Kickstarter for commercial game licenses?

[Binky]

How easy would it be to provide a framework for running apps, but not bother with the android UI?

 

[Cyberworm]

Keep it mind that many apps are only available on the Google Play Store and for that the Pandora would need to have the Google Play Store app which requires licensing fees. Also the Pandora must comply to Google's guidelines to even be able to license the Google Play Store app.

 

[quartercast]

Ok. Well hopefully a kickstarter would cover licensing fees for that. Thanks, i'll look into it.


There are a few other appstores aren't there? I guess their selection wouldn't be as extensive.

 

[McLovin]

you could also backup a game purchased on your phone and copy it to the pandora. at least in some states, this would be another legal way to circumvent google play.

 

[spiralofhope]

I'm fairly negative about this idea.


I would strongly prefer raising money to improve the existing machine.


- The UI in general


- The kernel and underlying operating system software


- Pandora-specific randomness.


After that stuff, the emulators need to be properly ported to the Pandora.


- Their controls are all different, and should be exactly the same.


- The game loading interfaces and UI are generally crap.


Heck, an aluminium case, six action buttons, keyboard backlighting, improved wifi, 1GHz CPU, etc would have a lot of interest.


Or what if we look at the past Humble Bundle catalog, and review each of _those_ games to modify the controls to be Pandora-specific? Support indie developers and their cross-compatible games.


For me personally, I'm looking at funding bounties for various miscellaneous software improvements.


Yes there is a professional angle for funding high quality game porting, but there is something about staying very indie and amateur that appeals strongly to me.


oh, and *coughdreamcastcough*

 

[diligentcircle]

After that stuff, the emulators need to be properly ported to the Pandora.


- Their controls are all different, and should be exactly the same.

Actually, I'm not sure I agree with this point. Except for some things (like Space opening the menu), I think the controls should correspond with the standards of the consoles they try to emulate. It's really disorienting for the game to have completely different controls than the emulator (e.g. PCSX uses B select and X cancel, but U.S. games use X select and triangle cancel). Obviously, in cases like PSX where each region had a completely different standard, this could be difficult, but where possible it seems like the best choice.

 

[spiralofhope]

After that stuff, the emulators need to be properly ported to the Pandora.


- Their controls are all different, and should be exactly the same.

Actually, I'm not sure I agree with this point. Except for some things (like Space opening the menu), I think the controls should correspond with the standards of the consoles they try to emulate. It's really disorienting for the game to have completely different controls than the emulator (e.g. PCSX uses B select and X cancel, but U.S. games use X select and triangle cancel). Obviously, in cases like PSX where each region had a completely different standard, this could be difficult, but where possible it seems like the best choice.

I see your point.


Perhaps have trivially user-configurable mappings?

 

[Caine]

Actually, I'm not sure I agree with this point. Except for some things (like Space opening the menu), I think the controls should correspond with the standards of the consoles they try to emulate. It's really disorienting for the game to have completely different controls than the emulator (e.g. PCSX uses B select and X cancel, but U.S. games use X select and triangle cancel). Obviously, in cases like PSX where each region had a completely different standard, this could be difficult, but where possible it seems like the best choice.

I see your point.


Perhaps have trivially user-configurable mappings?

This has been discussed at length before (see e.g. this thead). Unfortunately, so far has happened with it. Ironically, the guihints---which were deemed to be lots of work at the time---have made quite a bit of progress.


[edit]Correction: control hints -> guihints, see post by Christoph.Krn below for details.[/edit]

 

[quartercast]

you could also backup a game purchased on your phone and copy it to the pandora. at least in some states, this would be another legal way to circumvent google play.

We could also have our own Android appstore much like the repo, and encourage devs/studios to upload their existing Android titles with a few changes to controls and screen res.


Pandora-optimized!

 

[Christoph.Krn]

In fact, I haven't seen any opposition at all to Android being available for the Pandora.

Here's some


[...]

Let's put Android on the Pandora. This way, we'd get commercial games, and at the same time, we'd have the benefit of 'no one' buying the Pandora because its uniqueness -- based on openness and independence -- would be pretty much gone. Don't let the Pandora 'compete' with the iCP.

This project Pandora could have so many unique things to offer. (In fact, it already does offer many unique things, which is what appears to have repeatedly kept it from dying ...which might or might not be relevant depending on definitions.)


That's why, in my post you've quoted, I continued by saying that I think it would make sense to use "something like Kickstarter to fund something like a project that aims to help people understand how to create good gameplay, and then make clear that the project's primary target platform is the Pandora(2)."


There are many freely available resources out there about how to program, but not so many about how to actually create good gameplay, and those that are are not very accessible to beginners (or at least I have never seen any such projects -- please correct me if such as thing exists!). OpenPandora ltd. (or any newly created company) would be able to initiate a project to create such resources, and make them available online for free, using both some own money as well as that from pledges.


That would be something unique. The Pandora has become successful on the basis of what Gamepark has done, which was to give their devices an open OS (even if they didn't know very well what they were doing) that gave people more freedom in what they could do with them. Google's Android with its Google Play is more of a content pipe for consuming things. It has a lot of games available right now, but it's not quite as open as Linux is. Like Cyberworm said, there are requirements that a Pandora 2 would have to comply with in order to gain access to the official Google Play store. VisionMobile's "Open Governance Index", which is a bit questionable at some points, states that Android is the least open of open source mobile platforms.


PS: Spamming a thread with repeated requests and numerous images in an attempt to 'convince'(?) people is, at the very least, very rude!


PPS: Here is the Android 4.0 CDD (PDF file)

After that stuff, the emulators need to be properly ported to the Pandora.

- Their controls are all different, and should be exactly the same.

This kind of standardization is apparently one of the things that are typically difficult to achieve on many openhandheld-devices. If you're interested in this kind of thing, please don't hesitate to give your comments on guihints over in the appropriate thread, if you have any.


edit:

Ironically, the control hints---which were deemed to be lots of work at the time---have made quite a bit of progress.

This is going a bit off-topic, but ...how is this ironic?

 

[diligentcircle]

That's why, in my post you've quoted, I continued by saying that I think it would make sense to use "something like Kickstarter to fund something like a project that aims to help people understand how to create good gameplay, and then make clear that the project's primary target platform is the Pandora(2)."


There are many freely available resources out there about how to program, but not so many about how to actually create good gameplay, and those that are are not very accessible to beginners (or at least I have never seen any such projects -- please correct me if such as thing exists!). OpenPandora ltd. (or any newly created company) would be able to initiate a project to create such resources, and make them available online for free, using both some own money as well as that from pledges.

Whoa, I must have missed that. That is an excellent idea. Heck, I'd be very interested in contributing to such a project (i.e. write some stuff for it) if I could.


There actually is some stuff like that, but it's for Game Maker, and Game Maker sucks.

 

[Caine]

edit:

Ironically, the control hints---which were deemed to be lots of work at the time---have made quite a bit of progress.

This is going a bit off-topic, but ...how is this ironic?

At the time I always considered the guihints to be the long-term and correct way to solve the control issues, while the button standardization/mapping would have been the quick fix. Fast forward to now and you have made great progress and the other idea none at all. I expected exactly the opposite.

 

[quartercast]

That's why, in my post you've quoted, I continued by saying that I think it would make sense to use "something like Kickstarter to fund something like a project that aims to help people understand how to create good gameplay, and then make clear that the project's primary target platform is the Pandora(2)."


There are many freely available resources out there about how to program, but not so many about how to actually create good gameplay, and those that are are not very accessible to beginners (or at least I have never seen any such projects -- please correct me if such as thing exists!). OpenPandora ltd. (or any newly created company) would be able to initiate a project to create such resources, and make them available online for free, using both some own money as well as that from pledges.

Your idea is interesting from an educational perspective, but I don't think it'll help the Pandora get excellent indie game content at any great rapidity. The Pandora is primarily a gaming device after all, and while playing around in a sandbox environment is fun as a hobby it doesn't fulfill the devices purpose. Unless the game itself is to create the game environment for you and others to play in, that's kinda cool.

PS: Spamming a thread with repeated requests and numerous images in an attempt to 'convince'(?) people is, at the very least, very rude!


PPS: Here is the Android 4.0 CDD (PDF file)

My apologies, I just wanted to inject some visual inspiration into this thread. And thanks for the link.


Edit: ah, that's helped me find the one I wanted, Android 2.3 CCD


http://source.android.com/compatibility/2.3/android-2.3.3-cdd.pdf

 

[notaz]

Edit: ah, that's helped me find the one I wanted, Android 2.3 CCD


http://source.androi...d-2.3.3-cdd.pdf

Device implementations MUST include an implementation of an decoder for each codec and format described in the table below.


[lots of proprietary formats]

Looks like pandora won't be ever able to comply without paying lots of licensing fees.

Alternate runtimes MUST NOT be launched with, be granted, or grant to other applications any privileges of the superuser (root), or of any other


user ID.

Which means it must be closed device, i.e. not pre-rooted by vendor, which is the opposite of what we try to do here.

 

[Christoph.Krn]

There actually is some stuff like that, but it's for Game Maker, and Game Maker sucks.

I was not able to find anything that would have been similar to the kind of thing I have in mind. One of us has probably misunderstood the other. Could you give me a pointer to what exactly you mean?

 

[diligentcircle]

There actually is some stuff like that, but it's for Game Maker, and Game Maker sucks.

I was not able to find anything that would have been similar to the kind of thing I have in mind. One of us has probably misunderstood the other. Could you give me a pointer to what exactly you mean?

Hm... I think I might have been talking out of my ass. Never mind.

 

[McLovin]

a donation-driven homebrew competition might turn out interesting.


Whatever amout get's raised, for example


1. 30%


2. 20%


3. 15%


4.-10. 5%


of the pot.

 

[quartercast]

Edit: ah, that's helped me find the one I wanted, Android 2.3 CCD


http://source.androi...d-2.3.3-cdd.pdf

Device implementations MUST include an implementation of an decoder for each codec and format described in the table below.


[lots of proprietary formats]

Looks like pandora won't be ever able to comply without paying lots of licensing fees.

That's an assumption, but you may well be correct.

Please note that neither Google nor the Open Handset Alliance make any representation that these codecs are unencumbered by third-party patents.
Those intending to use this source code in hardware or software products are advised that implementations of this code, including in open source


software or shareware, may require patent licenses from the relevant patent holders.

It says may require. I've tried googling about 10 mins but couldn't find any more info. A kickstarter would be planned to cover any such fees I guess.

Alternate runtimes MUST NOT be launched with, be granted, or grant to other applications any privileges of the superuser (root), or of any other


user ID.

Which means it must be closed device, i.e. not pre-rooted by vendor, which is the opposite of what we try to do here.

I don't know what you mean by "closed device", that's a bit of a generalization. People can root Android easily if they want to.


Pandaboard officially supports Angstrom, Ubuntu and Android, I don't see why we can't either.


http://pandaboard.or...ources/software

 

[Wrath Of Khan]

Maybe a kickstarter campaign for essential and professional software for the pandora 2 whatever that is deemed to be.It depends of course on what exactly the P2 is.A decent array of polished launch software for the p2 would increase sales of the p2 right out of the gate.Ed has mentioned that the p2 might use the same os but i guess it would have to be improved/altered to take advantage of the p2's capabilities.I guess the most important piece of software could be selected that would make faciliate or help the production of other projects or something.A high quality game or two should launch with the pandora 2 too as well imo.

 

[notaz]

I don't know what you mean by "closed device", that's a bit of a generalization. People can root Android easily if they want to.

Having to root open device kind of doesn't make much sense, does it?

Pandaboard officially supports Angstrom, Ubuntu and Android, I don't see why we can't either.

Yeah but does that have Google's blessing, can it run Market/Play out of the box? Even if it does, it doesn't mean much for us since we are not TI and google won't care about somebody as small as us, just like TI is treating us now (almost no help or support of any kind).