Community Paradigm Shift

[A_SN]

I dont understand, if the Pandora is about homebrew why would the homebrew be ported to the PC? It is like shooting yourself in the foot, but replacing the pistol with a nuclear bomb.

If we follow your logic, then Apple porting iTunes to Windows should be like crashing an asteroid in your foot, right? I mean, Steve Jobs can't possibly stupid enough to give away one of their best pieces of software to the concurrence and thus lose Mac sales to PCs because who won't buy Macs because they have iTunes on their PC. Same logic, right? And that kind of makes sense.

But Steve Jobs is everything but stupid. So why isn't giving iTunes away to PC users stupid? That's a real question, try thinking about it for a minute before proceeding.

That's because it actually draws more people to the Mac by showing them what kind of experience they get with all their software. It gives them a taste of the experience Apple provides on their computers. That's almost counter-intuitive, but it works. The same works here, with one more compelling reason. Instead of playing a game you like on PC, you play it on a machine that's no bigger than a DS, on the go, the very machine the game was designed for. That's a very compelling reason to buy this machine.

In a way your homebrew game on a PC is advertisement for your homebrew game on the Pandora.

 

[habib15]

But Steve Jobs is everything but stupid. So why isn't giving iTunes away to PC users stupid? That's a real question, try thinking about it for a minute before proceeding.

I doubt that bringing itunes to the PC did anything significant other than increase ipod sales.

But I agree with the cross platform application creation because it will strengthen Linux and the Pandora by creating more games, something that Linux needs is better commercial quality games.

 

[A_SN]

I doubt that bringing itunes to the PC did anything significant other than increase ipod sales.

Well the example also works with QuickTime Player 2.5, but that's older .

 

[Sphinxter]

Sounds good in theory but then Xmame must really keep those big cabinets flying off the shelves if that holds true, lets test it;

Q: Does the gp2x's emulation of <machine> make you happy playing it on your gp2x or does it make you want to go buy the machine being emulated?

 

[Exophase]

Q: Does the gp2x's emulation of <machine> make you happy playing it on your gp2x or does it make you want to go buy the machine being emulated?

We're talking about people who will want to play something on a handheld. As it is GP2X offers very little software that doesn't have an equal or better counterpart on PC, and yet people still feel like using theirs instead of a PC...

 

[Alex.]

99% of the people who would bother to check out PC builds of Pandora/GP2X software would already own the respective handheld to begin with. If certain games would lend themselves well from portable to desktop, I'm sure there would be a good chance for them to be ported over to be enjoyed by a larger audience. However, making this an unwritten standard for every app doesn't sound particularly useful, or exciting.

I also feel that having a piece of software exclusive to a certain platform, at least for a certain time, has something special about it. I enjoy playing Lacuna and GP32War on the GP32, and it feels good to know that those little gems are only to be found there.

 

[A_SN]

Q: Does the gp2x's emulation of <machine> make you happy playing it on your gp2x or does it make you want to go buy the machine being emulated?

The comparison doesn't work because the handheld version of something is obviously better than the living room version of it. If you can play something in the train and on your television, you won't buy something that can only do it on your television.

99% of the people who would bother to check out PC builds of Pandora/GP2X software would already own the respective handheld to begin with.

No, you don't get it, that's the thing. As of now it would be the case, but my idea consist in changing that, so that people who only have PCs would check those builds out just because they love good free homebrew games.

If certain games would lend themselves well from portable to desktop, I'm sure there would be a good chance for them to be ported over to be enjoyed by a larger audience. However, making this an unwritten standard for every app doesn't sound particularly useful, or exciting.

Such a short sight coming from someone who made such a successful game is pretty surprising. Did anyone port SQdef to Windows yet? No? Maybe that's because everybody who loves your game already has a GP2X. That's a case of the offer creating the demand, not the other way around. PC users will care about the PC version of SQdef if you release it and "market" it. The point of this entire thing is that as of now, if you want more than a handful of PC users to play it, it would take quite a personal communication effort.

With the proposed shift, people merely interested in PC homebrew games will easily hear about your game, but also much less popular but nonetheless interesting games. Again, I don't mean to sound insulting, but that's quite short-sighted to insist on restricting your audience to the few owners of a very specific machine, and I can't explain myself why you wouldn't want to reach out to the other people who would be interested in your games. Imagine a 10-fold increased audience, with all the additional input and contributions it represents. It is possible if we abandon that "gaming ghetto" mentality that consists in ignoring and not trying to reach out to anything that's out of this community.

 

[Yrx]

This entire idea with drawing customers to Pandora by giving them the same experience on PC doesn't work. If people don't want to buy a portable system, now they won't have any incentive to. Of course, this depends on the quality of the game and whether people would actually buy a $330 device just to play homebrew. It's not a bad idea, and it would be nice to have the same apps on PC, but I doubt it would help Pandora at all.

 

[A_SN]

I doubt it would help Pandora at all.

Who cares, it's all about the homebrew devs enlarging their audience and accessorily the community itself opening up.

 

[aatu]

I doubt it would help Pandora at all.

Who cares, it's all about the homebrew devs enlarging their audience and accessorily the community itself opening up.

Ok, maybe I'm missing something:
You don't care whether it helps Pandora or not... So why then? Isn't it already up to the devs to decide whether they want to port their apps or not? What has stopped them from doing that before? If they yearned for larger audience, they probably would have ported them. Or if the larger audience is the main point, they probably would make homebrew to some other platform...

On the contrary, I think that if the ones NOT interested in this are "forcibly" encouraged to port to other platforms, it might bring some unwanted elements to the mix (=fear of extra work), and they could drop their projects before they even started. And that would be bad.
Yes, I know that someone else could do the porting and thus minimizing extra work, but if you wanted bigger audience, would you be willing to give your work to someone else to handle?

Furthermore, this would basically lead Pandora devs to use more of their time towards PC homebrew apps/games (or porting to it), which they could alternatively use to focus more on the Pandora.

So, as an answer to "Who cares": quite a few people, and I think so should you.

 

[JakeK]

I dont understand, if the Pandora is about homebrew why would the homebrew be ported to the PC? It is like shooting yourself in the foot, but replacing the pistol with a nuclear bomb.

If we follow your logic, then Apple porting iTunes to Windows should be like crashing an asteroid in your foot, right? I mean, Steve Jobs can't possibly stupid enough to give away one of their best pieces of software to the concurrence and thus lose Mac sales to PCs because who won't buy Macs because they have iTunes on their PC. Same logic, right? And that kind of makes sense.

But Steve Jobs is everything but stupid. So why isn't giving iTunes away to PC users stupid? That's a real question, try thinking about it for a minute before proceeding.

That's because it actually draws more people to the Mac by showing them what kind of experience they get with all their software. It gives them a taste of the experience Apple provides on their computers. That's almost counter-intuitive, but it works. The same works here, with one more compelling reason. Instead of playing a game you like on PC, you play it on a machine that's no bigger than a DS, on the go, the very machine the game was designed for. That's a very compelling reason to buy this machine.

In a way your homebrew game on a PC is advertisement for your homebrew game on the Pandora.


iTunes (IMO is shit software anyway) and Pandora homebrew aren't the same in the way we are talking about. iTunes isn't software that attracts people to the Mac, I've never heard of that sort of reason before. iTunes has all to do with iPods.

Let me explain. A dev makes an excellent game/software/emu for the Pandora, so all the people that own a Pandora download it to use it. Now the Pandora can kind of boast of having this piece of excellent software. If you port this to the PC the Pandora can no longer boast about this software as it is now not exclusive. Less reasons for someone to buy the Pandora (in the way they now do not need a Pandora to play that software).

Just being a portable handheld with gaming capabilities and laptop features isn't the only thing that the Pandora needs to use to sell it. Having exculsive software to it attracts more people. By putting it on the PC it alllows the "Well now I don't need a Pandora to play these games/use software since I can play it on the PC" crowd. Yeah yeah I know all about the handheld features to attract people but the Pandora needs more things to attract people to buy it.

If you put the game on PC it isn't an advertisement for it on the Pandora as they already have it on the PC.

This is backward thinking.

*High fives aatu for what he said*

 

[A_SN]

Ok, maybe I'm missing something:
You don't care whether it helps Pandora or not... So why then? Isn't it already up to the devs to decide whether they want to port their apps or not? What has stopped them from doing that before? If they yearned for larger audience, they probably would have ported them. Or if the larger audience is the main point, they probably would make homebrew to some other platform...

Damnit, why don't you just read my posts? Like I said many times before sure we have PC builds for our apps BUT WHO THE HELL IS GONNA PLAY THEM??? Oh sure if we make a dedicated website and advertise our games, sure, but no-one's gonna go through that hassle for every hippopotamusing game they make. That's why we (me and whoever supports the idea) wish the community to open up so that we can reach out to more people.

On the contrary, I think that if the ones NOT interested in this are "forcibly" encouraged to port to other platforms, it might bring some unwanted elements to the mix (=fear of extra work), and they could drop their projects before they even started. And that would be bad.

Pfffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffft. Right. Best piece of FUD of the day. You're obviously not a homebrew dev. We ALL have PC builds of our games, what do you think, that everytime we compile and test while we're deving we're doing it everytime on the GP2X? Not really, we do that every once in a while to make sure things still work smoothly over there but when we add feature we test all straight on the PC. So pretty much all the work is done on that side. We're just never releasing them because we have no where to put them. I mean sure we could put them up on the archive, but we know nobody's gonna care about them. Besides do you think we'd be happy to do the little bit of extra work to have nice PC builds if we know even more people are gonna play them? Besides if you could be discouraged by some unsignifying crap like that, provided that you would even care rather than just ignore it, you're probably not even gonna make anything as good as a pong to begin with.

I hate it when enthusiasts who don't know crap about game development act like they know better than us and feel concerned by stuff we don't even think about. Look at who supports my idea. And look at why they support my idea. Besides we don't really care what you guys think, it's not like it's something that really affects you, it affects us homebrew devs a lot, not really you.

(05/04/08: Edited for language - Tobriand)

 

[Yrx]

iTunes (IMO is shit software anyway) and Pandora homebrew aren't the same in the way we are talking about. iTunes isn't software that attracts people to the Mac, I've never heard of that sort of reason before. iTunes has all to do with iPods.

Let me explain. A dev makes an excellent game/software/emu for the Pandora, so all the people that own a Pandora download it to use it. Now the Pandora can kind of boast of having this piece of excellent software. If you port this to the PC the Pandora can no longer boast about this software as it is now not exclusive. Less reasons for someone to buy the Pandora (in the way they now do not need a Pandora to play that software).

Just being a portable handheld with gaming capabilities and laptop features isn't the only thing that the Pandora needs to use to sell it. Having exculsive software to it attracts more people. By putting it on the PC it alllows the "Well now I don't need a Pandora to play these games/use software since I can play it on the PC" crowd. Yeah yeah I know all about the handheld features to attract people but the Pandora needs more things to attract people to buy it.

If you put the game on PC it isn't an advertisement for it on the Pandora as they already have it on the PC.

This is backward thinking.


As I mentioned before, I doubt anyone is going to spend $330 for just a few homebrew games that they couldn't have otherwise...

I don't think porting applications to PC would help or hurt Pandora. It would just be nice to have. Not quite a paradigm shift, though.

 

[A_SN]

If you put the game on PC it isn't an advertisement for it on the Pandora as they already have it on the PC.

Oh yeah? If so why do people buy GP2Xs to play the same hippopotamusing emulations and games they can play on their PC? Why? Cause it's hippopotamusing portable, that's why! You wouldn't care about a machine that can emulate Atari 2600 games if you've never played a single Atari 2600 game before, right? But you have played Atari 2600 games before. Not that you ever owned an Atari 2600 before. You just played the hippopotamusing thing on your goddamn PC. You play something on your PC, you like it, so when you find out that the same thing can be played on a handheld console you buy it because you think that would be hippopotamusing cool.

Same thing here. People won't buy the Pandora for its original homebrew games. Unless they can try these games before. Same. Fucking. Thing (as the Atari 2600 analogy).

(05/04/08: Edited for language - Tobriand)

 

[JakeK]

I had a chuckle at the use of 'hippopotamus' all the time.

If people with not much money see the Pandora games on the PC why would they attempt to fork out 400 bucks for something where the software is ported onto PC. They aren't going to say" Shit this an awesome homebrew game, I am gonna hop online buy a $400 handheld so I can play it on the go."

Like I said, more exculsive things to the Pandora the more people it will attract, more reasons to buy the Pandora. Exclusitivity works with everything.

*snip*

As I mentioned before, I doubt anyone is going to spend $330 for just a few homebrew games that they couldn't have otherwise...

I don't think porting applications to PC would help or hurt Pandora. It would just be nice to have. Not quite a paradigm shift, though.


That's wonderful, now make a comment that is actually relevant to my post.

Edit: Maybe if I said 'hippopotamus' more my argument may have been better :rollseyes:

 

[A_SN]

I had a chuckle at the use of 'fuck' all the time.

If people with not much money see the Pandora games on the PC why would they attempt to fork out 400 bucks for something where the software is ported onto PC. They aren't going to say" Shit this an awesome homebrew game, I am gonna hop online buy a $400 handheld so I can play it on the go."

Hippopotamusing right. Cause if you're this tight on your money then you're totally gonna buy this expensive console so you can play games you never played before. That logic doesn't work. However my logic works for people who aren't too tight on their money, which is pretty much everyone who's gonna buy a Pandora.

Besides, you know there's going to be Quake III on it, you know that? Exciting, isn't it? But you wouldn't find it quite as exciting if you had never played it, despite the fact that it's unequivocally an awesome game? Same logic for anything else. You don't give a crap unless you either have played the games before, or that there's lots of coverage and hype in the press about the games in question, which is impossible to a certain extent regarding homebrew games.

EDIT : You guys who are against this idea focus a lot on the claim that this will be good for Pandora sales. I'd just like to recall that this is not at all the point of this suggestion which is to open up this community and enlarge it by making abstraction on hardware and focus more on our beloved homebrew games. Increased publicity is just a virtuous side effect that's not that important.

Oh and Jakek, if you "support good grammar", that's "Don't", not "Dont".

(05/04/08: Only slightly edited for language - Tobriand)

 

[Tinnus]

My opinion on that, honestly, is that a bigger community brings more people, including more idiots. Just look at the PSP scene. The Pandora/GP2X are niche devices, and create niche communities where people are more or less civilized. If this becomes a general homebrew/free games forum, Stupid People ™ WILL start to become part of the community and spoil it.

I'd rather create another website or something.

 

[Chip]

If you want to create a cross-platform gaming website, by all means do it. Several devs seem to be on board with the idea, so run with it. Maybe you'll turn some heads in the PC indie gaming community.

If you do go ahead with the project though, I would suggest you do it with a little more professionalism than you've shown here. Ranating and raving at anybody who doesn't agree that your idea is the greatest thing since sliced bread is not going to win you many converts. All it really does is make you sound like an angry child.

 

[A_SN]

If you do go ahead with the project though, I would suggest you do it with a little more professionalism than you've shown here. Ranating and raving at anybody who doesn't agree that your idea is the greatest thing since sliced bread is not going to win you many converts. All it really does is make you sound like an angry child.

Gosh. Oh darn. Forgot what I was going to say there for a moment. Err... "lol lol lol" - was that it?

(05/04/08: Edited for general malignance - Tobriand)

 

[Exophase]

If people with not much money see the Pandora games on the PC why would they attempt to fork out 400 bucks for something where the software is ported onto PC. They aren't going to say" Shit this an awesome homebrew game, I am gonna hop online buy a $400 handheld so I can play it on the go."

Certainly they might. At least people who do have money might. Just because someone has money doesn't mean they will buy things without second thought.

If someone is interested in the Pandora for its games then having the ability to play the games before buying could persuade them to buy it, especially if they're on the fence about it.

This isn't a PSP/DS, the audience will be much closer to GP2X. And no one buys a GP2X so they can play things they've never played before on it. If exclusive content was that mandatory NO ONE would own a GP2X.

Chip; You haven't been watching A_SN for very long have you ;p

Not like he's pitching this to a company board. Who needs professionalism on a forum? c_c