Release Angry Birds for Pandora

[gadgetoid]

I sent an email to Rovio. Gmail, which I insist on using, is well known for arriving in spam inboxes however.


I had to represent the mods; pointing out that we're making every effort to quash the posting of links to the "questionable" port.


Anyway, I think I've got a hat to eat.

 

[fusion_power]

I hope you also praised the Pandora in your Mail and showed how well Angry Birds would fit on this little Gem of Handheld.

 

[StreaK]

any news?

 

[EvilDragon]

Oh, yes.


I got reply from Rovio.


The port is not from them and should therefore not be distributed.


They didn't reply to my question if there was some way to legalize it or not, so I guess it was just a standard reply

 

[SavageMind]

Ding! Another corporation brush off! It's too bad people forget where the came from. :blink:

 

[Caine]

Did you expect a different outcome? Oh well, their loss.

 

[StreaK]

Oh, well... in this case, i'll welcome another *unofficial* port from ROVIO then..


I hate when big corpo's forgetting its roots. They really should release it for free for OP [or release proper port for $..].

 

[fusion_power]

Oh, yes.


I got reply from Rovio.


The port is not from them and should therefore not be distributed.


They didn't reply to my question if there was some way to legalize it or not, so I guess it was just a standard reply

Don't give up!


A Pandora Port wouldn't hurt them...they not even had to spent a minute for porting, since it already exists. All they would get is a little bit more Money, so I see no reason why they should be against Angry Birds on the Pandora.

 

[F_Slim]

All they would get is a little bit more Money, so I see no reason why they should be against Angry Birds on the Pandora.

From a money making company standpoint of view: they probably have no clear idea what this "Pandora" thing is, and "open" sounds scary as well. Probably some dumb people would actually manage to not make it not run and bother with mails for support - support which nobody from the company can give, since nobody has one of these strange "Pandora" things. On the other hand a .PND is the easiest thing to distribute illegaly, and it takes almost no effort to take it apart and rip the content back to whatever cellphone-OS (and maybe others) it was ripped from in the first place.


Considering that there is probably only very few bucks to be made from those few people that actually own one of these strange devices nobody has ever heard of and at the same time are still willing to pay for the game (which most of the people that might be interested probably already have the stolen version of on their whatever-storage-that-device-has) ... meh, why bother? Illegal port, stop it, have no time, must count all the money from the millions and gazillions of smartphone users throwing it at me ...


come to think of it ... I should make a smartphone-app, too ... the simpler the better, as long as the grafics are polished enough it could be a "watch the grass growing" app and people would buy it!


[Disclaimer: if somebody should try to steal my idea and actually make a "watch the grass growing" app, I am entitled to at least 40% of the profit.]

 

[skeezix]

Actually the way things work is .. in a corporate environment, it is cost vs benefit, and we're really just talking about 'risk' here.


Well, of course, they probably never heard of Pandora at all, so thats first problem


But after that its .. amoutn of $ to be made (== irrelevent) compared to risk (brand problems if its not a good solid port, support issues from peopel calling them up and them not knowing what the customer is talking about, and risk .. what if this thing is trojaned or causes harm, or sends out spam? big liability problems for them to endorse it.)


So really, they're not going to touch it, unless they port it themselves. And they'd view that as a big expense to do it 'right'.


So.. cost versus risk?


Thats wht the big guys don't talk to the little guys. Their costs are high, and risk aversion is important for big brands.


Little guys have smaller costs, and risk doesn't hurt them much.


jeff

 

[Stradian]

Rovio: We promote innovation only within the company's money stream.

 

[Galaxis]

Isn't the much more interesting question (don't really care for Angry Birds), how this port was done, and if it's possible to bring other (Android?) games to the Pandora in a similar way?

 

[milkshake]

what you mean illegally?

 

[Galaxis]

what you mean illegally?

Depends on license, no?

 

[Grench]

Oh, yes.


I got reply from Rovio.


The port is not from them and should therefore not be distributed.


They didn't reply to my question if there was some way to legalize it or not, so I guess it was just a standard reply

Change tactics.


When Roku was coming out with a new line of HDMI set top boxes they included a gaming remote and a "free" copy of Angry Birds with the top of the line unit.


http://shop.roku.com/


So... clearly they are not opposed to licensing their product to device manufacturers for bundle inclusion.


Maybe you should tell them that you're a device manufacturer wanting to include Angry Birds on your platform for free or reduced cost in order to sell more devices?

 

[fusion_power]

On the other hand a .PND is the easiest thing to distribute illegaly, and it takes almost no effort to take it apart and rip the content back to whatever cellphone-OS (and maybe others) it was ripped from in the first place.

The Pandora uses SD Cards. This stands for SECURE DIGITAL and means a built in DRM security mechanism. Somehow this could be useful.


But it would not even be needed. They could bind their games to an online registration thingy like many other Companies use where you can download the game fro free but to use it, you have to pay a code for activation or stuff like this.


There are always ways if they just want.


But first at all, it would be a good idea to take away the possible fear of the Pandora, that these Companies may have. We have to convince them that the Pandora can be a very good and helpful friend.

 

[WizardStan]

Isn't the much more interesting question (don't really care for Angry Birds), how this port was done, and if it's possible to bring other (Android?) games to the Pandora in a similar way?

Angry Birds uses the NDK, just a java wrapper around a native library. This port of Angry Birds is similarly just a wrapper around that same native library, which works because of the similar hardware. In theory, a similar thing could be done for other Android apps which use the NDK, provided they don't do anything fancy in their startups and just hand it off to the library. Anything application that makes extensive use of the virtual machine (ie, almost all of them) will not be so easy.

 

[Jourdy288]

Oh, yes.


I got reply from Rovio.


The port is not from them and should therefore not be distributed.


They didn't reply to my question if there was some way to legalize it or not, so I guess it was just a standard reply

Change tactics.


When Roku was coming out with a new line of HDMI set top boxes they included a gaming remote and a "free" copy of Angry Birds with the top of the line unit.


http://shop.roku.com/


So... clearly they are not opposed to licensing their product to device manufacturers for bundle inclusion.


Maybe you should tell them that you're a device manufacturer wanting to include Angry Birds on your platform for free or reduced cost in order to sell more devices?

I like this idea. A lot.


If that fails, we pull something along the lines of Op. Rainfall. Even if we fail, we fought, and that's what counts.


WHO'S WITH ME?!


Come think of it I'm not sure if I'm with me. Regardless, I like the idea.

 

[gadgetoid]

Angry Birds ultimately isn't anything special. It's just a combination of the Box 2D engine, and pictures of birds.


They had decent artists, and a decent sound designer, and that's what really *made* Angry Birds the success it is today.


If we want Angry Birds on the Pandora, it's logical just to clone it. Then we can add in more interesting stuff, such as multiplayer VS and a level designer.


I'd like to bring attention to a fledgling concept, Mogs VS Dogs: http://pandorawiki.org/MogsVsDogs which sought to do just this, but has not yet amounted to much.

 

[fusion_power]

They had decent artists, and a decent sound designer, and that's what really *made* Angry Birds the success it is today.

The Art is really professional, I like the look, the Paralax Scrolling and the smooth zooming. Not to forget, it has real physics, which maybe is not that easy to clone. ^^