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Author Topic: The Humble Indie Bundle  (Read 20184 times)

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Joxam

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The Humble Indie Bundle
« on: May 05, 2010, 12:29:41 AM »

I'm sure some of you have already heard of the humble bundle, but if not look at it.
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Thad

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The Humble Indie Bundle
« Reply #1 on: May 05, 2010, 10:06:49 PM »

Just opened up the thread to link that.  Yeah, Shark's already mentioned it on his blog, and it's been on Dealzmodo, but it bears repeating.

World of Goo, Aquaria, Gish, Lugaru HD, Penumbra Overture, Windows/Mac/Linux, DRM-free, pay whatever you want.  Of the bunch I've only played World of Goo but it's totally awesome.

Average payment has been $8.  I might go as high as $50 and figure that way I can pass a few copies on to friends without feeling guilty about it.

Anyway.  Buy it and support indie/multiplatform/DRM-free/freakonomist devs.  And also charity.
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Lobst

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The Humble Indie Bundle
« Reply #2 on: May 06, 2010, 04:38:38 AM »

Paid $15!  I already own World of Goo and Lugaru looks less than up to snuff; the other three look fantastic, though.

Telltale's having what they call a "pilot program", debuting their first original property: Puzzle Agent, a fully-2D adventure in the style of Professor Layton.  Preorder it and nearly anything else you put in your cart alongside the preorder is half-off.  I upgraded my Tales of Monkey Island for $13!
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Royal☭

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The Humble Indie Bundle
« Reply #3 on: May 06, 2010, 07:53:57 AM »

As of 10:30 on May 6th, that bundle has managed to snag $365,000 at an average of $7.90 per purchase. 

Of course, there's no way to tell how much went to developers and how much went to charity, but if we assume that it's an average 50/50 split (for no reason that it's the default and probably the most fair), then that's $187,000 to five developers, which when split that way is $37,000 to each one. 

Obviously only barely a living wage, and weighted differently for each developer.  For example, Wolfire Games who made Lugara HD has four people, where as Aquaria developer Bit Blot only has two.  Likewise, World of Goo (2D Boy) and Gish both had about three developers, and Penumbra has four.  The sale continues for a few days yet, so we'll see what the final tally is, and maybe even someday find out how the split went down.  These guys won't be making EA type figures anytime soon, but if developers could pull in numbers like this, they could at the very least make a living doing video games.

It also shows that $7-12 may be the video game sweet spot, and that a pay what you feel model may be a feasible way to run the market in the future.  Obviously without hard sales figures, this is more of a dumb exercise than any kind of serious fats about the industry, but I think at this point there may be a small future for indie games publishing.


SIDE NOTES:  Sales figures for GISH as of 2007 - Interesting to note is that over a 3 year period the game pulled in roughly $121,000, a large chunk of which was IGF winnings.  From a pure income perspective, that's $40,000 a year split between 3 guys, or roughly about minimum wage earnings.  Ouch.  Add to that a more than 90% drop in sales by 2007 and a different story starts to emerge.

Sales Results for 2D Boy's previous Pay What You Want model for World of Goo.  Again, a different story kind of emerges here, that maybe the pay what you want model has a future, but that a price floor might be a good idea.

Mongrel

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The Humble Indie Bundle
« Reply #4 on: May 06, 2010, 08:26:19 AM »

The thing about a price floor is that it causes an odd psychological effect. Once you have that, it is read by most folks as "the price" rather than "the minimum acceptable price".

Sure, you get a few exceptions, but most folks assume the minimum is low enough to assure profitability, so they become disinclined to spend more.

:tldr: If you're going to set any kind of minimum price, then you're infinitely better off just setting a fixed price, period.
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Thad

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The Humble Indie Bundle
« Reply #5 on: May 06, 2010, 09:41:19 PM »

...should also mention the Humble Bundle's only good until Tuesday.

I am going to exercise fiscal discipline and not buy it until I've balanced my checkbook, but I should hopefully get around to that in the next couple of days.
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Brentai

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The Humble Indie Bundle
« Reply #6 on: May 06, 2010, 09:43:55 PM »

I'd go for that but I only really want one game out of it and I'm terrified that if I go too low a gaggle of indie developers will track me down and shower me in goat's blood or something.
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Royal☭

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The Humble Indie Bundle
« Reply #7 on: May 07, 2010, 05:06:08 AM »

It's clear you're okay with anything around the $10 mark.  Hell, $20 is appropriate for about any ONE of those games.

Royal☭

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The Humble Indie Bundle
« Reply #8 on: May 09, 2010, 06:44:18 AM »

Samorost 2 was added to the Humble Indie Bundle.  They also added individual stats on the avg donation for each platform.  Linux is beating Windows almost 2 to 1.  Plus it's at $600k with 2 days left to go.  This thing is a powerhouse.

Detonator

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The Humble Indie Bundle
« Reply #9 on: May 09, 2010, 08:33:24 AM »

I cared not for this bundle until you mentioned Samorost 2.
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Thad

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The Humble Indie Bundle
« Reply #10 on: May 09, 2010, 10:22:27 PM »

Linux is beating Windows almost 2 to 1.

I am going to cite this figure every single time I see some stupid asshole say "Linux users just want something for nothing" from now until the end of time.
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MadMAxJr

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The Humble Indie Bundle
« Reply #11 on: May 10, 2010, 01:08:53 PM »

On your page with your humble purchases, be sure to scroll to the bottom and fill out the survey data so you can indicate what you want your purchase to count as.
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Thad

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Re: The Humble Indie Bundle
« Reply #12 on: May 10, 2010, 04:24:31 PM »

Ars takes rather a bizarre "the glass is 25% empty" tone in a bitchy little article called Humble Bundle gives pirates what they want, gets ripped off.  It DOES make a fair point: there ARE some people who cite big publishers and DRM as reasons they don't pay for games, and then turn around and don't pay for games that don't have those problems either.  But, you know, $800,000 isn't exactly something to sneeze at, guys.

BoingBoing, meanwhile, reveals that if they make it to $1M, the devs will release the source for Gish, Penumbra and Lugaru.  Given that they made about $100K today, it's not out of the question that they'll make $200K by tomorrow.

Last chance, guys.  I'll refrain from getting all preachy, but I think this thing is pretty fucking great and if you have a couple of bucks to spare and a Paypal/Amazon/Google Checkout account, you should buy the bundle.
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Miss Cat Ears

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Re: The Humble Indie Bundle
« Reply #13 on: May 10, 2010, 05:21:07 PM »

I have like $10 in my paypal account. May as well go to these guys..
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Brentai

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Re: The Humble Indie Bundle
« Reply #14 on: May 10, 2010, 05:34:15 PM »

I can't match what Linux contributors are paying at the moment, so I'm not going for it.

Turns out I can, so I did.  I paid exactly $14.12.
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sei

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Re: The Humble Indie Bundle
« Reply #15 on: May 10, 2010, 06:07:43 PM »

I'd sooner bring the average paid amount down than not pay at all.
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sei

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Re: The Humble Indie Bundle
« Reply #16 on: May 10, 2010, 06:08:25 PM »

And it could always be fun to spend a penny and choose statistical contribution for the mac versions.  Eat that, Cult of Jobs.
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Brentai

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Re: The Humble Indie Bundle
« Reply #17 on: May 10, 2010, 06:15:49 PM »

They don't ask you what OS you're using at purchase, so it's either tracked by HTTP Header or counted when you go to download the thing.  Which might be throwing shit way off but it's not like the data's not helping them out.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to add five games I have no intention of playing to my Backloggery.
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Zaratustra

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Re: The Humble Indie Bundle
« Reply #18 on: May 10, 2010, 07:12:03 PM »

what the fuck Ars Technica? These are three to five year old games that weren't exactly top salers back when they were new. That near-million is pretty much 90% profit.

Frocto

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Re: The Humble Indie Bundle
« Reply #19 on: May 10, 2010, 07:41:16 PM »

Is there a way to buy this without World of Goo
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