messed with Pygame. Most of my python experience was with ika.

I would prefer that people made games using Pygame over XNA just because Pygame is cross-platform and open source. Using XNA means you have to buy into the idea that to some extent Microsoft owns your game development process. I've played around in Pygame for a while now, and it's a lot of fun. You really have to be interested in game programming and architecture more than someone who uses, say, Game Maker though. It's a very make your own tools kind of environment.  It also provides you with a library of very powerful programming tools and the ability to be a lot more elegant than someone using a game maker software, but it costs some productivity.

I'm actually really interested in trying to put together an open-source, cross-platform set of Pygame based tools for game development that provide what game maker does (aside from drag and drop) out of the box. If anyone else has similar thoughts, I'd like to hear from you - having some kind of stable platform to build games on rather than thinking "ok which way to blit sprites for this one???" every time would be really helpful, I think.

Ahaha I hope you were joking with this because this is a terrible thing to end with AND THAT'S THAT.  You could even make a strong case for this and yet it's not something you can just argue with a "so there".

Other programming languages would like to go forward and make a strong case for it being a better language to work with. But when it comes to Python, it is going to argue with a "so there", and the matter will be left at that. That's how Python works compared to the other programming languages, that's why it's the best language to learn with. It's straight-forward, takes no prisoners, and apologizes for absolutely nothing.

I certainly wouldn't argue that way about any other language, and that's exactly why I'll argue that way about Python as a language.

I think it's ok to start with python because it encourages you to be obsessive compulsive about the identation

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Biggles nowadays learning to code games is so easy I don't think it's worth the effort

The indentation gets on my nerves at times. It's a cool language, but it isn't the best. Good place to start out at though.

yep. Haskell is the best language.

also if you have indentation problems with python maybe you need to configure your ide / text editor properly? on average you should press tab to start a block and backspace to end one. you can span multiple lines as long as you're in a set of brackets and on the occasion escape a line with \. as far as OO programming goes i cannot think of any languages that are clearly, objectively better than python though. some are on par / personal preference and others are just plain shit. you could say C I guess but python is extensible by C anyway so...

also I would actually start beginners off in ruby over python because it's less entrenched in software engineering ideas and more oriented towards just writing code however you want. i don't like ruby at all because writing END at the end of code blocks is the most redundant thing in the universe but as far as people having their little programming moments of zen, I've seen experienced programmers bond more with the clean/easyness of python but newer programmers overall really successful with ruby. given that a really important part of learning to program is learning how to enjoy programming, i would suggest that people start with the programming language with the highest reported fun rate and this book.

also the reason I want to build a tool-set for cross-platform game programming isn't just HEH MAKE IT EASIER 2 LERN it's because fast prototyping is extremely useful and i think that more people could have time to develop games cross-platform if lots of good tools and sane defaults were made available. if you already have a set of tools that solves this problem then please share.

beep! i'm a computer!

Other programming languages would like to go forward and make a strong case for it being a better language to work with. But when it comes to Python, it is going to argue with a "so there", and the matter will be left at that. That's how Python works compared to the other programming languages, that's why it's the best language to learn with. It's straight-forward, takes no prisoners, and apologizes for absolutely nothing.

I certainly wouldn't argue that way about any other language, and that's exactly why I'll argue that way about Python as a language.

Just because Python is ideologically like that doesn't mean you can argue for or against it as the best beginner language in the same way.  I can't argue for existentialism by going "welp, who cares it's meaningless anyway...", that's not how the world works bub!

Protip: there is no 'best language' for beginners or otherwise, some are better than others but it ALWAYS depends on the person, I like python but if I had started out programming in python I probably would never have felt comfortable with code until I picked up a different language.  Python just didn't click with me at all.