Well, depending on what he intends to do with the game that he makes, should probably determin which version of Dark Basic you should get.
If he plans to make the game go commercial, you should get Pro, but if he just wants to play around with game making, just to have fun, go with classic.
Pro is supposed to have better Frames Per Second Rates (FPS Rates,) than Classic is supposed to, & Pro is supposed to be better at rendering graphics, 2d or 3d than classic & Pro is just all around better for game creation.
When you come to think of it, $100 for Pro isnt bad, compaired to other engines (like AMP 2 ($200 for a non commercial game or $2000 for a commercial) or A6 ($900 for their best one, which can handle multiplayer,) which is exactly why I bought DBPro.
I have gone through about 9 game engines at this time, including (but not limited to) Jamagic, A5 Extra, DBPro, TGF, MMF, The GCS, RPG Maker, RPG Maker 2k, plus quite a few others. DBPro is thus far, the easyist multiplayer 3d engine. The GCS (no longer in production), was the easyist, but it wasnt very good at making games at all. TGF or MMF was by far the easyist of them all using a spreadsheet style code, but it cant handle 3d games. If you hear they can, dont belive them, they dont work for a first person shooter like DBPro works (TGF or MMF looks worse than Wolfenstein 3d (the orriginal.))
If you (or your nefew) wants the ability to make a multiplayer game, which can be compairable to the current gaming market, go with DBPro, its the cheapest & easyist way to go, & you can use most knowledge of QBasic with Dark Basic.
However, if your limited on buget (you will have to buy modeling programs (or find a free one,) buy a better texture maker (or find a free one,) also buying cartography shop would be a good idea, but its not needed if you own half life due to half lifes Valve Hammer Edition,) DBClassic is still around for a gap filler.
I would recomend Pro though,
