6 ms·

I think the support has a lot to do with just how transparent Panic have been about the entire process. You can see a lot of people being able to emphasize with

I think the support has a lot to do with just how transparent Panic have been about the entire process. You can see a lot of people being able to emphasize with the human element behind the product and the company.

philistine 5y ago
Compare with the grift of the Amico and the useless secrecy of Analogue. Panic deserves every ounce of goodwill they’re getting.
hrrsn 5y ago
I've always been impressed with Panic's level of communication. Many companies could learn a thing or two from them!
- encryptluks2 5y ago
  From their blog they literally talk to people like they are little clueless kids. If that is how people like their interactions. I personally find it semi-annoying and mildly offensive.
  - hrrsn 5y ago
    They write in a colloquial, friendly style and use language that is easily understood by people that exist outside of the HN echo chamber.
    - jrockway 5y ago
      This is targeted at the HN echo chamber, though. A Nintendo Switch costs less and plays AAA games. This is an STM32 with a black-and-white low rez screen and a hand crank. You could build one yourself for $50. (https://www.adafruit.com/product/3160 https://www.adafruit.com/product/3160 but that has a color screen.) Ordinary people that want to play video games are not going to buy this. I know this verbatim sounds like "No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame." or "you can already build such a system yourself quite trivially by getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem", both famously wrong assessments of hit products. But in this case, it's different -- the masses already have video games. If you want to make a 320x200 black-and-white game, fire up your editor, open up an OpenGL canvas at that resolution, and start coding. You can have your game available to billions of users tomorrow morning. They could easily say "we switched from the STM32F4 series to RP2040s because there is actual availability right now" and not alienate a single potential customer.
      - striking 5y ago
        I hear enough inscrutable engineering talk at work. I'm perfectly happy to read actual prose that reads like it was written for humans.
        jrockway 5y ago
        What are engineers if not human?
        jachee 5y ago
        Engineers may be human, but they’re often inhumane, cold, calculating, and callous. For example, being observably irked by insufficiently technical PR copy.
      - haswell 5y ago
        I'd consider myself deeply steeped in the HN echo chamber. Even though I'm a software guy, I've spent my share of time tinkering with electronics, implementing DIY home automation projects with Raspberry Pis and ESP8266 chips, etc. But I wouldn't have recognized either of those without going to look up more information, skim the specs or possibly manuals to understand whether or not I care about the change. The communication from Panic is simple, straight forward, and gives me a bit of context without making me go spend more time on research. They did exactly what they needed to do to help me feel more informed and less frustrated by the change. On your implication that this is an unnecessary overpriced product, then I suspect this product was not built for you. Sure, someone could purchase those parts and have their own thing up and running in no time. But no one would care. The PlayDate builds a defacto community all participating in the same product and the hype surrounding it, and this is what people buy into. I also take issue with this only targeting the HN crowd. There has been plenty of hype in other circles, and the Playdate team will be shipping a no-code project so they're clearly trying to make this accessible to enterprising kids (young and old).
        jakelazaroff 5y ago
        People seem to forget that you can’t evaluate games purely on tech specs. Sure, the graphics will be way better on my Switch. But if I want to play those cute Keita Takahashi or Lucas Pope games, I need to buy a Playdate.
  - sam0x17 5y ago
    This is actually just really good product/CE communication. Very technical and very untechnical people alike can read those posts and have a very good idea of what is going on, with a high degree of specificity. You don't have to use every piece of jargon available and write like a dick to have an interesting technical conversation. Communication like this is refreshing and clear, and you lose exactly nothing by writing like this to customers, as the technical implications of each sentence are also clear if you are technically inclined.
  - kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
    Maybe it sounds like that because they are marketing a toy?

philistine 5y ago

Compare with the grift of the Amico and the useless secrecy of Analogue. Panic deserves every ounce of goodwill they’re getting.

hrrsn 5y ago

I've always been impressed with Panic's level of communication. Many companies could learn a thing or two from them!

encryptluks2 5y ago
From their blog they literally talk to people like they are little clueless kids. If that is how people like their interactions. I personally find it semi-annoying and mildly offensive.
- hrrsn 5y ago
  They write in a colloquial, friendly style and use language that is easily understood by people that exist outside of the HN echo chamber.
  - jrockway 5y ago
    This is targeted at the HN echo chamber, though. A Nintendo Switch costs less and plays AAA games. This is an STM32 with a black-and-white low rez screen and a hand crank. You could build one yourself for $50. (https://www.adafruit.com/product/3160 https://www.adafruit.com/product/3160 but that has a color screen.) Ordinary people that want to play video games are not going to buy this. I know this verbatim sounds like "No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame." or "you can already build such a system yourself quite trivially by getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem", both famously wrong assessments of hit products. But in this case, it's different -- the masses already have video games. If you want to make a 320x200 black-and-white game, fire up your editor, open up an OpenGL canvas at that resolution, and start coding. You can have your game available to billions of users tomorrow morning. They could easily say "we switched from the STM32F4 series to RP2040s because there is actual availability right now" and not alienate a single potential customer.
    - striking 5y ago
      I hear enough inscrutable engineering talk at work. I'm perfectly happy to read actual prose that reads like it was written for humans.
      - jrockway 5y ago
        What are engineers if not human?
        jachee 5y ago
        Engineers may be human, but they’re often inhumane, cold, calculating, and callous. For example, being observably irked by insufficiently technical PR copy.
    - haswell 5y ago
      I'd consider myself deeply steeped in the HN echo chamber. Even though I'm a software guy, I've spent my share of time tinkering with electronics, implementing DIY home automation projects with Raspberry Pis and ESP8266 chips, etc. But I wouldn't have recognized either of those without going to look up more information, skim the specs or possibly manuals to understand whether or not I care about the change. The communication from Panic is simple, straight forward, and gives me a bit of context without making me go spend more time on research. They did exactly what they needed to do to help me feel more informed and less frustrated by the change. On your implication that this is an unnecessary overpriced product, then I suspect this product was not built for you. Sure, someone could purchase those parts and have their own thing up and running in no time. But no one would care. The PlayDate builds a defacto community all participating in the same product and the hype surrounding it, and this is what people buy into. I also take issue with this only targeting the HN crowd. There has been plenty of hype in other circles, and the Playdate team will be shipping a no-code project so they're clearly trying to make this accessible to enterprising kids (young and old).
      - jakelazaroff 5y ago
        People seem to forget that you can’t evaluate games purely on tech specs. Sure, the graphics will be way better on my Switch. But if I want to play those cute Keita Takahashi or Lucas Pope games, I need to buy a Playdate.
- sam0x17 5y ago
  This is actually just really good product/CE communication. Very technical and very untechnical people alike can read those posts and have a very good idea of what is going on, with a high degree of specificity. You don't have to use every piece of jargon available and write like a dick to have an interesting technical conversation. Communication like this is refreshing and clear, and you lose exactly nothing by writing like this to customers, as the technical implications of each sentence are also clear if you are technically inclined.
- kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
  Maybe it sounds like that because they are marketing a toy?