PC Gaming: Humble Bundle Discussion

[Deleted member]

Even if I were the philosophical type, this ain't the place to talk about it.

 

[Kal]

I'm just kidding. I also don't like philosophy all that much.

Anyway, still got that extra Steam key for The Basement Collection if anyone wants it.

 

[Lythium]

You can't gift stuff from a Humble Bundle if you've already redeemed keys from it.

 

[Kal]

Every game that you receive for paying over the average gets a separate Steam key, so I can still give away my extra copy of The Basement Collection. For some reason, every title in Humble Bundle 7 gets a separate Steam key as well.

 

[Todd Bonney]

And you think that has anything to do with the Humble Bundle? Hopefully not, but it's a hell of a lot easier to mention than to come up with an actual response to anything I've said.

My thing had as much to do with the Bundle as your thing.

And who says I have to respond to you? I said my piece; you said yours. Yeesh. I wasn't making a big stink.

But since we've gone this far, let's examine my claim that the Bundle is bad for business. Right now, the average sale price is $6.61. For the sake of discussion, let's suppose everybody uses the default split. That means each developer receives $0.43 per bundle. That's not a lot.

Now, you and probably others have said "I wouldn't have bought this game otherwise." So they allegedly make up for in volume what they lose in price. I'll take Grimrock as an example. It normally sells for 14.99. Factoring in sale prices and cuts from distributors, let's suppose the developers average $6 per sale from normal methods (a conservative guess, I'd say). They would have to sell more than 12 such bundles for every one sold to someone who would buy it a la carte to come out even. That's not even considering the money they could earn from the soundtracks that are also bundled.

The numbers don't work for me. I may continue this later, but I've got to jet. Like I said, it could be great for everybody, but it just creeps me out. Maybe I'll buy one in the future. I liked GOG.com's pay-what-you want promo better. It seemed more fair.

 

[Kal]

But since we've gone this far, let's examine my claim that the Bundle is bad for business. Right now, the average sale price is $6.61. For the sake of discussion, let's suppose everybody uses the default split. That means each developer receives $0.43 per bundle. That's not a lot.

Now, you and probably others have said "I wouldn't have bought this game otherwise." So they allegedly make up for in volume what they lose in price. I'll take Grimrock as an example. It normally sells for 14.99. Factoring in sale prices and cuts from distributors, let's suppose the developers average $6 per sale from normal methods (a conservative guess, I'd say). They would have to sell more than 12 such bundles for every one sold to someone who would buy it a la carte to come out even. That's not even considering the money they could earn from the soundtracks that are also bundled.

No one is arguing that a developer might make less money with the bundle than with a standard release, so this entire analysis is kind of irrelevant. The point you made was that this bundle is bad for business, and that's what is being addressed: most of the time, the titles available in these bundles are released long after the game's initial release, which means most of the sales at default price have already been made. In that case, it's not losing all of those $14.99 sales for a greater volume of $0.43 sales; it's gaining a volume $0.43 sales from those who would not have purchased the game at all. In the case of Grimrock, the majority of those $14.99 sales have already been made since it was released in April.

I agree that if, for example, Borderlands 2 were released in a Humble Bundle instead of in the traditional method, then Gearbox likely would have made less money. But I doubt that, if they release it a few years from now in a Humble Bundle, it could possibly be bad for business. And, as far as I know, the titles released on the Humble Bundle are either already doing rather poorly (see Humble THQ Bundle) or have been out for a while. In other words, they've already gotten most of what they're going to get out of the traditional model.

And, as an aside, lower prices can easily result in sufficient volume increase. Look at Left 4 Dead sales going up 3000% as a result of a single weekend sale.

 

[Gea]

I think it's pretty relevant to also look at Saints Row 3. Even though SR3 was part of the humble bundle and thus could be obtained for far cheaper than during the current Steam sale, Saint's Row 3 still topped the sales chart for it's 48 hours as a daily deal. This is with a price higher than the average to get the entire THQ bundle with extras. While I'm sure it could be argued some of those sales were lost due to the Humble Bundle, they still saw great success anyways. Their product was not magically devalued despite said Humble Bundle.

And it's likely that THQ already knew about their looming woes and thus had nothing to lose by doing the bundle. Enjoy the games, I say. THQ is going to be bought up anyways.

 

[Deleted member]

let's suppose the developers average $6 per sale from normal methods (a conservative guess, I'd say)

that's not really a conservative guess though

 

[Gea]

Six dollars is forty percent. Distribution platforms aren't taking over 60 for digital titles. I think Steam takes 30? It sounds pretty conservative to me.

 

[teluoborg]

I think you guys are forgetting something.

When you buy the bundle, you also buy the games that you don't want.
So developpers get to sell their game to people that don't really care about it.
Add this to the fact that they sell their game to people that wouldn't buy it full price and you have a working system.

 

[Todd Bonney]

We're not forgetting that. See Kal's and my last posts.

 

[RespawningJesus]

This is the last weekend for the steam winter sale. Get them while they're still hot!

 

[Deleted member]

Note that if it's not on the front page right now, it's no longer on sale.

 

[sakuraZaKi]

Hey guys, wondering if you can give some suggestions for good LAN party games.

We're like a party of 4-5, lol.

 

[Deleted member]

RTS games (age of empires/ age of mythology/red alert/battle for middle earth/warhammer 40K), shooters (counterstrike/older call of duty/team fortress) comes to mind. If all 4/5 play league or dota, that's a great pick

 

[PsychoIncarnate]

Someone should buy me don't starve. I don't like using steam since they were hacked

 

[Todd Bonney]

Here you go, wise guy. No Steam necessary.

http://www.dontstarvegame.com/blog/landing/buynow.html

 

[Todd Bonney]

Yeesh it's dead in here.

I may have come around regarding the Humble Bundle. I like the weekly sales. A la carte seems like a more square deal. I got the Bastion weekly deal (mainly for the soundtrack) and Alan Wake, and I've gotten a few from indiegamestand.com. The new Humble Indie Bundle is pretty sweet too. It's got at least 3 that I want. 4 including Dear Esther, which I got during the Winter Sale and haven't played yet.

 

[sakuraZaKi]

Well, I've recently just built my own 'gaming' PC...

The only problem is that... I don't have a video card, lol. So I'm basically running integrated graphics and a bulky block until I get the money.

*sigh* Gotta hate online sales tax sometimes.

 

[teluoborg]

Well I guess you should still be able to play "Thomas was Alone" lol.

The humble indie bundle #8 is worth buying just for hotline miami and awesomenauts, and the other games look pretty good as well.

 

[courte]

Wow this has been dead for over a year. that is insanity. Anyways I was hoping to find a place for discussion and possibly trade arrangements for the drm free bundles. I missed out on the image comics and eBooks bundle 3. I have quite a few others and im willing to say something up