[soci]

I wish I had read your comment 5 years ago when my son wanted to build a utterly complex game in Scratch. I ended “coding” the game, almost on my own, because it was boring for him, and the result did not resemble what my toddler wanted/imagined. Of course he was imagining an AAA game built in Scratch… If anything good, the learning for him was building games is hard, and lost interest trying further. Great advise!

[mempko]

I learned programming as a child using basic because I wanted to make games like super mario. My first game was a pick your own adventure novel. Just text. My second game was an RPG, all ascii. I eventually build a 3D engine in basic (yeah, i know). If the kid finds programming fun, then starting with scratch won't deter them. If they don't like programming but want to make a game, then yeah, I can see how finding out how hard it is will deter them!

[underdeserver]

Not sure that's good. Yeah it's hard to build a AAA game, but you can still have a lot of fun building a smaller game, and people put out really impressive stuff in Ludum Dare (a 72-hour build-a-game-from-scratch event).