Bounties For Giving Pandoras To Developers And Attracting Them To The


timofonic

GP Mafia
Joined
May 20, 2004
Messages
399
Hello.

What about a bounty system for giving Pandora systems to developers? It could help to promote the system and motivate developers from other platforms, specially in countries where the scene about GP32/GP2X systems is unknown to exist.

It could be a site where you send the money for the cause. Candidates will be chosen based on a list of selected candidates by the Pandora Team and Pandora scene members. Then there are few possibilities about giving the systems to devs:

-You send the money and then when the cost of a Pandora is reached, one Pandora is given to one developer chosen by the Pandora Team and Pandora scene members.

- You send the money to one of the developers available on the list of candidates and when the money is reached, the candidate is no longer available for donating the money. The money of a bounty that surpasses the needed money (because of the last bounty being bigger than necessary) could be given back or randomly to other developer.

- There are a voting poll by donors, then the candidate that receives more points will receive the system. After the poll, there will be another poll for the other candidates and this will be repeated constantly.

What do you think about this?


Regards.
 
It's not a bad idea, as it could attract high-profile indie developers to the Pandora (as long as there are enough people willing to donate).

I would recommend waiting until the Pandora's scene has got it's legs, and we've got some good 2D and 3D games out there which show off the potential of the device.

EDIT: I also think it'd be a good idea to contact the developers before buying them a Pandora in order to ensure they will actually develop for the Pandora when they get one, rather than them suddenly receiving a mystery package in the post.
 
AnonymousTipster said:
It's not a bad idea, as it could attract high-profile indie developers to the Pandora (as long as there are enough people willing to donate).

I would recommend waiting until the Pandora's scene has got it's legs, and we've got some good 2D and 3D games out there which show off the potential of the device.

EDIT: I also think it'd be a good idea to contact the developers before buying them a Pandora in order to ensure they will actually develop for the Pandora when they get one, rather than them suddenly receiving a mystery package in the post.
That could avoid certain developers, as maybe they can't be interested in start but after trying the system and discovering the available scene it could attract them in an addictive way ;)

Maybe a small percentage of developers will not develop after short time, but that's the price to pay for helping the system to grow between homebrew and indie developers.
 
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I think maybe any developer worth the name should have had his pre-order in about two weeks ago, I`m just a hobbyist but it counts to me as one of those MUST HAVE devices, I would be expelled from Geekdom if I didn`t get one, no true Geek can resist (the MatrixPandora has you), when Pandora comes out I will order one along with my EEEPC, gee, two great devices in one year :) ain`t times great?
 
This is going to be tricky to pull off. We'd have to choose our developers wisely for several reasons.

This kind of thing will be very problematic if not handled correctly.
 
I'm curious about this climate change on the boards. As of late, there haven't been many boards that raised any new questions that we have not heard, or has been mentioned/discussed several times before. The climate change I'm referring to is simply the more agreeable attitude we have towards the same topics we may have at least doubted before.

-In that respect

I think it's a good idea, but not really for the sake of money, you donating towards a bounty is more of a vote that this Dev's hard work for fun is appreciated by those who play their games. That simple rule applies more to the experienced hobbyist programmers more than anyone else. As much as I am in favor of playing all the same games I already played before and want to play again for the sake of nostalgia, or they where simply awesome games; I'm ready for some original content, and I think this would more attract new content and new devs than what's already out there.

If I wanted to just play spectrum/amiga/snes/genesis/etc games I would just stick with the GP2X; however, that doesn't mean they are a worthy bonus (not to exclude the fact that that attraction is to be able to play games for those system the way it's meant to be played). Time for new content though.
 
This is very similar to the donation drives I lead back in the Zodiac days.

So I'm not against it, but I'd wait for the Pandora hardware to get finished up first before jumping into this sort of thing.

Also, I have a feeling many of the best devs will already be getting a Pandora.
 
Prophet said:
Also, I have a feeling many of the best devs will already be getting a Pandora.
Yeah, thats what i thought (well, from this board at least :rolleyes: )
 
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I think we have to give Craig and the other guys time to show that they already have some great devs on board.

To imply that they havent done so would surely be an insult to their intelligence.
 
x68000 said:
I think we have to give Craig and the other guys time to show that they already have some great devs on board.

To imply that they havent done so would surely be an insult to their intelligence.
I just wanted to show my ideas the earlier possible so they can be considered and Pandora developers will think it with more time.

I know my other suggestions about hardware came too late so I want to be early on the others.
 
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pandora said:
Which developers are you thinking of? From which scene/forum?
Depends. I'm talking about the trustworthiness of the developer, how long they'd stick to it, and if they even like the device, etc. I'd really want this idea to move forward, and I'm not against it. I just don't want money to be dumped somewhere and not see some high quality software sent in our general direction.
 
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I saw in Wikipedia for emulators etc bounties for them on different platforms.

It's a good idea, but I'd be worried about who takes out the project. I just wouldn't want a large bounty say for the PSX emulator and have a less than experienced/talented dev taking it up. Also would there be a problem if multiple devs took up the same project?
 
Any word if Zodttd has joined the bandwagon yet? He, as many of you may know made a psx emulator for the gameparks. He has also made several emulators for the iPhone/iPod touch; Openttd, Snes4iphone, and Gba4iphone. If he hasn't already, he needs to jump scenes.
 
Jonttu said:
Any word if Zodttd has joined the bandwagon yet?
Yes. He's on board.

I think this whole idea is extremely premature. A bounty is something you put out there after the system has been kicking around for a while, but there is still one desirable project that nobody has been able to handle. Right now there is no hardware and no way of knowing what ports are going to be the "problem" projects.

If somebody wants to make a few bucks for their effort, they always have the option of asking for donations or outright charging a fee. This scene is pretty supportive of that. Most of these guys just do it for fun. Why don't you give them a chance to have some fun before you start making mercenaries out of them.

If there is a particular programmer here that wants to do a specific project, but they're not getting one of the DIY 100, it is up to them to speak up. Say "Hey, I'd love to port my game X over to Pandora, but I can't afford one." Maybe we'll see what we can do. But to take donations for freebie units (of a system that isn't even available for pre-order yet) for devs who haven't even heard of Pandora, let alone shown interest, is beyond silly.

I know you're excited, but just calm down, wait, and see how things turn out.
 
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Chip said:
I think this whole idea is extremely premature. A bounty is something you put out there after the system has been kicking around for a while, but there is still one desirable project that nobody has been able to handle. Right now there is no hardware and no way of knowing what ports are going to be the "problem" projects.
I wrote about this not for making it NOW, but for "slow cooking" the idea and having clear all points when this can be done.
 
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I'll give $100 to send Nintendo a Pandora with a note saying "Pleze dev 4 this k? thx" :D

heh, yeah right. I agree that it may be a bit premature to do a bounty. From what I've seen already there is a big list of developers getting early copies to do their thing. Myself i want an early copy but realistically I'm waiting till at least November before I order one so the early annoyances will be found and people work on squashing them.
 
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