Financial Support For Gp2x/pandora Developers

[BadAstronaut]

One way to perhaps see a very high quality of apps, games, ports and emulators for the GP2X and Pandora would be if end-users adopted a more giving mindset to the homebrew developers, in the sense that the motivation to develop better code, artwork and so forth becomes that much greater once your labour is being rewarded with money. It's just a simple fact about human beings...

So, if someone comes forward and says "I can spend three months developing a Nintendo 64 emulator for Pandora. I am certain I can get it to work but it will be a lot of effort and require a full time project, so who is going to support me in this endeavor?"

Then, the dev sets a target amount for donations and people who would definitely use the finished product must simply donate what they feel it is worth to them. If someone is going to create something which adds as much value to your life as a $30 or $40 game for any of the other console systems would, why should we shy away from being prepared to pay those amounts? It would take only a thousand people donating $10, or five hundred people donating $20, to bring in $10k, which should easily be more than enough to support the average homebrew developer for a couple of months.

This is just one idea, and of course a lot of details would need to be fleshed out. For example, a dev may be required to release an early beta to prove that he is serious about the project, and for others to guage his or her coding competence? If people like what they see, they throw some money at the dev. This is not to replace programming 'for the love of the code', and I really hope this thread doesn't degenerate into some kind of discussion of how this would be a perversion of what it means to be open source, and so on. Rather, I am asking you to look at it from the perspective that humans have certain needs that must be fulfilled, nearly all of which are aided by being financially secure, and why not have development for GP2X/Pandora as your livelihood, if you are good enough?

There are definitely some emulators and ports that I would pay to have on my GP2X F-200, and I am rewarding, through voluntary donation, the hardworking developers for their time. The devs may not demand payment, and may not prevent anyone from downloading what they have produced, sure. But us end users could sure as hell be a little more willing to support those people whose efforts add so much to our enjoyment of these handheld consoles.

Although I am very keen to hear end-users' feelings towards donating for their favourite homebrew software, I would also be very interested to hear from the developers: would/do donations make much of a difference to you? Would a more organised donation making/tracking system help you out? etc

 

[quasist]

Just improve "bounty" system, there will appear hundreds of heatless murderers... I mean homebrew developers

 

[don]

I was just about to shout "first sensible thread in ages!" when I read about the N64 emu idea. Let me put it this way - not that you'd get instant wealth by releasing an emulator to the so called community, but you're definitely on the brighter side of homebrew life. While I'm no emulation fan, I respect the work that goes into an emulator as much as I respect the work going into a homebrew game. Therefore, I think the donations towards emulator authors/porters are well justified. The main thing that's going wrong with donations, apart from emulation, there's hardly any at all. Looking at the posts going on in the pandora department shows that people are waiting for emulation in the very first place, followed by ports, and after that, for ports of wellknown PC applications. I haven't read any posts (well, could be my selective reading, but there certainly aren't a lot) discussing possibilities for homebrew games. Pandora offers a great range of new and exciting features that could go into homebrew gaming. Think about the two analog knobs, a wonderful thing if you consider 'Geometry Wars' remakes. Touchpad, Keyboard... offering great possibilities for adventures or even new gaming ideas like the ones that made the NDS big.
To a certain extent I can understand that people aren't too keen on homebrew, the way we know it today, mostly those are simple games with often rather simple graphics. But ask yourself, how is a homebrew games developer supposed to be motivated if all you get is a very small amount of feedback, and when you're asking for help (say, in the gfx department) it's always the same few people who're helping out? Personally, I'm convinced it doesn't take much to make an ordinary homebrew game into a great one, but if a developer never gets feedback, attention or donations, why should he put the extra effort in his work?
A lot of the homebrew games developers in the gamepork dev channels on efnet are rather tired these days. It's not so much the lack of donations (even though a donation of only $1 or $2 would show some appreciation for the work done), it's mostly the lack of motivation since there's literally no support from the community (there are some exceptions however, when games either are remakes of very popular games and/or very polished, good examples are Alex' tower defense and ruckage's games). After all, it's the distinct games that make a console history, not the emulation, IMHO.
So, each time someone tells me how much he enjoyed a homebrew game, and i ask: did you donate to the author, i get replies like "I don't have any spare money!". I doubt that $2 or maybe 2e donated to your personal homebrew dev of the month makes anyone poor. That might sound like a very small amount, but if only 10 people donate $2 to one dev, he can buy a few beers or some candy, or anything that makes him feel good for being appreciated.
Of course, there'll always be someone who will release a homebrew game, even if there's no feedback and no donations at all, but if you want a steady stream of new releases, try to encourage the developers by any means possible for you. Next time someone releases a homebrew game on gp32x.de, give him a 'thank you' for his work. The forums are stuffed with posts, some people have thousands of posts in their count, so give some feedback and thanks to the people who are part of a hopefully soon to be vibrant scene of homebrew games. If you don't like a game, don't be all "what a shitty game this is...", try to figure out what could be better. If you have skills to offer, like, drawing nicer graphics, fixing gameplay mechanics... do so! If you help the devs, you'll end up with better homebrew games! It's a different thing to commercial game scenes, so don't consume, contribute!

 

[synkro]

oh fuck, no one is going to read that wall of text.

 

[trooper]

oh fuck, no one is going to read that wall of text.

That was a well thought out and constructive reply, And a valid contribution to this thread.

Maybe we should have more contributions like this from other member of this community.

Trooper

 

[synkro]

Okay, now that I read it... This discussion is indeed old but still the problem persists. People tend to say thart it is all a matter of money. I still believe most people do homebrew for themself, the achievment and "fame" from the community. It's not the money but the tone when hombrew is recieved, a nice complementing and support email is worth more than any $2 donation. It's simple, something everybody can do.

 

[BadAstronaut]

I was just about to shout "first sensible thread in ages!" when I read about the N64 emu idea.

Thanks for your response. The N64 thing, though, really was just a random emulator off the top of my head. You can substitute that for whatever you want.

I think perhaps there should be some kind of management system in place, and that people are encouraged more to donate - not by developers begging for money, but rather just a change in the whole approach to donating. Like you say, whether you give $2 or $20, with a community this size, it all adds up. MAME has seen a massive number of downloads, and if everyone had just given $1, it would come to a pretty respectable amount indeed.

 

[Orkie]

I think the problem is that most GP2X owners are quite tightfisted and think that they are entitled to stuff for free since they have already bought the machine. This is likely due to the way the hardware is advertised ("everything is free!") and a lot of people seem to have this subconscious feeling that people enjoy slaving away for hours at something, irrespective of whether anybody bothers to comment on it or not. Developers here are treated as a commodity for some reason.

 

[b._.o._.b]

I can't remember one example of a successful bounty. Developers are more likely to do things they like to do in their free time. The few bucks that a bounty can generate will not win them over.
Donating when a project is done is a better motivator imo.

 

[don]

There has hardly been any bounties in the past, so "they don't work! devs choose what they want to do themselves!" is a nice excuse for being cheap. If there were proper bounties, not something like 30 quid for a work of multiple weeks, I can see them working.

 

[iprice]

As a freeware developer for years I would have to say I do it for the love, not the money (which is just as well, because, well, I've never received any! ).

However, feedback is free, but quite often even that is not forthcoming. It takes someone just a few seconds to say thanks, but rarely do they even bother. At least with negative feedback or bug reports you know someone is playing your game. It's not the same as a "thankyou" but it's still important to know that your effort hasn't been wasted.

At the moment I'm developing a game for the GP2X for the GLBasic competition, and while there is a prize at the end of it, if I had done overtime in my real-life job, for the same amount of time I'd been developing this game, I could have bought all the prizes several times over and a few more. But I'm doing it for the love. Win or lose, I will continue developing - for GP2X and other systems.

People rarely even respect the time you put into a project. And that's not just here on this site, that's everywhere. We live in a society where everyone expects to get everything for free (even stuff that isn't) and even if something is actually free, then it's just tossed aside as it has no value.

And that's a real shame that taking a few seconds out of your life, to say something to someone that spent hours doing something for others, is so difficult.

 

[Game_over]

Well said. Couldn't say it better myself.

 

[Exophase]

Gather $10k and someone is definitely at the very least going to try to do an N64 emulator. Even I would do one for that kind of money.

However, I think there's a serious ethical problem with this. I say this because I know for sure that when it comes to N64 emulation what you'll be seeing is a port. Although some of the work would have to be original a great deal of it wouldn't be. This is exactly what happened with a bounty for N64 emulation on XBox that reached in excess of $2000 (far off from the big figures you're talking about, but still a decent amount). In this case, I think some of the money might have been given to the original authors. But there's no way to guarantee this.

The only way for this to really work and still be fair is for it to be a competition where the first one to meet the agreed upon goals gets the money, and not based on an exclusive contract for whoever signs up first. In this case the very few people who would be compelled to write their own emulator wouldn't stand a chance against the people who were porting. They could take twice as long but release an emulator that's twice as good - they'll still get none of the pot.

 

[BadAstronaut]

In this case the very few people who would be compelled to write their own emulator wouldn't stand a chance against the people who were porting.

Perhaps the solution should be that rather than bounties, people should just be a little more giving with their money. Then, whoever produces an excellent piece of work receives 'thank yous' via paypal. No contracts, no obligations, no nothing - just individuals willing to give $10 or $20 or whatever. If people really started weighing up the opportunity costs of these small donations, and realise that the motivating effect it could have for devs who suddenly find themselves with a couple extra thousand (or even if it is only a couple extra hundred so that they can buy an F-200 and code in touch-screen support, or whatever.

Furthermore, perhaps using N64 as an example was a poor choice. It really was just completely at random, I don't really care whether or not we see N64 emulation on a handheld in the near future. I should have just said DOSBox, which *is* something I would like to see a much better port of on the GP2X

 

[woogal]

Many homebrew developers earn a good wage in their day job so a few extra $ doesn't really make much difference, but constructive feedback will do more to encourage a dev to improve a piece of software than any donation ever could. It's just unfortunate that the majority of gp2x users seem to enjoy bitching rather than helping (anyone else miss the old gp32 days, when people got excited about new games?). And don't even get me started on the whinging pandora fans that are happy to spend hours arguing over what is the best screen resolution for emulation, instead of getting excited about what the future of portable gaming may hold. If the pandora is going to end up being a 99% emulation scene then count me out. I'm probably off to Windows Mobile, where people seem grateful for little games that waste a few minutes here and there.

 

[Iorgy77]

I donate to projects I am interested in and will use, many have floundered and died off far from completion but it was still worth it. Least I can do to show my appreciation. I do try to provide feedback for games that arent just remakes of flash web games (remember the gp32 days?) Remakes of retro games and original games get most of my attention. Never been a big fan of puzzle games and that seems to be the majority. I am mostly into emulators though and I admit it. It is the reason I got a gp32 and then a gp2x. For me homebrew games are just a great bonus.

If the pandora doesnt have fantastic emulators as well as homebrew games I wont buy one. No reason to really. Homebrew games are on everything. PSP, DS, PPC, ZOD, GP32, GP2X etc..

tl:dr - gimmie something worth donating for and I will, cant speak for the rest on here.

 

[JakeK]

I seriously doubt that over time good emulators would not be made for the Pandora. Too much power to throw away .

 

[dodgyville]

There's not much extra effort making a polished homebrew game into a commercial independent game. I did it with retrovirus RTS.

If you want people to give you money for your game, charge them money for it. If you think your time and effort is worth money, then you need to charge accordingly. If you don't think your time and effort is worth money, then no-one else will either. A fundamental mistake some sellers make is to value their product too cheaply.

However, people are used to simple "sell/buy" transactions they have with big shops and companies. That does not work for indie developers. You need people to understand that they are not just exchanging money for a game, they are supporting another person like them to make bigger and better games in the future. They are not your buyers, they are your PATRONS (look it up), and I mean that in a very 16th century way. A good way to promote the patron-like nature of your project is to give them credit in the game, or access to special features, etc. I'm terrible at this aspect of the business.

Honestly, it's not too difficult to bundle your game up into an online store. The tricky part is finishing a game (polish, bugs, testing, menus, artwork, etc). The tricky part is also marketing. Actually, the tricky part is making a game people will want to play. Hmm, it's all tricky really...

There won't be any real commercial games for pandora because homebrew games are way down on the list of priorities of the system. Emulating consoles, emulating PC games, ports of existing software are all waaaay above unique stuff for the system, which I understand is necessary but a bit of a pity.

 

[yodaofborg]

I donate to projects that I enjoy. I've also bought every commercial title for my GP2X, just to show support to the people who have bothered to make a commercial quality title.

I tend to use emulators on my GP2X more than anything else, but that does not stop me trying to show support and gratitude to homebrew games devs.

 

[Chip]

If the pandora is going to end up being a 99% emulation scene then count me out.

I certainly hope not. Quality homebrew games are what really define a system.

The percentage of homebrew vs ports vs emulation really depends on developers like you. If all the devs say "There's no original games on Pandora, so I'm not going to bother" then it ends up being a self fulfilling prophecy. Maybe Pandora will end up being primarily an emulation/UMPC system, but it would be an unfortunate outcome.

QUOTE
It's just unfortunate that the majority of gp2x users seem to enjoy bitching rather than helping (anyone else miss the old gp32 days, when people got excited about new games?). And don't even get me started on the whinging pandora fans that are happy to spend hours arguing over what is the best screen resolution for emulation, instead of getting excited about what the future of portable gaming may hold.


That's the entire reason I stopped reading these forums several years ago. Everything got very negative and many people started feeling entitled to things they should have been grateful for. As to the "noise" in the Pandora forums, I think it will subside a few months after release. There are a lot of excited kids there now because they are under the impression they will be playing online multiplayer Mario Kart 64 the week of release. Hopefully when that doesn't happen they will either adjust their expectations or go away.

I for one am very excited about the future of portable gaming. The Pandora project brought me back the the forums because I can see so much potential in a system with that many input options and that much power. Just because I don't post "OMGZORS P&|A HOMEBREW FTW!!!" doesn't mean the excitement isn't there. It just means I have a bit more restraint than the ones posting "OMGZORS EMUL8ORS FTW!!!". It's the common problem of those with the least to say, saying it the loudest.