I've given several classes in programming games in the Netherlands. Most recently for a group of 11 year olds at IMC Weekend-School. For this I use the off the shelf tool, Game Maker.
What surprises me is that an 11 year old kid, with a 10 minute training, can create a fun and interesting game in just 2 hours. They can analyse there game concept and add a layer of abstraction to it to program it. They can convert the idea, the cat needs to move to his basket while luring the dog away to the concept, the object with the sprite cat needs to collide with the object 'bone' to make the object 'dog' disappear after which it needs to collide with the object 'basket'.
With almost no training they can create a large
variety of games (Windows only). And admittedly, they vary greatly but there are some very fun games with them.
Using an off the shelf program might not teach them to become perfect programmers but it does teach them to think up a game concept, analyze it and convert it to a system of rules. Being able to critically analyze a concept and convert it to it's basic is a very useful skill to learn, one which will also help them if they decide to go programming.
I'm an administrator of a variety of game communities and I see many young kids passionately working on there creation and I fully agree with this study. Already, many schools in the Netherlands but also worldwide teach game creation with tools like Game Maker and I've seen many kids who learned a great deal off it, myself included. While an off the shelf tool might not teach them to become programmers, they learn a great deal more, have a more fun experience and thus an easier learning curve. While starting from scratch might be it for some talented kids, you can interest a great deal more kids with an off the shelf product.
