Marketing Idea

[ekianjo]

Maybe a quake handheld console can change his mind. and the steam box is going to released which will use linux too.

Carmack has seen his software ported on tons on stuff that's not even gaming related, (like calculators). I doubt he would be impressed by anything at this stage.

And the steambox... to be released "when it's done ?". Valve is famous to be super late in delivering things, I don't think they are anywhere ready to get the Steam box out. And honestly I don't see how they can use only Linux on it, since currently the Linux games offering is still very limited on Steam. It just would not make sense at this stage. And running stuff through Wine would be a true headache, because there are always a few incompatibilities here and there, even if it's just in small details.  

There is probably an oportunity here, because mobile device had never be good FPS contender. But if you want to advertise the Pandora has a good (the best) mobile device for FPS, you better do it fast before the Shield fill the gap.

It's probably already too late The shield has media attention that the Pandora cannot expect to get. 

 

[rohezal]

So what to do?

Send Carmack (who ported stuff himself for mobiles, he said it was fun) a Pandora to play?

Write admins of boads about the Pandora and offer them to test a Pandora for a  month?

Make a tournament and ask the boards to use a banner for it?

Go to the big boards and write a post about the Pandora and that people can frag to go?

To be honest I won't do anything, I just want to tell my idea.

I worked on an other project. Our userbase doubled when household hacker on youtube did a review of our game. Maybe send him a pandora for trying?

 

[KickAss]

another idea:
gamescom will start soon. the pandora will be there, as will many interesting ppl. instead of just advertising the console on it's own stand, some volunteers could bring the console to other stands in ppl's hands and take pictures.
i'm not talking about abusing other stands in general, but addressing well chosen individuals directly:
"oh hey there mr. x, im a big fan! btw may i occupy 2 min. of your valuable time and introduce you to the open pandora here. it's a fully open community built, financed and supported gaming and versatile linux handheld that i'm sure you'll fall in love with, once you had it in your hands. here check it out. you don't mind us taking pictures of you holding it, do you? great! SNAP!"

i'd try to do that.

 

[rohezal]

Maybe do a Christmas Sale. The sunday before christmas (and only this day) 20% off the Pandora price. I know this may sound stupid, but thinks like improve the sales a lot. Maybe limit it to: the first 20 Pandoras which are sold at this day, are 20% off (or the first 10 Pandoras are 1/3 of). You get a lot of customers who will try to be in the first 10 percent. And this way get a lot of attention. Some companies offer limited groupons with 50% off. No real profit from the sales, but a lot more people know about the shop when the word spreads.

 

[ekianjo]

there are many other things one could do for Marketing :

- Anniversary sales (this is the xth Anniversary of the Pandora - get 10% off today or something else to make it special)

- Special, seasonal sales 

Of course all of this takes time, but its not a major effort I believe to do some specials once or twice a year, and then it's a good chance to confirm if the price elasticity has some value or not, for example. 

 

[iridepolarbears]

what about expanding marketing beyond focusing mostly retro gamers? you could market towards people who are tech users, but also enjoy going into the back of beyond and who would apprectiate the fact that you have a fully featured laptop with user swappable battery, that lasts as long(longer with all radios off) as almost all newer laptops. and you can toss it in the lid of your pack and climb a mountain with it.

Spoiler

the image quality is pretty bad due to terrible focus, greasy phone lens, and altitude sickness. on my reputation, it's not a photoshop (dispite looking like a poorly done one)

 

[ekianjo]

what about expanding marketing beyond focusing mostly retro gamers? you could market towards people who are tech users, but also enjoy going into the back of beyond and who would apprectiate the fact that you have a fully featured laptop with user swappable battery, that lasts as long(longer with all radios off) as almost all newer laptops. and you can toss it in the lid of your pack and climb a mountain with it.

It's already marketed like that. Not very strongly, true, but it;s not only sold as an emulation machine. 

 

[TrashyMG]

what about expanding marketing beyond focusing mostly retro gamers? you could market towards people who are tech users, but also enjoy going into the back of beyond and who would apprectiate the fact that you have a fully featured laptop with user swappable battery, that lasts as long(longer with all radios off) as almost all newer laptops. and you can toss it in the lid of your pack and climb a mountain with it.

It's already marketed like that. Not very strongly, true, but it;s not only sold as an emulation machine. 

I play way more native Linux games than emulation...

 

[ekianjo]

what about expanding marketing beyond focusing mostly retro gamers? you could market towards people who are tech users, but also enjoy going into the back of beyond and who would apprectiate the fact that you have a fully featured laptop with user swappable battery, that lasts as long(longer with all radios off) as almost all newer laptops. and you can toss it in the lid of your pack and climb a mountain with it.

It's already marketed like that. Not very strongly, true, but it;s not only sold as an emulation machine. 

I play way more native Linux games than emulation...

Which ones do you play the most?

 

[TrashyMG]

Which ones do you play the most?

Currently it's been RTCW or JediKight II or III. I still fire up Duke 3D with eDuke32 now and again. 

Also I've been playing through the Orc campaign in Warcraft II with Stratagus.

But I play some simple things like Jcloisterzone (Carcassone board-game) when I want something fun but quiet.

 

[rohezal]

Jedi Knight 2 is excellent.

 

[Hồng Thất Công]

The graphics for PC games ported by ptitSeb to the Pandora are stunning!  Way better than the PC versions IMHO.  The controls, hmm..., the controls, you have to get used to it just like anything else even though the control-learning curve on the Pandora for FPS is steeper.  But keep practicing and you will master it.  Don't just play two minutes and conclude that FPS controls on the Pandora suck.  I had the same feeling when I first tried OpenArena as I couldn't get a hair from enemies.  But now, I'm pretty good at it.  Practice, practice, and practice!!!! 

 

[ekianjo]

Way better than the PC versions IMHO

What are you talking about? Of course the PC versions look better. They have higher resolutions and finer textures, and FPS is probably at 300 on latest generation hardware.  

Which ones do you play the most?

Also I've been playing through the Orc campaign in Warcraft II with Stratagus.

How is Stratagus in that regard? Does it play exactly like Warcraft II ? DId you notice any difference (AI ?) ?

 

[PokeParadox]

Way better than the PC versions IMHO

What are you talking about? Of course the PC versions look better. They have higher resolutions and finer textures, and FPS is probably at 300 on latest generation hardware.  

Which ones do you play the most?

Also I've been playing through the Orc campaign in Warcraft II with Stratagus.

How is Stratagus in that regard? Does it play exactly like Warcraft II ? DId you notice any difference (AI ?) ?

Ugh - of course GFX looking better is Subjective...

But I know what he means - in many cases due to the tiny pixel size of the the Pandora screen some games look relatively better than they would do on a big screen with higher resolution.

 

[Klumpen]

Ugh - of course GFX looking better is Subjective...

But I know what he means - in many cases due to the tiny pixel size of the the Pandora screen some games look relatively better than they would do on a big screen with higher resolution.

Exactly, that's why PSX seems to be made for OpenPandora and not for a full sized screen nowadays.

Texture size and original game resolution of old games fit nicely to the standards on modern handhelds.

 

[ekianjo]

Ugh - of course GFX looking better is Subjective...

But I know what he means - in many cases due to the tiny pixel size of the the Pandora screen some games look relatively better than they would do on a big screen with higher resolution.

Exactly, that's why PSX seems to be made for OpenPandora and not for a full sized screen nowadays.

Texture size and original game resolution of old games fit nicely to the standards on modern handhelds.

It looks nice, but don't tell me that it's not better to play FF7 on a big TV. PS1 games were made to be played on large screens, too. 

 

[_jr_]

I was never impressed by large screens and much prefer (not neccessarily high res but) high PPI devices (and font sizes below tiny

 

[vcoleiro1]

All,  I have been following the Edge Campaign on Indiegogo everyday.  One thing that struck me is the supporters efforts in promoting the campaign and getting backers.   They have brought in 1000's of sales for the Edge and have reached millions of people with there organised efforts through social media to promote the campaign. This has all happened just via the backers - no input from Canonical.

It got me thinking, why don't we do the same.  Lets organise and signup to a Thunderclap with an agreed message (with a link to Pandora's on ED's shop). Lets get the word out via our youtube channels, Lets write to the media again (probably ED to do this one).  etc etc.  I'm sure that if we worked collectively we could drum up a significant amount of sales and get that  Craig pre-order queue down 

For those that don't know what a Thunderclap is.  Basically you setup a message that will be sent out to participants Facebook, twitter etc when it reaches a number of backers.  So basically you can setup a Thunderclap with for example a 200 person backing threshold that once reached will then post a message to everyone of the 200 peoples facebook and twitter accounts all in one hit. Since each of these message are then seen/passed on by each persons many friends and followers, the message has an exponential effect.

 

[ekianjo]

I was never impressed by large screens and much prefer (not neccessarily high res but) high PPI devices (and font sizes below tiny

I guess you don't understand why people prefer playing in their living rooms then

 

[_jr_]

I was never impressed by large screens and much prefer (not neccessarily high res but) high PPI devices (and font sizes below tiny

I guess you don't understand why people prefer playing in their living rooms then

Just like I don't really understand why people prefer watching films in the cinema. I know they do and I know their reason, but it doesn't do the same thing to me. Probably some defect with my brain


The TV is also gone, the shows were annoying me too much. Hooked up the 360 to my 15 year old tube based monitor (the largest screen in the house, 21" 4:3), so the kid can watch it's DVDs. Sometimes we play a bit.