So How Do We Market This Thing?

[el_pango]

It is true that a centralized download portal requires infrastructure (read: costs money to start) and babysitting (read: costs money to keep going) and may be ambitious at this point.

My second idea, though, having games be able to export a character sheet or something that shows the player's progress in a format that could be easily displayed as a signature or banner on a forum, is easily bakeable without significant expense or a lot of added development time, and it would be a good way to advertise both the game the user was playing and the unit itself. I'm talking about the game doing this client-side, not an actual gamercard-type thing that's generated on a remote machine (although that would be ideal). (Obviously, some method of 'salting' the image to make it apparent when someone had doctored their score would be needed for this to work.)

Regarding idea three, that there needs to be a killer app that makes people keep coming back for more and makes them brag to their friends about 'pwning' in it, I think many of us agree that that is the case. I'm not sure what app this would be yet (looking at what's trendy in the shrinkwrapware world right now, I originally said some kind of online RPG, but who knows). Anyone got any ideas?

 

[Zarneth]

el_pangos Ideas sound good, true... BUT:

All of these would require a server that is being paid for by someone, as well as someone to make them in the first place and maintain them. For example, Steve Jobs said that the new iPhone/iPod touch app store would probably not make Apple much money and that they'd be happy if they break even.
I don't think after going through designing and producing an entire handheld and doubtlessly spending a lot of money on it, the Pandora team probably won't be able or willing to pull off something like that.

They're not nesseciarily all that expensive. Remember someone's already hosting gp32x.de. That's these forums and the gp32/gp2x download archives. That's a lot of bandwidth there. Many uses for a program communicating with a server would use infinitly less bandwidth and be far more efficient than HTML.

 

[squeakypants]

All we're really talking about is a repository with a nice interface and possibly e-commerce.

 

[icurafu]

Does anyone remember a few months ago, Valve stated that the Steam engine was now open for free use?

I'm sure there is a catch, but could this possibly be used for some kind of Pandora commerical platform?

 

[JakeK]

Ahhh my field!

You are talking about Steamworks right? Steamworks relies heavily on the internet. It is everything that Steam is known for, community pages, updates, guest passes, stats etc. All this in the one package. But this is for people that wish to make a game and distribute it via Steam.

As for Linux stuff I don't know how it would be installed and whatnot. Don't most Steam users have to run it under another program for it to work?

 

[Yrx]

All we're really talking about is a repository with a nice interface and possibly e-commerce.

Good news! It's a repository!

 

[klikklak]

One thing Pandora folks could look at for inspiration (somehow thats a _wrong_ word for marketing) is womworld.com and nokia's nseries section there (I don't know how they're related, I've been leaning on thinking that its wholly a networking marketing scheme by nokia). They send hardware to bloggers regularly and long after launch day keeping a level of hype going on. And they aggregate _all_ the news to this site. I think this would be doable with pandoras level of cashflow (surely they can send machines around, I'd imagine finding the cash would be more problematic) and human resources. It would also hopefully generate a network of interest in the devicfe outside the reach of a single forum.

 

[AnonymousTipster]

I think that Craig+co should sum up the costs and benefits of doing an online store and work out how much they need to make before investing in it. Once they've sold enough Pandora's to cover initial expenses, setup an online store with some of the commercial homebrewed apps that have been created since the start of the Pandora, so that the store launches with some content. If it takes off, it could be lucrative for the team, but if the initial cost won't be reasonably covered by the price of games, then it's not worth it.

Also, I've noted that some people showed interest in 'donating' to keep the project going. Instead of donating, it could be suggested, just buy some games for your Pandora, as they get money from sales, and the buyer gets a game, rather than just the sense of moral benefit.

 

[xstar]

Chances are, In an american market, you have to get your idea and product across fast. Plus 199 euro is like 330-350 US, thats way to pricy for a handheld in america. DS is only like $125, and can be easily modded for homebrew, and the PSP doesn't sell at 199. Marketing it as a gaming, hacker safe, UMPC or internet tablet would most defenatly sell in the U.S.