   www.gameinstitute.com is it a scam?
  I just stumbled across that site and was wondering if it has anything to offer.  Im sure this question has been asked before but the search function is down so can anyone tell me if it is worth the money?Does anyone have a any personal experience with www.gameinstitute.com?thanks.  
  It''s on my list of things to do when I''m richer.  Flipcode seems to like it a lot:http://www.flipcode.com/misc/gireport/Cheers, dorix;  thanks for the reply, i am downloading the demo course right now.If it turns out to be helpful and legit i wouldnt mind shelling out a few bucks to try one course.  ;  Uhm ok, no it''s not a scam.(I''m a student there.)I will say though that it''s more geared toward the somewhat advanced people, and less toward beginners.  They do have two beginning courses, Intro to C/C++, and Game Mathematics.  The Math course I found very difficult, and the C/C++ not really.  The teachers range from helpful to not helpful.  (Stan Trujillo is usually very helpful, and John De Goes is usually not.)  The guy who teaches the OpenGL course is also usually helpful.  If you have a helpful teacher, it''s almost worth the cost of tuition just to get him to help you with your problems. -=Lohrno  ;  I took the Math course with John and he was extremely helpful, and attended a lot of chats where we could talk to him about problems. It was still a hard course tho. I guess after a while he may have slackened off  I''m taking the AI course now and it''s pretty good so far, tho Brian Hall isn''t too responsive and the class I enrolled in doesn''t have many students.Since I do PR for them what I just said may sound biased, but I truly enjoy and value their programs. In the near future they may be setting me up as a person to gripe to when your instructor isn''t around a lot, among other things, so hopefully we''ll be able to get rid of the problem of instructors being non-responsive. In the meantime if anyones got a complaint please send it my way so we can see about getting it fixed up.    _________________________________________________________________Drew SikoraA.K.A. GaiidenICQ #: 70449988AOLIM: DarkPylatBlade Edge SoftwareStaff Member, GDNetPublic Relations, Game Institute3-time Contributing author, Game Design Methods, Charles River Media Online column - Design Corner    at PixelateUnnoficial IGDA chat! [polaris.starchat.net -> #igda]NJ IGDA Chapter - NJ developers unite!! [Chapter Home | Chapter Forum]"Real programmers don''t work from 9 to 5. If any real programmers are around at 9am it''s because they were up all night." -Anon.;  Game Institute is brilliant. I just did their Advanced BSP, CSG and PVS course, and it taught me everything. And I do mean everything. Not just how to the BSP, CSG and PVS, but all the little tricks behind it, like creating optimal trees and making sure you get the minimum number of polygons in CSG operations. My map maker / editor and game engine would be crap if I hadn''t done it.It''s a 12-week course, and each week there were about 30 pages of stuff to read up on. It explains how BSP trees are used in games like Quake and Unreal, and for about £60, it''s very reasonable. Highly recommended, and not a scam...    Movie Quote of the Week:"You mean, let me understand this...cuz I...maybe it''s me,maybe I''m a little f**ked up maybe. I''m funny how, I meanfunny, like I''m a clown? I amuse you? I make you laugh?I''m here to f**kin'' amuse you? Whattya you mean funny?Funny how? How am I funny?" - Tommy, Goodfellas.Try http://uk.geocities.com/mentalmantle. Seriously. It''s brilliant.And I just completely redesigned it so it looks even better.DarkVertex Beta 0.8 available soon!;  When OpenGL 2.0 and DirectX9 come out, I think I''ll enroll for either the OpenGL or Direct3D course. By the way, when is OpenGL 2.0 coming out? Will it be in OOP C++ or stay procedural C?    .elendil67;  Wow, according to those screens that pop up at the end of the demo, you could easily pay $700!MathDirectInputDirect3DOpenGLPVS/BSP etc.TerrainMultiplayerBut then of course I''d be a roxxor game programmer!  ;  I took the Terrain Rendering course, as to get some more information on various LOD algorithms. The 6 papers certainly helped me gain a much better understanding of their specific topics, but they had some problems. Mainly being, that the source code in some parts conflicted with the text reading. Also, the last paper wasn''t very explanatory of the subject being terrain texturing (but, I had beforehand studied this topic extensively) However, because of these ''problems'' I relied on my own abilities and thoughts alot and ended up writing a couple fairly different from most, landscape tessellating implementations. There were also very few students and by the end of the course, nobody besides myself had posted. Lasty, the author of the articles, Bryan Turner (wrote about ROAM on gamasutra.com) wasn''t very active on the forums.  ;  I know/knew a professor there (Adam Hoult), and he was a nice/intelligent guy. I haven''t actually taken a course, but it isn''t run just by a couple of people trying to make a quick buck out of nothing.    Trying is the first step towards failure.