Bundle Up

By: Derek Yu

On: June 1st, 2012

Both a new Humble Bundle and a new Indie Game Music Bundle have come out this week (coincidentally, as they’re otherwise unrelated).

The Humble Bundle includes Bastion, Amnesia: The Dark Descent, Psychonauts, LIMBO, and Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP.

The Indie Game Music Bundle includes the OST’s of Terraria, Plants Versus Zombies, Dustforce, Ilomilo, and Frozen Synapse (plus much more if you pay over $10).

Posted in Audio, Bundles, Community

MrBanana

First comment. And Bastion.
http://twitter.com/celluloseman Evan Balster

Some Wadget Eye stuff and Jonas Kyratzes’ new game are in another bundle that came out this week: http://bundle-in-a-box.com/
Worth adding to the list in my opinion, as it isn’t getting much love. :)
http://kazeskyfox.deviantart.com/ Kaze

Yeah seriously, what the crap? It’s barely sold 3,000 copies and part of the blame for that falls on huge blog sites not reporting on it.
http://twitter.com/gnomeslair Gnome

Yeah, come on Derek! Do please add us :)
Bojangles

I’m kinda annoyed about the Bastion thing, myself. If the price of the game is based on the average amount of money paid, then the price increases every time folks pay over. Some people are gonna have to deliberately avoid buying the extra game just to make it a bit more affordable for other people.

Couldn’t it have just been a set price for Bastion, like they did for previous bundles?
Guest

Previous bundles have always been based off the average amount paid. This is just the best bundle yet so the average is higher.
Anonymous

The entire point is to drive up the price to the point that enough people don’t think it’s worth it such that it stabilises. Personally, the price always ends up well below what I’m willing to pay, so *shrug*.

In other words, no-one is going to argue against you when you say it will drive the price up, as that is clearly the intention (that, and to incentivise rush purchases). What you should be trying to argue is why that’s a bad thing.
SirNiko

Even without Bastion, you get Psychonauts, Limbo, and Swords and Sworcery. That’s a fantastic deal even if you can’t afford to go over the average price.
Nobuyuki

Actually the average price logic is nonsense, the only reason it doesn’t flop is thanks to assholes that pay $0.1 bux for the whole bundle, keeping the average low.
Otherwise, very few “heros” would buy it for more than $50 bux, and even less regular people would go for above average, perhaps not even buying the bundle at all.. and the whole process taking the average higher and higher, leaving more people away from the extra bastion fun, and possibly not buying the bundle altogether.
It’s kind of a twisted logic that shouldn’t work, but works for the wrong reasons. Makes no sense to be honest.
Oh, and this is just my opinion, but I think a lot of the profit might come from high quantity low income sales, between $1 and $5. It’s better to sell a file 100 times for 5 bux, than sell it 5 times for 40 bux. (just an example).
So this average thing isn’t really helping, the whole thing actually works in spite of this silly gimmick.
Instead of a silly ‘average’, they should set a fixed price even cheapskates would be willing to go for!
To be fair, I think the average is super low, about 8 dollars, so in practice they don’t need to fix their logic, but in theory they should.
Rikus

I agree in the sense the sales : price ratio is exponential. Some people might think double the price, half the sales; but it’s not the case with selling virtual data on the internet. Usually if price increases a few bux, sales drop by 30%, the price gotta be just right… depending on how you reach your audience.
The more you reach your audience, the biggest demand with lower prices. And this is what humble bundle does right, they reach their audience greatly, and they take advantage of it allowing very low prices. That’s the wonder of selling data on the internet, no other type of business/service can benefit this way.
The trick is to reach millions of possible customers, and allowing them to spend 1 dollar or something, at such low price, it’s almost 1 million dollars guarantee. Reach that same audience at a 60 dollar price tag, same product, sales will drop so much, you might not even make 10 grand.
Nikica

Trying to forget Amnesia, huh?
Guest

I don’t think you understand how amnesia works.
USA loves 241

I know these Bundles are good and I believe the developers have to agree to be included in them… But after awhile I started calling these Indie-Americans-Like-To-Shop-In-Walmart-Bargain-Bins-Bundle.
Be sure to support your favorite and top games guys. The worry is more in the long term where peoples perspective on whats worth what changes (There is a great talk by Edmund McMillen about this).
For instance I may not find out about Bastion until today. And then I buy the bundle and vertibly pay 2$ for Bastion. But really that game was worth every penny I payed back when it launched.
The problem comes when I start to ignore a large chunk of indie games and wait to find out about them via bundles in order to save $. Then you go and you spend that extra money on other things which may include AAA games that in retrospect you might find hardly worth the $. Anyways. It will be hard to say what real positive and negative effects there will be in the long run.
News

pompous mainstream faggot
http://twitter.com/celluloseman Evan Balster

As a totally-not-rich indie, my response to the concern that bundles might be bad for indie games is… well, we’re independent. On the financial front, we look out for ourselves. As artists and intellectuals we help each other out and give encouragement, but as professionals we basically just try to make a living. And on that front, bundles work really really well. (By selling your game to a bunch of people who wouldn’t otherwise buy it at a discounted price)
pinkie

Notch and the bronies are probably going to drive the price up a few cents by **themselves**, once their little pissing contest is over. lol
Ringshifter

What’s wrong with buying it for $0.01? THEY gave the option to do such, and everyone’s within their right to do so.

I don’t usually, but I did pay 0.01 for the Botanicular bundle because I wasn’t really very interested but it seemed stupid to not get it for a penny.
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