Our tech teacher designed this type of approach 3yrs ago and its a popular class. Using Gamemaker software gets kids into the class who might not go for straight up programming. The path is: Game Design 1, Game Design 2, then Java. At that point students can continue on to advanced Java projects that they define themselves. The other neat thing we do is in the Game Design 2 class there is is 1 large project - students form into teams of 3 and then they are matched to 1 or 2 Art students. They learn to work as a team with the art students doing sprite and background design.
You grouchy old timers need to remember that back in the day '70s-'80s computers were still an uncommon and exotic thing. And I can recall being thrilled to pound out BASIC or Pascal or C programs. These days kids are surrounded by computers (and flashy programs) from birth. So naturally I don't think they would be drawn to a pure code environment immediately, but after a couple of terms of learning programing basics creating games --- they can see the possibilities.