Make games. If you want to make more than just some little smart phone time sink, get a PC game with good content creation tools and make a content mod, like Falskaar. What is Falskaar? 19 year old Alexander J. Velicky’s 2000 hour labor of love and 25 hours worth of new content. He wanted to become a game designer and rather than go to a game design school, his father graciously gave him a year to devote himself to making this massive new space to explore.
Alexander J. Velicky is miles ahead of any other teenager that wants to get a job making video games. He directed voice actors. He commissioned an original soundtrack for his mod. He even got people to extensively play test it for him.
The important thing here is that he aimed for industry standard level content creation and from what I’ve played so far, achieved it. A remarkable feat for someone with no industry experience!
Making games be it on paper, cards, or a mod to an existing is the most important thing to getting a game industry job in the West. Modding will hardly hurt your chances in Japan, but Western companies are far more likely to grasp the value of modding. I’ll update this entry if there’s any news on Velicky’s career successes or failures. But let this be a lesson: going out and doing is more important than sitting around hoping to learn it.