Pay For Games On Pandora?

[x68000]

I'll just be going for the free games since I don't have a credit card and it's a bummer to get my sister to do it everytime coz she lives miles away and I hardly get to see her anyway.

Just buy one of those prepay topup credit cards - you can get them in the supermarket nowadays, or a cash converters style shop. no credit checks, just add the funds and use like a normal card!

 

[pder]

I have and I'd be willing to donate to some open source projects if they interested me. I would not pay money for any closed source software on the Pandora.

Not even for seemingly impossible things, like a half-decent x86 or Dreamcast Emulator?

Let's be very hypothetical and assume they exist, and they're sitting there in the Pandora App Store. They're gathering more and more positive reviews, because let us assume they work incredibly well. Why do they work so well? Well perhaps a few guys dedicated their entire life to those projects for a year or more. They dedicated so much time, it was practically a full time job for them.

Let's say nobody else will dedicate that amount of time. These programs are the only choice you have. You wait around for a few months, but no free alternatives are showing up. You either pay for these apps, or you don't run Windows or Dreamast games on your Pandora.

Now... would you still not pay for a Pandora app? Are you sure? Half the guys on this forum already have. They're having great fun, posting videos of Windows and Dreamcast all over Youtube, getting the Pandora loads of attention. More and more outsiders are becoming interested, buying into the Pandora. Every week you see more and more newcomers having fun with these programs, and you're on the outside. You don't give in to peer pressure, you stick to your 'Free and Open Source' principals... you're voting with your wallet, you're saying no to paid emulators. But everyone else... they're having so much fun... don't you deserve some fun too? Wasn't that why you bought a Pandora? To have fun? Is it really so bad to let yourself have fun too?

So... you're only one bank account number away from all that fun. Can you really resist? Really?

B)

Yes, I can still resist. I really don't see any point in supporting closed source projects on the Pandora. For one, I can't think of a single example of anything I would want to run on the Pandora in which the source code is not available. Secondly, I don't see any technical advantage to releasing software on the Pandora without releasing the source code. All you are doing is inhibiting other developers from learning from your work and possibly fix bugs, add features or port it to other platforms. Also, you are at the mercy of the original developer(s) to maintain the software and fix bugs. If they disappear or lose interest which inevitably happens the software just dies.

 

[Exophase]

Is that why there's a proliferation of paid emulators for Symbian and Mac OSX? I always figured it was a combination of market demand and niche coding platform.

I'm referring to:

http://www.vampent.com/emu.htm
http://www.bannister.org/software/

Doesn't hurt. Vampent's selling their own emulators so there's no GPL issue there.

I'm not really sure what Richard Bannister is doing. Source is clearly not provided but he also clearly didn't write most of these emulators. He may have arrangements with the authors.. some like TGEmu and Frodo are open source but may not be under licensing requiring source/redistribution.

 

[SomeGuy99]

Doesn't hurt. Vampent's selling their own emulators so there's no GPL issue there.

I assumed that. I just meant, it seems a lack of developers combined with willing customers = healthy paid emulation scene?

Richard Bannister gives away the emaultors for free, but charges for extra features. A single program, that you purchase, unlocks features such as 'full screen mode' for all his OS X emulators. Is this a loophole?

 

[Prometheus]

He may have arrangements with the authors..

It's my understanding from his readme files that this is the case. (Curiously, I once saw it claimed that he's somehow trying to make money off of other people's closed-source work without permission. I'm still not quite sure how they figured he got hold of the code... )

 

[maiden]

wow, this thread got alot more attention then i had thought, and its all "on topic" kinda, its just not the topic i intended...
but its a subject that needs to be discussed. ( so please continue )

As a game developer, i know that whatever i do, people will pirate the game. so what? i rather ignore it and hope that some day, they will get some cash, or change of hart, and give me some cash. EVERYTHING is better then DRM. when it comes to internet-multiplayer games, its easy, then you can release the game for free, but the users have to pay for an account. as in Galcon and Altitude

 

[TitanUranus]

Sure piracy is wrong. Companies charging £40 for a crap game are wrong too. We all do things that are wrong sometimes, and we all have a price that we'd sell out for - maybe it's not financial, but there's definitely something. Let's face it, if we want a really unlikely hypothetical sutuation, say someone developed Pandora OS Impotence Cure v2, now tackles the irritating premature ejaculation bug in version 1.6, but the upgrade costs £5000 and you already forked out £5k on v1.6 it'd be really surprising if you didn't just get it off piratebay instead of the creators website.

I'm not condoning piracy, free or paid software, just trying to point out the ridiculous lenghts to which these 'moral' issues can be eeked out to. Bottom line, people are going to do what people are going to do and this poll matters not one jot. Awfully interesting way to waste some time though, remember no one's likely to just blurt out an unpalatable truth, which I suspect may be why 92% of people are willing to pay according to this poll. Who chose the wording for it, Alistair Campbell?

.

 

[SomeGuy99]

Awfully interesting way to waste some time though, remember no one's likely to just blurt out an unpalatable truth, which I suspect may be why 92% of people are willing to pay according to this poll.

I think the unpalatable truth is that most of the community here are pirates. Even if said pirating just means old Nes roms.

I'll be the first to admit it: I'm a hypocrite.

I'll go out and buy a Pandora game for cold hard cash, just so I can see my favourite handheld reach it's full potential. But with emulation... I may or may not own the actual cartridges for all my Roms. I may or may not own the original CD for my ISO files. In some cases I do, in others I don't.

 

[Alpha2]

I think everyone in this thread will ad mit to actually paying money for a game. That makes them feel morally decent enough to say "yeah I would teoretically pay for a Pandora game" and I'm sure many actually would, the rest will either pass on the game or wait for a "free" option. How many people land in each group is impossible to say but the better the game is the more likely someone will slide the developer some cash whether it gets pirated or not. Quality is still going to be a factor.

 

[Aninhumer]

I think the unpalatable truth is that most of the community here are pirates. Even if said pirating just means old Nes roms.

I'll be the first to admit it: I'm a hypocrite.

I'll go out and buy a Pandora game for cold hard cash, just so I can see my favourite handheld reach it's full potential. But with emulation... I may or may not own the actual cartridges for all my Roms. I may or may not own the original CD for my ISO files. In some cases I do, in others I don't.

I don't think there's anything hypocritical about saying "don't pirate games, the devs won't get any money" and then pirating roms.
If you actually went out of your way to purchase cartridges, the devs still wouldn't get any money, you'd just have a nice lump of plastic.

Perhaps if they actually made roms available to purchase people might actually buy them.
Of course, they are available on various console market places, but I don't own any of those consoles.

 

[paddy]

I have spent over £200 in downloadable software via playstation network and i am really happy to do so ,i have also spent a little on nintendo wii channel but i have to admit that with the wii i stopped the minute it was hacked and everyone was getting their stuff for free ,the psn store is still fine and unhacked for the moment and i still enjoy buying new games and addon content becase i know it is not hacked and everything is fair.

When it comes to the pandora there i doubt will be any real safety and i just know some people will be getting free software while others wont ,and that safety will only decrese as time goes by ,the pandora does not have all the security features of a big system like the xbox 360 or playstation 3 and this is why i would have a problem buying software from the pandora store ,i mean the thought is nice but i would wonder how many will be accessing software for free ,i really do not know but it puts me off spending money.

I would rather the donation or author donation option was in place ,i would try out the software and if i deem it good enough to keep and own ,then i would be quite sure i would purchase it for a small fee ,i also don't like the thought of buying emulators for the pandora ,i mean this is the main reason i wanted a pandora and i am not willing to put my card details into anystore online via openpandora so i would have to go without some emulators ? well quite possibly i guess and this also is not good for younger people out there that do not have means to pay via the internet ,yes mabe they did buy a pandora unit (a one off from their parents) but not on a regular basis so those pandora customers would have to do without as well.

Anyway i am all for good software in the future for the pandora ,some of the games that could be writen for it would surly be worth a fair penny and i for one would be more than willing to pay ,but not for emulators as i stated elsewhere ,in any case like someone else said ,for that one emulator that has been made at cost ,there will be three hacks of the same software for free so mabe nothing to worry about as this seems to happen alot.

 

[juniorm33]

@paddy
How is a donate button any different in your scenario? I'm a bit confused.
If your saying you would get the cracked(for want of a better word) version anyway, then you wouldn't have donated/payed anyway.
And because someone else is using it for free, you wouldn't want to donate/purchase? If we were talking about $40odd piece of software, I could understand your point but given the community and the cost I don't

Anyway, the only way the charged or donate will have any affect for the person putting the software out there, is if it has something over and above something equivalent, or it's unique, or just that useful that made it worth paying for.

With so much free software, this will be hard to achieve, therefore the cost will be low and the quality high in comparison.

As for payment methods etc, well if Craig is still planning on making it so that you top up your account and make purchases/donations from there, then it would probably work for people who needs their parents to buy it for them as it means they can top up the account for them and don't have to do it for every single transaction.

 

[kuru]

I can imagine that especially game software that has a lot of content (graphical, storyline) will have it easier to sell for money than ported/updated software. In the end we'll see (or not see in case of black market) how it works out.

This poll is useless, but so are most. Developers will decide for themselves whether to charge something and how much or not to do so.

 

[Prometheus]

Perhaps if they actually made roms available to purchase people might actually buy them.
Of course, they are available on various console market places, but I don't own any of those consoles.

This isn't entirely on-topic, but goodness me, was I ever happy when Pulseman was added to the Wii Virtual Console, since it meant I could finally buy the game for a reasonable price. (I own everything I emulate. Pulseman goes for crazy money, it must be said.)

 

[juniorm33]

Developers will decide for themselves whether to charge something and how much or not to do so.

And this is where the market will drive the price. If he overcharges he'll get a lot less sales.
More so if he is just packaging up a bit of source into a PMD. As someone else would just do it for free haha.

I really think there's too much good quality free/donation software for people to worry about the odd ones that are charged for.

 

[paddy]

I will never pay for an emulator so if a cracked version is out somewhere then i would download and use it ,i most definitely would not do the same for other types of software like games and apps ,i think a lot more goes into homemade games and apps and the authors should reap the rewards and i am all for supporting them now and in the future so like most small games developers they usualy have a website and a free demo of their software ,i would like to go through those channels so i can try before i buy and also give back directly to the author as i do not want to put any money into the openpandora store in anyway out of trust on my part ,i just don't like the idea of the store becase for all this (we are not apple ,we are not sony nor microsoft, openpandora are going to try to make money just like those big companies ,i don't blame them but i don't agree and that is my right to have my opinion on that matter.

 

[juniorm33]

I will never pay for an emulator so if a cracked version is out somewhere then i would download and use it ,i most definitely would not do the same for other types of software like games and apps ,i think a lot more goes into homemade games and apps and the authors should reap the rewards and i am all for supporting them now and in the future so like most small games developers they usualy have a website and a free demo of their software ,i would like to go through those channels so i can try before i buy and also give back directly to the author as i do not want to put any money into the openpandora store in anyway out of trust on my part ,i just don't like the idea of the store becase for all this (we are not apple ,we are not sony nor microsoft, openpandora are going to try to make money just like those big companies ,i don't blame them but i don't agree and that is my right to have my opinion on that matter.

So you think writing an emu is really that easy?
Like I said there will be free versions out there for most(pretty much all) of the emu's so you wouldn't have to use the one that is being charged for. If there isn't a free version then if anything that may actually show that it was hard to do. Their not big corporations, so shouldn't these homebrew software developers be just as entitled, as someone who made a game or app? It seems like their lower down on your food chain for some reason.

Also, I'm not sure how OPT would be making money from the AppStore, but then I was away from the forums for a long time so maybe I missed something. So I'm not saying your wrong. I would just be very surprised, if it's more than just say, running costs etc.

 

[Bosbeetle]

I think the humble indie bundle showed that there is a lot of willingness to pay for certain titles

 

[Dead1nside]

Perhaps if they actually made roms available to purchase people might actually buy them.
Of course, they are available on various console market places, but I don't own any of those consoles.

This isn't entirely on-topic, but goodness me, was I ever happy when Pulseman was added to the Wii Virtual Console, since it meant I could finally buy the game for a reasonable price. (I own everything I emulate. Pulseman goes for crazy money, it must be said.)

The problem with buying games on Wiiware or the Playstation Network is that, from what I understand they're non-transferable. Say you get another Wii, or you want to use them on a new console that's coming out by the manufacturer, it's at their discretion.

A shop where you buy the right, not just license some rights for particular circumstances would be desirable.

 

[paddy]

Hehe dude i did not say writing an emulator is easy so where the hell did you get that from ? porting complete emulators from arm to arm via linux should not be soo hard however and i bet there will be plenty of opportunity for this in the near future so given that some might crack some payed for emulation it may well not be needed as there will only be more and more people willing to port emulators over in the coming months.

Like i said tho i don't have a problem with the store if it is fair ,i would love to see all types of software on the store free and paid for and i promote that ,but i don't think i could make payment over the store methods so i hope there are alternatives for payment and i also hope that emulation does not get hijacked for profit becase i think seeing n64 or psx on the pandora is a big wow factor and some might jump on that to make money but hey this is pure speculation now and i don't want to get into that anymore.

ps, only nintendo software is non transferable, dirty bastards that they are ,psn stuff will follow you forever on psp ps3 and beyond.