AustralianIT has an article on Ptolemy Oberin, a graduate of RMIT, on his journey into the games industry as a programmer after attempts in the field of commerce and application programming...
In the third year of his computer science degree at RMIT University, Oberin had taken two electives in video games programming. His work was good enough to feature at the 2003 Australian Game Developers Conference.It also gave his folio the depth to secure a job with video games development company Firemint.
Now Oberin gets paid to play games. "It is work, but it's a lot more fun than commerce or application programming because you do have to test the games and play them," he says.
Also worth mentioning is Ptolemy is a Sumea member better known as Kaysik, and you can see his profile here!
*bows*
Cool, I just wish people would stop spouting that "paid to PLAY games" stuff. IMHO it romanticises game dev and makes it seem like it isn't hard work.
It's gotta be more fun than application programming though! :)