I downloaded (not Shattered) Pixel Dungeon and then Shattered, and nearly a decade later I'm still playing. In fact it's 70% of my non-work computing time.
Not only that Shattered's dev updates often with sometimes great changes.
His beginnings were humble enough, so I'm not sure what your point is. I don't believe for a second that any of NVDA's success was handed to him or them - they effectively helped create and propagate a market for GPUs at a time when it was at best a niche.
I managed to see him perform several times around that era.
One concert I recall Shane managed to sing only three or so songs. He fell backwards, and was eventually dragged off stage. The rest of the band carried on.
Another, Shane made it about half way, but noticeably inebriated, and then just disappeared. The rest of the band just carried on.
The concert with the Popes, Shane had to carry the show, so he made it all the way through a couple of hours.
It's also much more usable than the UX mess that is Google Maps. I don't use either enough to specifically triage what's going on with Google Maps - all I know is the last half dozen times I have opened Google Maps I get annoyed quickly and fumble my way back to Apple Maps (on iOS and MacOS too, come to think of it) where it seems easier.
I haven't paid much attention to what the issues are, as I expect a mapping app to be intuitive enough that I'm not thinking about anything but finding whatever I'm looking for.
Is this a modern wood stove or insert? I recently bought one for a new home we're building, and from my research they're incredibly efficient these days. Not installed yet so we will see, I suppose.
The hard work I'm referring to is all the effort to get to place where you have even be "lucky" or serendipitous.
For example, professional networking is a tremendous amount of work. But in meeting, bonding and potentially working with those people opens so many possibilities for serendipity / luck what have you. Sure there are those with Daddy's money, but more importantly the relationships, networks and resources that Daddy has are more important than just the cash.
Nepotism, sure, but that's how the society has pretty much always worked.
Exactly! In whichever market that you can sell dirty bathwater, I think they may have an advantage over my sales of "Smelly Old Nerd dirty bath water".
I'll either find a better channel, price point or give up on my dream of dirty bath water money. Point being the actual value is the packaging and selling of said bathwater.
Distribution channels are endless, and as large as Amazon is, they are only one amongst many, albeit with plenty of vertically integrated advantages.
In the case of a firepit, local consumer channels would likely be speciality shops, hardware and big box with probably a couple of layers of distribution and logistics in between. That market however is more likely to offer $500-$1000 firepits, because that's the way it WAS before Amazon, ALi, etc etc opened up new digital channels to drive down volume, manufacturing and up quantity (which eventually results in either greater margins or lower prices).
Those same non Amazon channels will also sell Joe FBA's $200 firepit as well, perhaps for $400 using those other channels.
To access and operate a business around those traditional / other channels however is nowhere near as simple as "order 50 of these on Ali" + "sell these as FBA on Amazon" = $profit.
It's a lot of work. I wouldn't necessary call Amazon a shortcut, but it's a path to market that is easier, but at a cost.
I remember meeting NVIDIA in the late aughts (2007?) first launching their CUDA efforts. Really the product was a re-branded 780GTX or whatever their high end gaming card was at the time more or less, but they already laid out a clear pathway to today (more or less).
POS and payment hardware used to be a fairly high margin vertical hardware business, but I don't think so any longer. The real goal now is merchant / customer acquisition and service lock in. Basically I'd expect the hardware will be given away at some point.
Their biggest achievement is that they made all those things so cheap and accessible. It really reinforces that newer, innovative or edgier tech (ie: Kinect) isn't always the right approach.
I downloaded (not Shattered) Pixel Dungeon and then Shattered, and nearly a decade later I'm still playing. In fact it's 70% of my non-work computing time.
Not only that Shattered's dev updates often with sometimes great changes.
You've been warned.