Here is a list of sites that are useful for students and others aspiring to learn how to make games and/or get into the game’s industry.

GDMag recently released their 2012 Game Career Guide issue for free – it’s a great resource for anyone looking to get into games.

International

• Gamasutra – All about game development, often reprints articles from Game Developer Magazine as well as having great original content.
• GameCareerGuide – Solid features on getting into game development and information about careers paths, US-centric.
• TIGSource – The Independent Games Source – Community for independent and hobbyist game developers.

Australia-specific

• Tsumea – The most active Australian game industry site, is the best place to go for job postings and industry information.
• The International Game Developers Association (Melbourne, Brisbane, Sydney)
• Freeplay – Yearly independent games festival in Melbourne – great talks on game development and games in general.

Advice from developers

• Breaking Into Games: Adam Atomic by Adam Saltsman on Jordan Mechner‘s site.
• Making it in Indie Games: Starter Guide by Derek Yu on makegames.tumblr.com

Free/cheap ways to start making games!

• GameMaker / Multimedia Fusion 2 – game development IDEs for non-programmers, good tools for getting started in game development.
• Flashdevelop with Flixel / Flashpunk – engines for developing Flash games in Actionscript 3 – a good starter programming language for game development.