Helo,
i just want to know what kind of skills do you need to make games with these programs that are out there? like do you have to create you character from scratch or is there a render where you can just color it and edit it? is any language required, like c++ or javascript or what? i havent tried any programs yet but im interested and before i spend money i want to get some opinions from you guys that use the programs.

Well, i gotta ask just what kind of games are you interested in making? If you're planning on trying to makes games similar to commercial games, you're gonna be spending a LOT of money. Those people build from the ground up. They usually have a great deal amount of knowledge in Maya, 3DSM, Photoshop, C++, etc (JavaScript not included). I wouldn't call it a "skill," per se. But even the games that people complain about the graphics—that takes a lot of work to make.

if you want to create not so complicated games like arcade kind of games or applet games then try learning Flash or Java. These two are the common tools for small games like the one you will find in Teagames.com or Miniclip.com.

You can also use a program called Game Maker.
There are examples on this site on how to use it, and if you can't find any ones that help you, then you can go to it's forum located here.

to make games you neeed.....sum1 with graphical skills to make 3D images in photoshop or the like....you also need to know a bit about coding. Tell you what, buy Medeival 2 total War! there's a very active "modding" community at totalwar.org that makes modifications of the game....one team of modders recently declared they were ending modding and starting their own game making company! its v good practice for making games imo, a lot of the TW modders start with no skills at all!

To create games similar to commercial ones you will not be spending lots of money. There are plenty of tools our there that are free that allow you do the same things and there is no way you will be creating a "state of the art" game without being employeed by a developer. This does not mean your games wont look nice and amazing. How good your game will look will depend on how much OpenGL or DirectX you know. These are the two main langauges that are used to make games depending on the difficulty and OS you are writing for. Windows supports both but Linux only supports OpenGL. They do most things completely different so pick one and learn it. In order to write in these languages you will be doing it in either Java or C++. DirectX is C++, C# or Basic only where as OpenGL is Java and C++.

These two languages will be used to do most of the visual effects of the game. They will be what displays the meshes (characters, walls, etc.) that are in your game, camera adjustments, and anything else visual. The game logic will be done just in the language you are programming in.

Finally, for final touches in your game or more advanced visual effects, you can use HLSL (High-Level Shading Language - for DirectX) or GLSL (for OpenGL). These will allow you to use the actual GPU on your video card to perform per-vertex and per-pixel operations that will allow you to do things like add lighting effects, glow effects, and lots of others.

Overall, you will want to start with learning C++, then either DirectX or OpenGL and then HLSL or GLSL. If you go out of the order then you will just get confused, not understand the errors, etc. and really wont get far into your game before you decide to quit.

www.gamemaker.nl is a good place to start

If your planning on creating commercial games like the ones found on Xbox and Playstation etc. like fffanatics said C++ & OpenGL or DirectX and I'd like to add perhaps also purchasing (or finding a free) engine to build off of. This will help you and prevent you from having to code every single little tidbit of logic yourself. Depending on what type of game the engine is built for, it should help you out by having functions that will do some of the tasks you would normally have to code by hand.

Good luck!

grafix are the main things in game programming
u should be the master of photoshop maya and 3dsm,,,,
and then looping and techniques used in game programming...