Hi everybody I'm josh, I'm 18 and I live In Massachusetts, I've been mulling over this for a long time, been playing video games as long as I can remember and they have always been the highlight and focus of my life and I finally have the courage/motivation to immerse myself in what I love, Video games. I only have my GED and I really have no idea what so ever where to start....reading about the positions available I think I would prefer Game Design, i have the vision well more like a multitude of fantasies and day dreams but I don't believe I have the means to bring them to life, I have no idea where to start and I'd really appreciate any advice, thanks for reading and looking forward to your replies!

My advice is to start by creating the simplest game you can imagine. Normally people recommend Pong for such an activity because it can be done fairly easily.

Pick a tool/programming language and start creating a very simple game. This will teach you a lot about how games are constructed, the time they take to create, and it will help you to determine whether or not game development is really something you want to investigate further.

You can search these forums and the internet for similar questions as many people have asked the same questions as you. Look around and try to get a feel for just what it takes to make a game.

Also realize that the art of game design is rarely what you add, but what you can take away while maintaining your game's vision.

This is a journey that will take you a lifetime to complete. Expect to spend many years at this if you are serious about game creation.

Don't rush, start small, and have fun.

Thanks for the reply shadow :) going to poke around and see what I can find in regards to making a pong game however I'm not sure what programming language to start with, I downloaded the Unity 3d 4.0.1 free version prior to posting and played around a bit but I had no idea what I was doing so I figured I'd look for some advice, also I'm not really sure where to start with the programming language is there a common one recommended to beginners such as myself? (did some googling and forum surfing however I didnt see any definite answers)

Their are many different languages you can chose from. From C++, C#, Java, Python, and more. You can even jump in and learn HTML5 and Javascript and do some web based games.

For a start out language I myself would look into C#, Java, or Python. Though you will get people who say just go ahead and start out the monster C++. You will not get one definite answer. The important thing is that you pick a language, start, and stick to it. Too many times people spend too much time starting and stopping and not just picking one language and sticking to it. Once you learn one language it's fairly easy to learn another if needed. The concepts are still pretty much the same, it's just learning the languages specifications and syntax.