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Gaming: Techradar interviews me about homebrew and commercial game development on the upcoming GP2X Wiz
Thu, 04 Sep 2008

Short news piece
Full interview

Looks like a number of things were editted out (which is fine, I ramble a lot), but I had hoped one comment would slip through; I'll paste it verbatim here. (Maybe down the road I will paste the whole of the interview, but this is for them so they can have it for awhile before I post anything.) 

# 5. A lot of people would suggest
# that the GP2X:Wiz will once again be a console very popular with those
# who use emulators or pirate games, and won't actually be interested in
# a dedicated software base. How would you respond to such a statement?

        I must nit on your question; I wouldn't suggest that previous GPH
machines have been popular with those who pirate games; emulation and
homebrew yes, but piracy of published GP titles has always been _Very_
frowned upon in the community; mentioning it will get you banned from the
various websites, and discussing even how to crack the DRM on GP32 cards
was a hushhush secret affair so the 'newbs' wouldn't catch wind of it. I
expect the same for Wiz games -- with such a tight community the publc is
protective of their developers, and knows they and GPH live or die on the
economy of it all.

        If you're suggesting emulation itself thrives on pirating games
then I can only say that they are not one and the same -- ask me another
day if you'd like my essay on it but suffice to say you can enjoy
emulation to a large extent very much without breaking any laws.

        Anyway, ranting aside --

Youch, looks like my fear for this came to life - the piece got picked up (which is good) on other sites and affiliates, but for some the spirit got lost; when boiling down many of the words it has gotten turned into a "Jeff thinks its a failure" piece. That isn't what I had intended at all - its a homebrew machine - its not going to take on the PSP and probably isn't meant to. they're working up for that fight, but this isn't the time. Its like saying a bicycle isn't going to take on a car... we know that. Its fine and it doesn't suggest bicycles suck. *sigh* See, I did say.. 

        The Wiz will be enormously popular for emulation and homebrew
fans, and I expect people will buy a title or two of commercialware if it
is priced well, and is priced to the quality. Prices have been climbing in
gaming arenas, but as we can see with Apple's iTunes App Store .. keeping
prices modest can really boost the numbers.  Now, remember there are
multiple sides to economics -- on the one, you want to make people smile,
and enjoy your title, and keeping prices low does that.. and gets the
title out to more hands for more smiles. But accountants will be quick to
point out that if you half the price and sell 2.5 the quantity, you still
are ahead.. so karma, and profits. The trick is finding the balance.

        So I do believe there is a market, but I don't expect its a huge
one.

        I've never seen statistics for sales for the previous GPH
machines, but from the forums we do see people buying the games; and if no
one bought any, Play Asia and so on wouldn't have kept stocking them
right?

Another piece that got cut out; I know its a really lame analogy, but its my lame analogy. I've used it in a dozen interviews over the years, and it always gets cut. They know it sucks, but damnit, my quest on earth is to have someone publish my lame analogies :) 

        For a decade I've been telling people my theory -- if you go to
the supermarket and look in the butter aisle you'll see a dozen brands of
butter; sure, most people buy the top 3 brands, but theres room for a
dozen. Getting into the top tier is exponentially hard, but getting on the
shelf at all.. thats doable; hard, but doable. Theres no shame in being
#10 out of a hundred products, as #10 gets on the shelf. Some might call
it bottom feeding, but those of us working our tails to the bone 80 hours
a week like starving musicians - just to get onto the tiniest edge of a
shelf against the big guys.. we call it survival, fighting the good fight.

        This is how Quake mod teams suddenly end up being game developers
themselves; ten years of bottom feeding and finally getting their break.

        GPH was a nobody with the GP32, and they're getting more known
with their increased Linux support on the GP2X series; they're still a
nobody, but they're less a nobody. Slashdot posts about them now, but
thats a logn way from pretending Sony will take notice. (I don't know how
big a name they are in Korea. Perhaps I am woefully unaware!)

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