Slashdot has a good discussion thread regarding high end modelling programs (LW, Max, Maya etc) not being too useful for game modellers, as they are "all heavily biased towards doing non-realtime rendering using raytracing or some other technique. While they can be used to make models for realtime 3D hardware, a very large number of their features don't map well onto realtime 3D hardware."
What's the solution? read the discussion and find out!