What does everyone think about the site gameinstitute.com and it''s class offerings? Does anyone here have experience with them, and if so would you say they are worth it? $50 is a lot less than the cost of a college course, not to mention loads more convenient, yet still far more interactive than a book. But I''m worried about getting my moneys worth. $50 is still a bit for me, and that''s 3 or 4 used books if I spend thriftily. What do you guys think? Should I go for it?

I''d say that I''d pay 50 bucks to be taught by the likes of an Andre Lamothe or Stan Trujillo, but something seem a little fishy to me. 6 weeks is not really enough time to get enough. Hell, for 50 bucks you can''t expect much more. So if the instructors are really dedicated I would go for it.

Then come back and tell us how it was

quote:Original post by Daivam
$50 is a lot less than the cost of a college course, not to mention loads more convenient...

One statement: "nothing good comes easy."

Whatever you choose, dedicate yourself o it and you''ll do well. Good luck.

Gaiiden, honestly how accesible are the instructors?

I took the terrain rendering course. The text was nice and was well written. Probably about 100-120 pages all told, so definately less material than if you''d bought a game dev book. You pay extra for the opportunity to ask questions - though in my experience book authors will often answer questions anyway if you can find their email.

I''d only sign up for a course in something I couldn''t find a decent book on elsewhere. (Like BSPs or terrain, but not game math or intro to C.)

6 weeks is plenty, guys. I attended a nationally known private university (and paid through the nose for the pleasure!) and the terms there were only 7 weeks long. That''s right: Calculus? 7 weeks. Relativity? 7 weeks. Organic Chemsity? 7 weeks.

Of course, we got a lot more material per week than game institute provides, but I guess that''s the difference between $50 and $4000 per course.

I took the 12 wk OpenGL course. It wasn''t all it was cracked up to be. The instructor was lax & did not answer posts, and we didn''t get the promised game at the end of the course. After about 2 wks of complaints to the message boards and people like Drew (who by the way I think is top-notch & did his best to help the situation) the instructor made an apology and has started posting the code that was first promised. So I am now into week ~16 of the course, 12 weeks unsatisfied, 2 wks bitching & now new code once a week. I suspect we are getting new code as the instructor writes it for the current iteration. Also, as a side note the course is _OpenGL_ yet parts of the supplied code use DirectX8, which requires a 144Mb download. So if you use an alternate OS or don''t have the bandwidth for the DX8 SDK then you might have issues. On the whole I was disappointed with the course & I don''t have time now to review the code which we should have gotten in the first 12 weeks. Because GI is totally internet based I suspect that each instructor is pretty much running their own little world, so each course will likely have a huge varience in quality. I would like give these guys another chance, but am NOT going to fork out money to be burned again. All in all, I really like the ideas of the place but cannot recommend them over reading tutorials or buying a good book.

Just my own disgruntled opinion.
Brad