Humble Bundle + other indie bundles thread

[jgray91]

The lack of a Humble Bundle, or indeed an indie games bundles thread saddens me a little bit. But have no worries, for I will make one. Personally, being confined to a lowly laptop, I can't play much of the triple A PC games, and my 360 is busted. So I turned to indie games and it is one of the more glorious things I found in my short life so far.

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Heyheyhey. Chiming in again for another bundle from the Humble Indie Bundle guys. Now it's a cross-platform bundle of 5 Android/PC games. Go grab if you always find yourself bored out of your mind while at the airport and that album you're listening to for the 100th time isn't cutting it anymore!
 
 
 
 

Spoiler: Old%20news

 
 
Indie Royale is running a bundle right now in the spirit of May called the May Hurray Bundle. The bundle includes Dungeon Defenders, Containment: the Zombie Puzzler, Data Jammers: Fast Forward, Brainpipe - A Plunge to Humanity and Weird Worlds: Return to Infinite Space. I'm only slightly familiar with Dungeon Defenders and I think I've saw TotalBisuit did a What is... video on Data Jammers, but other than that, I have no idea with the other games. Check them out yo!
 
 

 
 

Spoiler: Ended%2C%20but%20the%20video%20is%20still%20valuable

 
 
To kick off, lets start with the latest Humble Bundle currently running now with this first impressions video:

 
Currently its a Amanita Design bundle, the makers of the highly adorable point-and-click game Machinarium. If anything, that video made me want to play it right now!
 

 
So what are you waiting for? Go for it!
 
 

 

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And this could be the thread for other bundles too, only I don't go looking for others too much. Appreciate it if others could throw a link to me.
 
Additional links:
Steam-focused indie bundles on the Steam forums.
Indie Royale.

 

[EnOYiN]

I already played Machinarium and loved it. I might pick this one up for Botanicula which looks really nice. What I do find a little depressing to see is that so many people pay so little for these bundles. I know that the sheer number of sales makes up for it, but I still think that most people could give a bit more. It's not as if most of these games aren't worth $5 by themselves. The problem that that introduces is that the value of a game in peoples eyes drops considerably after it's been in a bundle. So not that happy about that, but other than that I think humble indie bundle is a great idea. Got me a lot of really good games for sure.

 

[Roller]

Machinarium, Terraria, Super Meat Boy, Vessel, and many others are great games and well worth their going price.
 
And I do agree that current indie and blockbuster prices are unbalanced.

 

[jgray91]

Agree with both of you. IMO I don't think it's quite beneficial for an indie company if they're releasing new game. But for older games that they made before they're semi-known? Great! And indie bundles are also great for newer indie companies too I guess. And I quite like how they provide the choice of whether to download the Steam keys or DRM-free installer.

 

[jgray91]

Oh man. Just finished Botanicula, and I couldn't be more happier (and sad, because it ended). Certainly, Amanita Design have done in again!

 

[Dzjudz]

I absolutely love the pay what you want (mostly) indie bundles.

I have most bundles of the three big ones:
- Humble Bundle
- Indie Royale
- Indie Gala

There are some stellar games in my collection thanks to these initiatives. Just a short list of games I liked in particular:
- SpaceChem
- Super Meat Boy
- Machinarium
- Trine
- NightSky
- World of Goo
- Nimbus
- Hard Reset
- The Ball

An interesting thread on the Steam forums is the Indie Bundles notice thread, it lists most (if not all) indie game bundles, and in the second post is an archive of all past bundles and their games.

 

[jgray91]

That's a great thread. Adding it to the first post for easier access to everybody. Thanks!

 

[kmthd]

Love Humble Indie Bundle. I've purchased every one since the first official Humble Indie Bundle 1.
 
I've picked up some of the others as well, like Indie Gala, Groupees, Little Big Bunch, etc.
 
I actually think that new and old games make far more money in bundles (Humble mainly) than they do on their own. And the smaller developers often make more money in the bundle than they ever had before. Look at at the rather large (for indie) Amanita Design, which is featured in this current bundle. During a "Pirate Amnesty" campaign they lowered the price of Machinarium to $5 dollars because they realized the majority of players had pirated the game. During that sale they sold thousands of copies in a matter of days. And since Humble came out theyve been all over it.
 
Humble Bundle is really the same idea, it just got huge over time. That's the whole reason they let you pay what you want, download repeatedly, and give money to the EFF (Electronic Freedom Foundation), because their target audience is pirates and people who wouldn't otherwise buy it, like linux users and DRM/Steam haters.
 
I think Bundles are great for Indie developers no matter how you look at it. It's a massive paycheck and huge new userbase of people who never would have played or even heard about these games.
 
I do agree that the flood of bundles these days is sending the wrong message, making indie games seem like 99 cent apps and not games, but I still find it hard to say it is a bad thing. The upside would be if people start refusing to pay $60 for games from the large studios.
 
 
Also, check out this wikia of current and past bundles:
 
http://indiegamebundle.wikia.com/wiki/Indie_Game_Bundle_Wiki

 

[jgray91]

 
Quote:

Love Humble Indie Bundle. I've purchased every one since the first official Humble Indie Bundle 1.
 
I've picked up some of the others as well, like Indie Gala, Groupees, Little Big Bunch, etc.
 
I actually think that new and old games make far more money in bundles (Humble mainly) than they do on their own. And the smaller developers often make more money in the bundle than they ever had before. Look at at the rather large (for indie) Amanita Design, which is featured in this current bundle. During a "Pirate Amnesty" campaign they lowered the price of Machinarium to $5 dollars because they realized the majority of players had pirated the game. During that sale they sold thousands of copies in a matter of days. And since Humble came out theyve been all over it.
 
Humble Bundle is really the same idea, it just got huge over time. That's the whole reason they let you pay what you want, download repeatedly, and give money to the EFF (Electronic Freedom Foundation), because their target audience is pirates and people who wouldn't otherwise buy it, like linux users and DRM/Steam haters.
 
I think Bundles are great for Indie developers no matter how you look at it. It's a massive paycheck and huge new userbase of people who never would have played or even heard about these games.
 
I do agree that the flood of bundles these days is sending the wrong message, making indie games seem like 99 cent apps and not games, but I still find it hard to say it is a bad thing. The upside would be if people start refusing to pay $60 for games from the large studios.
 
 
Also, check out this wikia of current and past bundles:
 
http://indiegamebundle.wikia.com/wiki/Indie_Game_Bundle_Wiki

 
This is a good point, and I agree most of it. If not for bundles like this, I won't buy more games than I could play, even if they're short, low-budget titles most of these are. But over time, there would be less incentive for someone to buy said bundles if they kept rotating to the same titles. I still think that new titles shouldn't be launched in a bundle. For example in this case, Botanicula was actually on pre-order for gog.com members, and on it's release day, it's in this bundle. Suffice it to say that gog.com and the ones already pre-ordered it is quite unhappy (more apparent those that pre-order the game is unhappy actually, and gog.com took the fall and gave some consolation to them). There's quite some articles on this like Rock, Paper Shotgun and other indie-games-focused gaming sites.

 

[jgray91]

Updated with Indie Royale's the May Hurray Bundle. OP updated.

 

[EnOYiN]

Anyone even remotely interested in indie games should pick up the humble indie bundle right now. The best bundle I've seen so far in my opinion.

 

[Dzjudz]

I agree. Pick up the Humble Bundle right now. Amnesia, Limbo, Bastion, pretty amazing quality games.

 

[EnOYiN]

As an update: the humble bundle added braid, lone survivor and supermeatboy making this the single most awesome thing since sliced bread. What is a problem is that I already own a good portion of these games and I can't give the ones away which I already own. Not that great. Otherwise: great.

 

[jgray91]

I agree. IIRC I already have some on offer already. Going to hype this subtly by posting in all caps. jk
Quote:

As an update: the humble bundle added braid, lone survivor and supermeatboy making this the single most awesome thing since sliced bread. What is a problem is that I already own a good portion of these games and I can't give the ones away which I already own. Not that great. Otherwise: great.

 

[Rarehunter]

Just reminding everyone that the current groupee bundle is ending in ~2 hours! So you better hurry! Syberia and Oddworld for ~$4 is more than worth it; everything else imo is a nice bonus - http://groupees.com/bemine3
 
The only sad thing for me is that Postal 2 is only on desura and not steam But then again, would you want people to know you play Postal 2?