Hello! My name is Allan and I am 13 years old.

Like most teenagers, I enjoy video games and have looked into C++, Java, HTML, CSS, PHP, C# and most other programming languages, but I don't know which one is more beneficial for me to learn (pursuing a career in video game design.)

Question: Which programming language should I learn first?

I also have a huge interest in business, because I want to be a millionaire when i'm older. So my first thought would be to fuse my two loves and create a video game (e.g. MineCraft) but apparently the salary for a video game designer is around 88k when you've worked in the industry for 6+ years. So what is Mojang's job if he's a video game designer and is a millionaire.

Hi Allan,
You've asked different questions, some of which should best be asked in other forums.

[quote name='iFengo']1. Which programming language should I learn first?
2. what is Mojang's job if he's a video game designer and is a millionaire.
[/quote]

1. You should go on the For Beginners forum and read the forum's Getting Started and FAQ.
2. Mojang is a company.

My apologies. I meant the founder of Mojang (I believe MC was a 2-man project)

My apologies. I meant the founder of Mojang (I believe MC was a 2-man project)

Markus "Notch" Persson is what you'd call lucky.
He made an interesting new game that reached mass appeal and went viral.
He could just as well have made only a few thousand on the game and operate at a loss.

You can't train yourself for this nor is there a guideline for it.
If there was, everyone would be doing it.


Overall game programmers earn quite well.
You really shouldn't be disappointed with the average salary of a game programmer.
But if your main goal is to get filthy rich, you probably should head towards consultancy and sell overpriced enterprisy solutions to large companies.

Alternatively you could move to China, it only takes about $13.000 to be a millionaire over there.

Notch the game designer isn't a millionaire. Notch the company founder is. Even then he likely doesn't have a million dollars, he has a share of the company which is worth a million dollars (though even that seems overinflated to me).

And if you're starting to learn how to program today, you should start with C# or Python. Though programming is not designing.

Notch the game designer isn't a millionaire. Notch the company founder is. Even then he likely doesn't have a million dollars, he has a share of the company which is worth a million dollars (though even that seems overinflated to me).

This is not entirely true.
You're comparing Mojang to certain companies who have yet to monetize their product which indeed seem to have a somewhat inflated theoretical worth.
Mojang however actually did receive all this money by selling MC and actually has millions banked. So this is not an over inflated guess but rather a fact that Mojang is worth millions.

Even then he likely doesn't have a million dollars, he has a share of the company which is worth a million dollars (though even that seems overinflated to me).

They had $33 million in take-home cash, 9 months ago. By my reckoning, that level of revenue makes the company worth significantly more than $30 million - and it's entirely possible that the founder is walking around with a million in his pocket.

[quote name='Tom Sloper' timestamp='1327686399' post='4906795']
2. Mojang is a company.

My apologies. I meant the founder of Mojang (I believe MC was a 2-man project)

This question isn't about salaries, then. It's about how much money a business owner can make from his business. Entirely different thing (and not within the purview of this Breaking In forum). It may become necessary to move the thread, if it veers too far off this forum's topic (game jobs - not game company ownership).

Question: Which programming language should I learn first?

Whatever one you want.

A language is a tool. A good programmer can switch between languages easily; the concepts are readily applicable.

In a more traditional analog, should you learn French first, or Spanish first, or perhaps Portuguese? The answer is that it doesn't matter, learning one will help you learn the others. Learning any of them will help improve your capacity to learn unrelated languages like Japanese or Korean as your mind will have more experience.


Learn C#. Learn Java. Learn JavaScript and web programming and AJAX. Learn Ruby. Learn Python. Learn Eiffel, or Scheme, or Smalltalk. Learn Pascal. Learn Ada. Learn Cobol, or C++, or C, or x86 assembly, or VAX assembly. Learn whatever you want. At your age the language choice is irrelevant, just learn something that interests you.

I'm closing the thread, since it's not focused on one topic that belongs in Breaking In.
iFengo, you are welcome to continue looking for answers to your questions. Just post focused questions in the appropriate forum. You might want to begin by reading this forum's FAQs (back out to the Breaking In forum, and look in Getting Started at upper right).