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Learning how to program by writing a game is very motivating. Games have become a huge industry and here in the UK we have a very special relationship with the development of this industry. Many people who are now key players in the industry cut their teeth in the 1970s and 80s on machines like the Sinclair Spectrum and the BBC Micro. These machines were instrumental in creating a widespread enthusiasm among bedroom games programmers mainly because they were so accessible. Anyone with some intelligence and perseverance could produce something that was commercially viable. Unfortunately since then we have seen much of the gaming industry taken over by very large concerns like Sony and Nintendo and the difficulty of developing for these platforms is just simply overwhelming for the individual. Although the PC is much more easily programmed, until recently there was no easy way to produce a game on it. You had to code using C and use the OpenGL library. This is really rather low level and requires the most basic of physics to be coded by the programmer. Even libraries such as Ogre, built on top of OpenGL were quite a handful. However, recently Unity has become available which offers ease of programming via a language rather like JavaScript and a superb interactive WYSIWIG development environment. Furthermore, there is a very usable version that can be downloaded for free.
Although, it is still rather difficult to compete with the casts of thousands that typically make up the modern development team for a major game, the programmer can now create sophisticated games and gain the experience to take him or her much further. This could well lay the foundations for becoming a member of such a development team. However, even if it is not your desire to be a games programmer, this method of learning how to program via games is a great deal of fun and sure beats writing programs that store names and addresses.