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Latest Humble Bundle Hits $1 Million
dylan_- writes "The Humble Frozen Synapse Bundle — where you pay whatever you want for a collection of games — has just hit the $1 million mark with 1 day and 9 hours left to buy. The games are DRM free, available for Windows, Mac and Linux, and include a donation to the EFF and Child's Play charity. As with previous bundles, Linux users are the most generous, paying an average $9.18, Mac users come in second paying $6.58 leaving Windows users lagging behind, paying $4.11 on average." These stats are presented right on the page dynamically, so you might see slightly different figures — the dollar figure should only be moving one direction, though.
Most people are buying this to either 1. Make themselves feel better about supporting indie games 2. because the idea is novel I'm sure a few actually like the games.
Do you have any corroborating evidence to support this?
But I tried it out once and most of the games were pretty bad.
But I tried it out every time and most of the games were pretty good.
Either way they should slow down the number of bundles they're releasing. The novelty factor is dropping quickly.
Breakdown of sales figures:
Humble Indie Bundle #1: $1.27 million
Humble Indie Bundle #2: $1.8 million
Humble Frozenbyte Bundle (note the lack of "Indie" in the name): $700,000
Humble Indie Bundle #3: $2.17 million.
Contrary to your uninformed assertions, it looks like sales are on a phenomenal upward trajectory considering the nature of the enterprise. I'm sure they'll take your opinion into account before they make their next move though.
The soylentnews experiment has been a dismal failure.
Humble Bundle Games are bad? World of Goo, Gish, Braid, Osmos, Crayon Physics Deluxe, Frozen Synapse, SpaceChem, Trine? Have you ever played them?
I had bought all of those listed above BEFORE seeing the bundle (in the case of Trine, 8 copies for friends, etc.). They're not top-of-the-range, graphics-card-pushing FPS from a top-name publishers, sure, but they're top-selling, professionally-produced games that were selling enough units on their own without the bundles.
Even this one's main game - Frozen Synapse - was on my computer and my brother's before it got close to the Humble Bundles. Sure, there's some crap in there too, but the majority of the games are extremely good, and already selling well in their own right via Steam normally. That's how they can afford to just let them be sold off, or open-sourced if HB makes enough money (in the case of Gish, etc.). Hell, I bought Gish god-knows-how-long ago - it must have made its costs back before the HB even existed.
The reason these things are popular is because it's a damn good deal - even if you assume the normal prices are way over-inflated (which they aren't), getting those games for even $10 is a bargain - there's HOURS of decent playtime in there for less than a 6th the price of a single full-price game. Redeemable on Steam, too, so no downloading and installing (just automatic double-click-and-wait).
I never mind supporting indie games anyway (hell, I paid way over what the bundle costs for the games inside it before it even existed), and the idea is novel but not unique (honesty boxes - they're even used in car parks in some places in the UK). People are buying it because the perceived value for money is enormous.
I just wish they would stop adding things in after - save that for the next bundle!
or more likely, Windows users pay less because they have access to the ocean -- by far the greatest variety of affordably-priced software available to them already. Mac users live in a much smaller pond, and so they're willing to pay a bit more when they get a rarer chance to actually play something on their platform. And Linux users, once they've picked their jaw back off the table on finding somebody offering games for their platform, are the most willing to part with their cash in the hopes of seeing their relatively tiny puddle expanded.
The situation TheTurtleMoves described is one of the biggest issues with PayPal I hear about fairly regularly. They don't like something, they get a complaint, they'll yank money out of a linked account without even a pause to investigate, question it, contact you, etc. Everyone I've talked to in that situation then faces an uphill battle in which they try to convince PayPal to look again and handle the situation responsibly and fairly. Apparently contacting Paypal and getting a useful response is a miracle in and of itself.
Presently here, but not there.