Hello, My name is Sean I''m 12 years old and have selected game developement for a career. I would like to get advice for what I need to be succesful. Please recommend education (college courses and/or degree) and the best computer language to learn. I would also like to know what kind of work environment and salary game developers have. Thank you in advance.

Don''t know specific courses, I''m just a hobbyist (sp?) but

1) Lots and lots of maths. You probably should start reading maths books for fun
2) If you want to do game design as well, get as broad an education as possible (although this never hurts no matter what you want to do). Also this means that if in 8 years time you change your mind (which is quite likely), you won''t be stuck too badly.
3) Have a social life - go out, drink and be merry
(actually don''t start drinking yet )

quote:
and the best computer language to learn

I can suggest learning lots of languages, and don''t concentrate on the actual *language*, look at the concepts behind the language(s). Languages to look at are Lisp, ML, C, C++, Java, Pascal, Eiffel, Smalltalk and lots of others. C or C++ are probably used most in games, but the others have useful ideas which can make solutions to problems easier to visualise.

The de facto education of choice for professional game programmer is to get a degree in Computer Science. (This is for programmers only - artists and musicians need other educations)

Since that will take some time before you get to that point all you should do at this point is to get proficient in programming and program stuff you think is fun and cool. It doesn''t really matter what programming language you use since you will learn dozens of them anyway before you get your degree. If you want to get started fast I recommend you go for Visual Basic. This isn''t the language of choice for pro game developers today, but who knows what will be the language of choice in 10 years?

Game developer salery depends heavily on which country you live in and a generally a little lower than other IT business saleries. Game Developer magazine made a survey not a long time ago for the US:

http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20010831/survey_01.htm