The onward march of the bundles of March

[sopabuena]

Well, releasing a brand new game in a pay what you want model is pretty good. You can pay as low as you want and get Botanicula (plus 2 other great games you may or may not have) wich is currently $10 at GOG.

I love point & click adventures and somehow I didn't have Samarost 2 yet. So this was a no brainer for me. I've already played Windowsill and probably won't watch Kooky so $5 was fair enough.

Also there was a lot talk about Machinarium recently, specially since Tim Schafer brought it up on their Kickstarter, so there might be more people interested in it, and that is always a good thing.

I don't get why people get so angry when games they already own go on sale, it's still a damn good sale. This is a developer sale and it makes sense there are repeats, specially since they have only 4 games published (and one is free)

[alms]

Machinarium is a great game, I really loved that one. Samorost2, not much.

There's no strict rule against including other people's games into a dev bundle. After all, Windowsill is not Amanita's, as Block that Matter and The Binding of Isaac were not lexaloffle's, Dredmor and Aquaria were not Introversion's.

PS: do all brits pronounce it botanAcula or is it just a quirk of TB's?



PPS: oh my freaking Cthulhu is this a joke? "Java is an ancient language that used to be used for web games a long time ago"

I remember when Java was released, C was already 20 yo by then.

PPPS: https://twitter.com/#!/RaveofRavenda...49581200736257

[icupnimpn2]

I don't get why people get so angry when games they already own go on sale, it's still a damn good sale. This is a developer sale and it makes sense there are repeats, specially since they have only 4 games published (and one is free)

I'm certainly not angry, just meh. If I don't buy I don't buy. There have been absolute riches of bundles and sales recently. Abundant games to all. When I was a kid, I would get an allowance of $1 a week. Unlike my sister, I could not stand to save these up for 50 weeks to buy something that cost $50. I would spend it on a single $1 comic, and thus could buy something every week.

Holy smokes, I never would have imagined that I could buy four computer games for that money. Even in the heyday of shareware, developers wanted $20 or $30 for the full game. Never had that. We are in great times for gaming.

Now, I can understand people with pre-orders for this game getting a bit annoyed. Here they've set aside $10 for what they'd assumed was the best price because they enjoyed the developers' prior games and want to be there on day one to support them. Now they find out they can pay less to get more? And all the impulse buyers and fence sitters get to benefit more than they did for showing their support in advance?

[alms]

And all the impulse buyers and fence sitters get to benefit more than they did for showing their support in advance?

Fence sitters always get better prices, that's the whole point of fence sitting! but they have give up the right to play a game when all the other cool kids are.

In this case however no delay. And bonuses. Easy to see why people were pissed off.

[Skalpadda]

Now, I can understand people with pre-orders for this game getting a bit annoyed. Here they've set aside $10 for what they'd assumed was the best price because they enjoyed the developers' prior games and want to be there on day one to support them. Now they find out they can pay less to get more? And all the impulse buyers and fence sitters get to benefit more than they did for showing their support in advance?

I pre-ordered Botanicula from GOG but can't say I care very much since the game is still pretty cheap and I already own both Samorost and Machinarium (who doesn't by now?). The one annoyance was that the HiB version included the full soundtrack but it seems they're adding that as an extra to GOG customers, so I'm happy.

I can't imagine GoG and Gamersgate are too happy about it though, especially GOG since this is among the first indie games they offer.

[deano2099]

Now, I can understand people with pre-orders for this game getting a bit annoyed. Here they've set aside $10 for what they'd assumed was the best price because they enjoyed the developers' prior games and want to be there on day one to support them.

Anything that gets people out of this notion that games must be pre-ordered (or as I call it, ordered) is a good thing. Buy a game when it comes out, especially for digital stuff. Why voluntarily commit money beforehand? It's quite silly (and indie games with pre-order beta access etc are different).

I can't imagine GoG and Gamersgate are too happy about it though, especially GOG since this is among the first indie games they offer.

GoG can't be too bothered as they've chipped in $300 for it.

[alms]

Which only goes to show they're good at PR :)

[Skalpadda]

$300 is a fairly cheap way to get your name, website URL and twitter account onto a page a couple of hundred thousand people will visit over the next two weeks.

http://www.gog.com/en/forum/general/..._debut/post269

[alms]

The HIB price is holding even better than I thought, if the bonus turns out to be interesting it could push the average higher still.

In the meanwhile there's been more teasing from both Kyttaro (BundleInABox) and Indiegala for their next bundle. With HIB lasting 2 weeks it'll be interesting to see whether they will launch anyway or rather wait.

[alms]

For those interested in the finer details of humble bundling, here is a lengthy analysis: http://cheesetalks.twolofbees.com/humbleStats.php

As for the current bundle, it's been going pretty steadily but things finally slowed down between yesterday and today. Average had dropped to the 60s, and then slowly crawled back up in the 70s first and now 80s. So far price's been pretty stable compared to other HIBs.

It'll be interesting to see if/what bonuses are added and what effect they will have.

[trjp]

I suspect we'll see IG4 this week - no idea on this Bundle in a Box thing tho, lots of twittering but nothing remotely resembling action (it was an original idea once!!) :)

STILL nothing from Gamersgate on the 'surprise' - astonishing that they screw their customers around like this isnt it??

[alms]

If the trend about stuffing all them bundles together holds (and mostly unavoidable as the next IR should be out in a couple weeks), you're likely right, although I think they changed their line from "line up finalized" to an "almost".

As for BiaB, they had games made for it so it seems reasonable that that would take more time than simply collecting existing games. Also I think we might finally be getting close to release time.

With other bundles stepping in the spotlight I haven't been following the aftermath of IndieFort. I dropped a PM to celt earlier today to see if he has news.

[celt]

I dropped a PM to celt earlier today to see if he has news.

Heh! I'm glad you said that here, alms, as I probably would never have noticed I had a PM. =)

There really is no news. There had supposedly been a tweet from someone at GamersGate saying the bonus would be given over the weekend. The weekend has come and gone.

There's a thread on the GamersGate Tutor section here: http://www.gamersgate.com/gametutor?issue=226952 . It has a bunch of people talking about the topic but most notably nothing from GamersGate. The only place GamersGate has said anything is on Facebook, not their own website.

My mind is left to wander. A scenario that comes to mind is that somebody involved is mad at someone else involved, promises haven't been kept from within, and the unusual silence is caused by their desire to present a unified front that isn't currently available. Alternatively, another scenario is that they don't really care at all, have no internal communication, and the topic would quickly fade into oblivion if it weren't for people periodically asking questions. And then they say, "Oh yeah, that!"

[Kodeen]

I haven't gotten this HIB yet, and I usually get them day one. I already have Samarost 2 and Machinarium, and to be honest I just don't like Amanita games all that much. Maybe they'll add a game later on that'll catch my interest.

[alms]

A scenario that comes to mind is that somebody involved is mad at someone else involved

Thanks for the update. I don't know exactly how they were handling things, but I think the guy who was actually running the bundle is not a GG employee.

[trjp]

I haven't gotten this HIB yet, and I usually get them day one. I already have Samarost 2 and Machinarium, and to be honest I just don't like Amanita games all that much. Maybe they'll add a game later on that'll catch my interest.

It seems likely that even if they do add bonuses (and the whole issue of giving a new game away for 'less than full price' means they may not want to stir that pot anyway) it's unlikely to be a rally game, fps or schoolgirl stalking sim...

[trjp]

Thanks for the update. I don't know exactly how they were handling things, but I think the guy who was actually running the bundle is not a GG employee.

Whoever was doing it and for whatever reason, the total silence says more than anything they could say about how poorly they treat their customers...

You don't offer people a bonus if they buy something and then once they buy it decide to be silent about it.

A local takeaway did a thing on Facebook whereby if you invited your mates onto their page you could win free pizzas - they went from 0 likes to a few thousand in a week. 2 weeks later someone asked who/if/when anyone had won anything and got blocked/kicked from the page - so someone else asked and the same happened - and now they have 12 likes and over 2000 people who know they're dishonest and therefore order from someone else!!

[alms]

it's unlikely to be a rally game, fps or schoolgirl stalking sim...

uh?

Whoever was doing it and for whatever reason, the total silence says more than anything they could say about how poorly they treat their customers...

It's far from my intentions to offer any kind of excuse for their behavior. Still, the whole matter is quite puzzling and I'd like to know what exactly went wrong. Don't you?

[trjp]

uh?

He said he didn't like the games in the bundle - I was suggesting any bonus was unlikely to be something radically different.

It's far from my intentions to offer any kind of excuse for their behavior. Still, the whole matter is quite puzzling and I'd like to know what exactly went wrong. Don't you?

I believe 1 of 2 things will happen

1 - we'll never hear about it again - it will become that which must not be spoken of
2 - they'll come out with some made-up excuse as to why they've ignored 100s of people's polite questions and treat their customers like crap

If 2 then, they'll either offer something which people like and everyone will go 'woooo' or they'll offer something craptastic and everyone will go 'phail!!!' and life will move on.

Right now tho - right now is the time of flux, that's when we need to mock them and generally be deprecating :)

"I hear IndieFort2 is coming soon but it's entire content is a secret"

"IndieFort2 - no longer under your bedcovers, this one is really hidden"

etc. etc.

[alms]

IG IV live: ARES Extinction Agenda, Alien Shooter. BTA: Disciples II: Gallean's Return, Altitude, WAKE + 2 bonus games.