It's actually
just a response to the regular inquiries about a simulator based on OT. As I wrote at the beginning, apart from making the tech demo and using it also as a kind of a tech promo, on the back-end we are working with companies that are using OT for those special sim projects. That side of things is going to keep us busy and in business for years. In fact we could close the facade now, if we didn't care for other things
But our interest here is to cover a broader field where OT could find its use, as you wrote - to keep the spectrum wide.
As for why not going for VC - as we don't have to, we rather opt to not have a leg in a shark's mouth. Currently any OT-based app can be made only with our participation on the project (because alpha, docs etc), which we clearly state to any interested party. We have been approached by a couple of companies that want to make this or that using OT. Funny thing is that those of them who seek VC often come back that the investor wants OT to be a part of the investment safeguard. That's because they (the companies) use OT capabilities when presenting their best feathers before the investor, pointing at its uniqueness and market advantage, and the investor sees where the value is and wants to secure with that.
That makes some parts of the equation redundant, reduced to an investor willing to get into OT, basically.
Crowd funding gives you a lot more freedom, but it's also technically far more challenging. Talking directly to the fans and enthusiasts, you must convince the audience you are the right team and have the right tech to make the thing they want to happen. Unlike with an investor who cares only for the financial success and ultimately expects a sellout.
As I wrote we technically don't need the crowd funding for ourselves to function. But it looks that crowd funding is nowadays the only way how to get some relatively niche products developed at all. The net is full of stories from game devs about how traditional investors turn them down because they do see it too risky and not lucrative enough, yet the project gets a big support from the crowd. Simulators seem to me to be one of such projects, though I'm not so sure about whether the community would be so willing as with the other "game" styles. That's what we are trying to find out, and discussing with a few small & dedicated developers, in seek of a prototype that could be used to launch a campaign.
But the OT usage is much wider than that. Maybe we should set up a poll, asking people what type of app they would like to see us to create and set up a campaign for, to assemble a team that would get an early support from us so that the app/sim/game would get an early start before OT is generally usable ...
