For me, it was 3D art that got me hooked. Followed by programming to make my art do something.
Dad got a computer when I was 8. I played games.
At uni, while studying other things, I played games and had no money.
In those days having a LAN party and getting people on the same game, same version, same mods, different OSs, different specc'ed machines etc was an effort!
Eventually ended up Application Packaging to earn a living. And I've moved on from there.
It looks cool and is a good attraction, but people who could be actually good tech programmers will be offputted by reality of making games - which involves a lot of drawing, making sure it looks good and slowly iterating on boring gameplay till it is not boring.
My kid is finishing Blocky Games from Google. I think it was a good start, he isn't hooked into programming but at least he had some fun and learned some concepts, like loops. Now I have no idea on where should I guide him to now. I was thinking about Python Turtle, but he will probably get bored. Will take a look at Game Maker, but looks too much for a kid, good for teenagers perhaps.