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Mobile games: 1] are infested with IAP/psycho crack time gates 2] cant cost more than a dollar or so, no one will buy them 3] have no buttons, and the number

Mobile games: 1] are infested with IAP/psycho crack time gates 2] cant cost more than a dollar or so, no one will buy them 3] have no buttons, and the number of games that work well without buttons is few. 4] have a horrible reputation, people discount games just for being mobile 5] ridiculously fragmented hardware, who knows what screen size or device type you're targeting if you develop for mobile? 6] are too high res. All new game systems are. Low res games with few buttons can be developed cheaply and quickly (i.e., 20k instead of 5M) I want some simple games with real buttons. I want to make some. I'll pay for it. I think others will too. I do think $150 is a little high, but that might also convey a sense of value, rather than "another crappy emulator box thing"

abrugsch 7y ago
Also check out the pimoroni kickstarter 32blit then. it's a bit cheaper than the play date (but not by much and at full retail cost will be pretty much the same) but has better scope and will be open source. it's not a Pi-in-a-box-with-retropie but a STM32 microcontroller with a light OS/SDK layer on top. a development toolchain that looks a lot like the editors for Pico-8
- PostOnce 7y ago
  Sadly I think no one will ever pay money for games for an unadvertised, not-sold-at-retail, open source game platform, which means people aren't going to make quality games that cost money to develop, which means adoption will be all the lower. So, that means it's not "viable" in a commercial sense. I would rather like to run a sustainable business, which seems more plausible with the playdate than anything else on the market outside nintendo/sony.
  - abrugsch 7y ago
    Sorry, I didn't infer that you were looking for a commercial sales games platform. You are right about the 32blit, however I don't think you're right about the playdate. If the 32blit is a niche product (which I'll admit it definitely is) the playdate is being made as a niche within a niche product and the numbers that are made in total will be a limiting factor. While the HN crowd seem to be able to see this for what it is and mostly wouldn't think twice about splunking 150 on this, I'm not getting the same feeling from any other handheld/retro/modern gaming communities. a few collectors are going "well it looks nice and well designed..." they're also the type who will buy one just to sit it on a shelf with their other oddball gaming hardware. I doubt the playdate will be any more viable to base a game business on than the 32blit, however from a different set of reasons, but along the same lines as people who buy the Pocket Operators as neat gadgets, but have no intent to actually make music with past the first few days of novelty. of course you could try the Pico-8 games on itch.io route which is a well travelled path and probably a much bigger target audience
imtringued 7y ago
I completely disagree with 6]. Mobile app developers crank out high res throwaway games for less than $20k.

abrugsch 7y ago

Also check out the pimoroni kickstarter 32blit then. it's a bit cheaper than the play date (but not by much and at full retail cost will be pretty much the same) but has better scope and will be open source. it's not a Pi-in-a-box-with-retropie but a STM32 microcontroller with a light OS/SDK layer on top. a development toolchain that looks a lot like the editors for Pico-8

PostOnce 7y ago
Sadly I think no one will ever pay money for games for an unadvertised, not-sold-at-retail, open source game platform, which means people aren't going to make quality games that cost money to develop, which means adoption will be all the lower. So, that means it's not "viable" in a commercial sense. I would rather like to run a sustainable business, which seems more plausible with the playdate than anything else on the market outside nintendo/sony.
- abrugsch 7y ago
  Sorry, I didn't infer that you were looking for a commercial sales games platform. You are right about the 32blit, however I don't think you're right about the playdate. If the 32blit is a niche product (which I'll admit it definitely is) the playdate is being made as a niche within a niche product and the numbers that are made in total will be a limiting factor. While the HN crowd seem to be able to see this for what it is and mostly wouldn't think twice about splunking 150 on this, I'm not getting the same feeling from any other handheld/retro/modern gaming communities. a few collectors are going "well it looks nice and well designed..." they're also the type who will buy one just to sit it on a shelf with their other oddball gaming hardware. I doubt the playdate will be any more viable to base a game business on than the 32blit, however from a different set of reasons, but along the same lines as people who buy the Pocket Operators as neat gadgets, but have no intent to actually make music with past the first few days of novelty. of course you could try the Pico-8 games on itch.io route which is a well travelled path and probably a much bigger target audience

imtringued 7y ago

I completely disagree with 6]. Mobile app developers crank out high res throwaway games for less than $20k.