The onward march of the bundles of March

[alms]

HIB update, will edit top post later this evening

All Humble Botanicula Debut customers can now download a behind-the-scenesBotanicula art book & map collection, a pack of behind-the-scenes photographs & concept art for the feature film Kooky, the experimental interactive music project Osada, and bonus albums from both Floex and DVA, the musicians behind some of Amanita Design's most evocative soundtracks.If you pay more than the average price, you now have the additional option of streaming the film Kooky from Redux! Due to popular demand, we've also posted an extra high-quality version of the film. Check out your download page for details.

@arccos you're welcome.

[icupnimpn2]

GameStop's having a "indie games bundle" on Friday. Not sure what the availability is outside the US. Looks like just a grouped discount, but they're trying to get in on bundle fever. Supposedly 90% off at $12.79, first come first serve. No bonus incentives, surprises, etc. Sale starts 12pm US Central.

http://impulsedriven.com/products/ESD-IMP-W2967
Gray Matter
Helldorado
Edna and Harvey - The Breakout
Cargo! The Quest for Gravity
Really Big Sky
And Yet It Moves
Gratuitous Space Battles
SickBrick

At least several haven't been in other bundles. I'd like a copy of Cargo, but probably won't bite on this one. You?

[alms]

Baby steps: BiaB launches teaser site.

http://bundle-in-a-box.com/

Spring is longer than you think.

[allanschnorr]

Baby steps: BiaB launches teaser site.

http://bundle-in-a-box.com/

Spring is longer than you think.

It seems the bundle went live by mistake earlier today and someone on Neogaf spotted a few of the games before the page was removed: Gemini Rue, Ben There Dan That, Time Gentlemen Please, 1983: A World's Fair Mystery and Lands of Dream. $4 minimum.

[alms]

Thanks! I'm woefully behind with my internet catching up thing today.

I hope that's not the list, with all of that teasing come greater expectations. Also, it doesn't look any of those games were written for the bundle, as it was said.

[pakoito]

Holy shit the signal to noise ratio is getting worse by the second. I used to get my fix of prototypes from Kongregate but now it is just better to go for bundles.

[tossrStu]

It seems the bundle went live by mistake earlier today and someone on Neogaf spotted a few of the games before the page was removed: Gemini Rue, Ben There Dan That, Time Gentlemen Please, 1983: A World's Fair Mystery and Lands of Dream. $4 minimum.

Genuinely interested to see 1893: A World's Fair Mystery in there as it's one of the few attempts at commercial IF from the last 10 years or so, and as much as I'd like to play it, the asking price of $23 was just a bit too steep for me.

I assume "Lands of Dream" could be The Sea Will Claim Everything as it's the first of his Lands of Dream game to be released commercially (and it hasn't actually been released yet, so it might kinda qualify as being written for the bundle I guess?)

[tossrStu]

Yikes, the spam filter devoured my post (due to it having a couple of links). Anyway, I'm genuinely interested in 1893: A World's Fair Mystery being in BiaB, as it's one of the few attempts at commercial IF to be released in the last 10 years or so but the asking price of $23 was just a bit too much for me. I assume the other game is likely to be Jonas Kyratzes's The Sea Will Claim Everything, a game that is as-yet unreleased which ties in with what Kyttaro are currently saying about the bundle -- that it will help with the debut of a brand-new game.

A poster on NeoGAF thought they saw a game in BiaB called "Metal [something]", which could be Metal Dead -- that's the only indie adventure I can think of with a name like that, anyway.

[trjp]

I think the bundle thing has finally run it's course - I'm sure HiB will continue to do interesting things (and make big money) but sales of the latest IndieGala are atrocious - just over 5000 in 2 days (tho the slightly over $5 average isn't as bad as it could be).

My only interest in it is the Boss Baddie games if Really Big Sky in one of the unlocks as it seems almost certain that it is - otherwise I'll just hit the PWYW thing instead (and RBS has been bundled before - as have most of the other games here??)

If BIAB turns out to be just another collection of adventure games I think all we'll here is a lot of 'meh' - they are claiming one unique/new/unseen before title tho so who knows...

[frightlever]

Didn't think much of the last two Indie Gala collections and I suspect that has more to do with the poor sales. The one before last was outright bad, IMO, judged on game quality rather than price paid.

[alms]

There are many issues with this Gala, indeed. The base tier is limited and uninteresting, which pushes potential buyers to try and beat the average, which in turn makes it go up. There are 3 repeats, a 10 yo game, 2 Alien Shooters and I wonder how many IG1 buyers just shuddered at the sight of those.

I'm not gonna comment on how the sales are going before they reveal the full lineup, but I want to give some numbers to think about:

Be Mine 2  ... ~75,000$
IR Spring  ... ~85,000$ (my guesstimate)
IG3        ... ~90,000$

Homework:
1) Can you guess which one had the lowest Metacritic average? And which one had the highest?
2) Can you guess which one had the lowest average purchase? and which one had the highest?

:)

[icupnimpn2]

I'm sort of more interested in how the profits breakdown for each individual participant in a bundle. That's probably a better metric for success. But of course there's guesswork involved in that. But let's say there's a bundle with five games from different developers. Can we assume they take an equal piece of the pie? And can we assume that the bundle organizers also take a set piece, such as 10%?

[alms]

A lot of guesswork, it's almost invariably more accurate to stick with a simple, good enough proxy than to make a lot of guesses about things you don't know much about.

AFAIK profits are not equally split among the different devs.

[allanschnorr]

I think the bundle thing has finally run it's course - I'm sure HiB will continue to do interesting things (and make big money) but sales of the latest IndieGala are atrocious - just over 5000 in 2 days (tho the slightly over $5 average isn't as bad as it could be).

I think that in case of the bundle fever finally going away, IndieRoyale will survive alongside the HIB. Not every game can be part of HIB and IndieRoyale seems to be the ideal place for them to go.

[icupnimpn2]

I think that in case of the bundle fever finally going away, IndieRoyale will survive alongside the HIB. Not every game can be part of HIB and IndieRoyale seems to be the ideal place for them to go.

I agree. Indie Royale is a great little mechanism for getting players to use the Desura platform. It may have stronger lasting power for that reason, especially as most of the bundles have included at least one Desura-exclusive title.

GamersGate, despite the foibles of the first Indie Fort, really don't seem to have much to lose by running an occasional bundle. They carry a lot of obscure titles, and I'm sure the owners/publishers of those titles wouldn't mind extra attention or income. GamersGate isn't going to live or die on the continued success of bundles because they have their regular store as a main source of income. Unlike Indie Be Mine, Indie Gala, etc which only exist for the sake of bundles.

[arccos]

GamersGate, despite the foibles of the first Indie Fort, really don't seem to have much to lose by running an occasional bundle.

True, and they do an occasional package deal like they did recently for the 1C Complete Pack. That was a steal at like $24 for most of 1C's games. The Indie Fort was a bit of a screwup, but when I only pay a few bucks, it's not that big of a deal. At least they didn't mess up as bad as the BeMine bundle.

[Pertusaria]

Aww, Mordor. I hadn't thought of that in a few years. Almost wish I'd bought the bundle now. It's a real shame if it won't run in 64-bit Windows - Google throws up several hits of people using Win98 emulators, which seems a bit of a kludge.

[alms]

At least they didn't mess up as bad as the BeMine bundle.

The one-off underestimation of the success of a bundle seems a more understandable (and excusable) failure to me than the disregard that GG showed towards the bundle buyers. HIB and IndieRoyale had similar troubles on their debut, what Gamersgate did on IndieFort was a first.

BTW let's not forget the IndieGala organizers are indie devs themselves.

[alms]

IGIV full lineup revelead, the only news is that the secret PWYW title is another repeat, Steel Storm.

[Heliocentric]

I just wanted to say thank you for this thread, it's good to neither have to investigate or miss out on these things.