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.

Yeah you''ll probably think this is a biased report, especially since I do PR for them!! But I don''t care, cause it isn''t.

To tell the truth these are really cheap prices for what you get. Depending on the topic 6 weeks may not be enough indeed, which is why we have some 12-week courses. The classes are centered around community, so you''ll definerly meet and prob get to know knew people very well. Everyone helps each other through chat and message boards and email. You get an audio lecture and textbook chapter every week. Best of all is that after you complete the course, it is forever open to you You are considered alumni and can come back to post on the boards and such. I took the Game Mathematics course and had a blast. I think you''ll enjoy and get a lot out of it. Any problems and you contact me pronto k? Good luck.

Drew Sikora
A.K.A. Gaiiden

ICQ #: 70449988
AOLIM: DarkPylat

Blade Edge Software
Public Relations, Game Institute
Staff Member, GDNet

Online column - Design Corner at Pixelate
3-time Contributing author, Game Design Methods , Charles River Media (coming GDC 2002)

IGDC - the International Game Developers Chat! [irc.safemalloc.com #igdc]

Gaiiden, honestly how accesible are the instructors?

very accesable. They have "office hours" during the week where you can meet in the chat and barrage them with questions. Some of my class'' chats went on for over 4 hours and were great.

To be honest I have gotten email from a student who had an instructor that was absent for a long while, but we resolved that to the satisfaction of the student which is why if you have any problems, don''t hesistate to get in touch with me.

Drew Sikora
A.K.A. Gaiiden

ICQ #: 70449988
AOLIM: DarkPylat

Blade Edge Software
Public Relations, Game Institute
Staff Member, GDNet

Online column - Design Corner at Pixelate
3-time Contributing author, Game Design Methods , Charles River Media (coming GDC 2002)

IGDC - the International Game Developers Chat! [irc.safemalloc.com #igdc]

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.

actually the math course was 12 weeks. If I had had to cram all that stuff into a 6 week period I would have gone out of my mind! 6 weeks is enough for some courses

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

Thanks for your post Brad. Unfortunetly these things happen to people and I''m not saying "tough luck" and I was glad you came to me and made me aware of the situation. Plain fact: We are still considered a start-up. We may have a lot of students and such but we''re still gonna experience bumps like these, and people are going to get burned

All I can say is that I''m here just like I was for Brad and I promise to work things out so that everybody wins. Egads I sound like a politician!! Now nobody''s gonna take me seriously! NOOOOOO!!!!!

Anyways I hope to see some of you on the enrollment list sometime in the future. We''re ramping up and if things go as planned, we''ll have some pretty cool stuff to show off

Drew Sikora
A.K.A. Gaiiden

ICQ #: 70449988
AOLIM: DarkPylat

Blade Edge Software
Public Relations, Game Institute
Staff Member, GDNet

Online column - Design Corner at Pixelate
3-time Contributing author, Game Design Methods , Charles River Media (coming GDC 2002)

IGDC - the International Game Developers Chat! [irc.safemalloc.com #igdc]
NJ IGDA Chapter - NJ developers unite!! [Chapter Home | Chapter Forum]