It seems like the only way you can end up as a successful game developer is if you grew up with your own computer and your parents gave you unlimited computer privileges.

@PurpCat I mean you could start off by learning to program batch files or shell scripts, but those are limited to text-only games. I started off programming by learning to make batch file games.

Most Linux distros have compilers and interpreters for every language known to man preinstalled so if you grew up with Linux, you are all set.

Or you can simply just write HTML5 games in JavaScript using your favorite text editor. But that assumes that kids realize that all they need is Notepad (or whatever text-editor they have) and their preferred Internet browser. But most kids these days can't even tell how a filesystem even works.