I don't really know what the current thinking is on the subject, but it used to be that you had to learn BASIC first, then you had to choose either ANSI C or Assembler. (yes I'm dating myself again.)
Slightly more recent information leads me to believe that C++ should be a good first language, since many of the other current languages look and act a lot like it.
In the end if what you're after is learning to write videogames for a living, almost all of the AAA titles out there (if not all) are written in C++. Recently things are turning towards C#, but a good understanding of C++ is certainly going to help either way.