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Re: price point HN readers who can write a console game before bedtime are not the target audience. A handheld device that Just Works and creates an authentic
by fn-mote 6mo ago
Re: price point
HN readers who can write a console game before bedtime are not the target audience. A handheld device that Just Works and creates an authentic experience is worth a lot.
For a college class, a $200 textbook isn’t out of line (the ones people still buy…), which makes this a very reasonable investment in one’s education.
Are there other, cheaper routes? Of course. For an introduction? Fewer, and nobody wants to be told to use learn the principles using Scratch - even if that can actually work.
Making something real is inspiring, and this feels real.
- jubilanti 6mo agoA $200 textbook should absolutely be out of line
- Wololooo 6mo agoAs an educator I always make a point to give the resources to the students and or give avenues to it that are not paywalled. Knowledge is the only resource that only becomes greater the more is shared because people share back what they learned. Mind you this only works if people are paying it forward. But often the educator gets more from teaching than the student does.
- fragmede 6mo agoAnna has an archive for students who can't afford books.
- Jach 6mo agoI love Anna but it's also a poor school that doesn't have its own library that has at least a few copies of every textbook used by classes + inter-library loans. Can be a nice way to make friends by sharing a physical book to study and do exercises from in a shared workspace.
- bigfatkitten 6mo agoProfessors making students buy the textbook they wrote for $200 is especially out of line. In any other industry they call this corruption, but in academia it’s apparently ok.
- analog31 6mo agoWhat are the statistics on this? There are about 500k professors in the US, and they make up about 1/3 of college teachers. Also, most academics would object to this situation, so it's not apparently OK. There's a growing movement towards open-sourcing textbooks or replacing them with other kinds of online materials. Don't get me wrong, I think that college education is due for reform. There are examples of finding better ways to do it. My son's textbook costs were very low. The regional state university that he attended had some kind of thing where you rented your textbooks and turned them back in, often with a nominal or zero fee.
- htek 6mo agoOne professor at my poorly subsidized state uni who had a book he required for class was $180 or so. He had enough (spiral bound Xeroxed) copies in the library for everyone to borrow for the semester. Or you could buy a shiny new one from the bookstore or online at full fare. Another gave the classes copies of the chapters.
- gnopgnip 6mo agoFor an advanced course that is how the economics works out. They are expensive to produce and have limited demand, and typically only for a few years until they are replaced.
- barrkel 6mo agoYes, but this is intentional, and that's what's out of line. The main content stays the same but exercises and case studies are rotated out to force an upgrade. The business strategy class I took in college in Ireland used the same book for two or three years, even though the book was reshuffled every year, just to enable some spreading of the financial burden on students.
- aesthesia 6mo agoAt least in some fields, advanced courses are the most likely to have lower cost textbooks. Real analysis textbooks are usually cheaper than calculus textbooks. It's the introductory courses that tend to have $200 behemoths attached to online homework platforms optimized for ease of grading rather than student learning.
- oulipo2 6mo agoThe article mentions you can use the free PC/Mac simulator which doesn't require a device
- latexr 6mo agoThat’s a very USA-centric view. 200$ for a textbook which will (often) only be used for a couple of chapters and was written by the professor shouldn’t be normal anywhere. The price of that book could pay for months (and in some cases years) of tuition in EU countries. As someone from the EU who was always curious about the Playdate, I never got one because the price becomes even more absurd once you factor shipping and taxes. It easily goes to double or more. I wish Panic all the luck with the console, but I think we can agree that paying Switch 2 / PlayStation 5 prices for one is hard to justify.
- 999900000999 6mo agoTuition at Duke is 70k per year. Buying a game system is the least of your problems there
- latexr 6mo agoAgain, that’s not the discussion. See my reply over two hours ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47804719 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47804719 Additionally, the page says: > more than 50 Playdates have been provided to students Provided. To me that doesn’t seem like the students are paying for them. From other comments in the thread of former Duke students using iPods, it seems Duke lends you the hardware. Furthermore, “tuition is expensive so buying expensive hardware is the least of your problems” is not a good argument. There’s a reason people in the USA drown in student debt. Whatever you can save is good.
- shimman 6mo agoThey aren't drowning in debt because of supplies, they're drowning in debt because both the federal + state governments have stopped investing in education since the GFC in 2008. That plus a bloated admin body that cares about itself more than its literal mission (providing education + research).
- 999900000999 6mo ago> The price of that book could pay for months (and in some cases years) of tuition in EU countries. What happens in magical places with free or heavily subsidized college has little to do with what an expensive private US university does. If a German college decides 200$ is too much they can use Godot or a variety of free alternatives.
- sbcgamer 6mo ago> A handheld device that Just Works and creates an authentic experience is worth a lot. yeah, it's worth around $64.79 current price https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1x_PmVHiQNHyw5t05peEDG1DcCKDCvH_UPd3p7yCw4xg/edit?gid=0#gid=0 https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1x_PmVHiQNHyw5t05peED... ... It's not the format, there are cheaper, more open and more easily shared formats. It's the Developer Experience of the Playdate.
- Cthulhu_ 6mo agoThere are plenty of free or cheaper alternatives, although platforms like pico-8 are (intentionally) hard to work with, especially as a first introduction to building games and / or coding.
- onemoresoop 6mo agoIs pico-8 hard to work with?
- 3836293648 6mo agoNo, but it has a lot of very intentional limitations
- JKCalhoun 6mo agoArduBoy ($99) [1] comes to mind. But your point is taken. Also Playdate claims there are educational discounts, so I suspect students aren't paying $199 (or is it a little over $200?). (EDIT: another comment suggested $195 is the student discount—ouch!) [1] https://www.arduboy.com https://www.arduboy.com