3DS Max was holding its own for some time but most of the places I used to work at that used Max are now switching to Maya. A long time ago I was using Alias and then they'd switch to MAX, but now it's going back the other way.
Your best bet if you're trying to learn is to get into MAX. If you decide to mess around with one of the 3D engines out there you'll find that most of them can get stuff exported out of MAX, but it's not as simple for Maya stuff.
If you have any questions about the game dev world feel free to hit me up on ICQ. I was in the fray for a long time before I finally went off and started my own thing. Check out our showcase at
http://www.howintheworld.com for a few examples of some of the games I've worked on (what, you didn't think I was gonna take the opportunity and plug?
).
It's a great business to get into if you don't mind the hours. Oh yeah, and check out
www.gamasutra.com for a good site devoted to game development.
Jak