Kickstarter (or similar) campaign for software developers?


but I still don't get how non-pandora owners would be excited over such a venture.
299$ a classic Pandora + a JD2 copy + beta acess

 

We want to sell a Pandora, and we can do it via kickstarter. Craig sold ICP1 on kickstarter to fund the ICP2 (it was a reward, 69$  -> get an ICP1, 599$ get 10 ICP1). When we use Jedi Knight 2 and connect it to the Pandora, it is a good selling point. This is the idea ;)

 

The "only" problem was mentioned above:

 



I doubt that many people will back the project after they have seen that they have to "invest" at least another 290€ to actually play the title. 

But even if there are few sales, it is free advertisement, and more people would know about the pandora. Maybe make a link to the stalker and pandora alive to let people "lick blood".

 

But 
 
Oh wait, you were serious...Jedi Knights 2?  Good game, but I'm not sold....how about the ultimate portable device?  Take that tv-out port and create some small (Google Glass/Occullus Rift) type of glasses?  That'd be exciting, and would make people excited about THE product that we're trying to sell.
 
You have some good ideas, Rohezal.  Not sure if the promise of an older game ported to a niche device is sellable to the public, but I  hear you and I'm mildly excited...  Maybe I'll revisit this after my regularly scheduled shock-treatment therapy sessions.  Don't tell that other guy that I double-posted...he hates that.
 
Wow, what a weird string of posts..


Honestly I don't think the Pandora needs a killer app or incentives to entice people. It just needs to be seen, at PAX East Link and Myself showed off what it can do and many people were blown away on what it could do..Battery life and other features helps too.


We had a guy from Redhat very impressed by what it could do, I showed him the PND system and some of the opengl implementation work Lunixbochs has been working on and explained to him about our community driven device. I think the Community aspect of this project need to be shown off more and that will lead to more people joining in and leading to more sales and a more active developer base.
 
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My apologies, gotwake424.  I'm relatively new here.  I even stopped posting after three straight posts, but I didn't know that I needed to delete or edit them.  I just shut up when I realized that I was talking to myself.  I have no idea what I'm supposed to do.  My only brief blogging experience was on Fox Sports and Facebook.  Boring...
No problem man, Just didn't know if you knew we had an edit button
 
Thanks, gotwake424.  I'm green, but full of life and enthusiasm...much like a banana but that's sexist.  I'm just excited about my newest purchase and I don't care who knows it.  Thank goodness that Craig's media blitz is kicking in right now...Hey, is that the Hindenburg with a Pandora logo on the side offf.....oh noooo....
 
Honestly I don't think the Pandora needs a killer app or incentives to entice people. It just needs to be seen, at PAX East Link and Myself showed off what it can do and many people were blown away on what it could do..Battery life and other features helps too.
For marketing big events are great chances to sell something. Jedi Knight 2 became free. This is an event. Let's make a kick starter for it, to port it to the Pandora and sell people Pandoras. If it doesn't work well (not many sold units), at least the people heared about the device. And event based discounts (christmas sales, all stuff is 20% cheaper) works great too. Maybe ED can sell bundles (1199$ for 2 GHZ units with a jedi knight 2 copy per unit), to shorten the queue. The worst we can get is free marketing.

I think the Community aspect of this project need to be shown off more and that will lead to more people joining in and leading to more sales and a more active developer base.
I come from the openmoko corner of the interwebz. The community is great with christopher pulster and radeck and dr. schaller, but a critical mass is good way to make the product cheaper, so more people are joining. And more known to the public. An other example is the dark mod (doom3 based thief), were some people say, they need a crititical mass of good maps and map makers, to attract more players, to attract new map makers to keep things going.

So yes the community is one of the biggest plus of the pandora, and when people joining for the community, they are probably very friendly people. But other selling ideas are good too, and help the community too (at least when the warez kids stay away with "omg, where can i downloadz gta????"
 
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I guess that I'm just not as excited by the free Jedi Knight news as you are.  It doesn't hit "home" with me...We do need some exposure though, and you shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth.  Free is great...who has the expertise to port the game to the Pandora?  I'm just beginning here...I used to write programs in Basic on my Atari 800 when I was 9+ years old...but I'm a bit out of practice...lazy and a bit dulled by time and Windoze machines.  I'm just trying to play catchup here.  I'll do my best "advertising" around town...and at the ComicCon this summer, but I probably won't have a booth or anything.  I'm not an official Pandora reseller...but that'd be awesome if Link could come down...heeeeyyyy...
 
I guess that I'm just not as excited by the free Jedi Knight news as you are.  It doesn't hit "home" with me...We do need some exposure though, and you shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth.  Free is great...who has the expertise to port the game to the Pandora?  I'm just beginning here...I used to write programs in Basic on my Atari 800 when I was 9+ years old...but I'm a bit out of practice...lazy and a bit dulled by time and Windoze machines.  I'm just trying to play catchup here.  I'll do my best "advertising" around town...and at the ComicCon this summer, but I probably won't have a booth or anything.  I'm not an official Pandora reseller...but that'd be awesome if Link could come down...heeeeyyyy...
You talking about GenCon in indianapolis? 
 
I guess that I'm just not as excited by the free Jedi Knight news as you are.  It doesn't hit "home" with me...We do need some exposure though, and you shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth.  Free is great...who has the expertise to port the game to the Pandora?  I'm just beginning here...I used to write programs in Basic on my Atari 800 when I was 9+ years old...but I'm a bit out of practice...lazy and a bit dulled by time and Windoze machines.  I'm just trying to play catchup here.  I'll do my best "advertising" around town...and at the ComicCon this summer, but I probably won't have a booth or anything.  I'm not an official Pandora reseller...but that'd be awesome if Link could come down...heeeeyyyy...
You talking about GenCon in indianapolis? 
No, ComicCon down here in San Diego...I know...it's not the perfect place to showcase electronics, but it's in my backyard.   :D
 
I own and run a small printing business down here and I can't just up and leave to go to Indianapolis...who would mismanage my business if I weren't here?  I haven't taken a vacation in 12 years and I'm completely insane...also, I'm lactose-intolerant.
 
Great post, Rohezal.  You hit on a couple of topics that I like.  You have a pulse on what drives some people/gamers/consumers.  Now let me paint you another picture.  What has been holding us back, showing our games/programs on the pandora?  The small screen.  That's part of it's charm and functionality of course, but "filming" and getting these great moments out there is almost impossible.   It's just another way that the Pandora Team shot themselves in the foot.  Get the tv-out cables into the hands of the public - the people that bought your gear.  It's free, unsolicited advertising by rabid fans.  Fuck.... I've always been dumbfounded by this.  You'll see the sales spike ONCE you get these cables out to your customers.  We all know what Youtube is...and we believe in this product.  Make it happen.
I wonder in what ways TV-Out cables could help here? Some community members already make videos on a (more or less) regular basis, and I can't see any real difference in filming (close up) of the Pandoras screen directly and filiming a TV screen from far away.

You can do again 2 things:

1. If your main goal is advertising for the Pandora, this is what you wanted. People saw the Pandora. If some are willing to buy one and even donate for the port, even better. 

2. If your main goal is to get some money for the porting work: Port it for Android and the OpenPandora. This will get you more backers and if you mention the Pandora in the description, it increases the Pandora sales.
I'm not sure if any kind of attention for the project will automatically help the Pandora. Looking at responses to reviews in the past, just "getting the word out there" can backfire on the project - especially with the dark "preorder mess" cloud still hanging over it.
Also a kickstarter campaign is a lot of work, as you can see in the comments section of the icp2 kickstarter page. People are expecting frequent posts / rapid responses from the team and are having no trouble expressing their discontent. With ED already struggeling keeping foot in a lot of camps, I doubt he has the time to do that too.

That should not prevent others from doing it - if you are that certain it will work out that good - try it.

I think our best chance is to physically go were our target customer base is likely to be (like Link did some weeks ago): exibtions, conferences, etc. for (retro)gaming, embedded devices, linux, developing, etc.

That way people can experience for themselves what using an OpenPandora means, and its very unlikely that you will end up with a couple of uncinvicible naysayers like me sourrounding your booth (unlike a commentary section, where it is easy for them beeing "present" all the time), who are constantly trying to poke their fingers in wounds they think exist.
 
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