
Braid, Super Meat Boy, and Lone Survivor Added to Humble Indie Bundle V - gokhan
http://www.humblebundle.com/?additions
======
r00k
For those that have already bought: if you follow the link they emailed you,
you can download the additional games.

------
latch
Not to be ungrateful, but any chance that we'll get soundtracks with these as
well?

The addition of FLAC soundtracks was great..and for anyone who hasn't checked
it out the Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP soundtrack is _amazing_, as is
Bastion's.

~~~
FiddlerNero
I've been listening to the Bastion soundtrack on repeat for the last week :-).
I feel like it very much fits in the style of Firefly, but maybe that's just
me.

~~~
SquareWheel
The lyrical tracks are my favorite. Just fantastic music.

~~~
moondowner
Especially Setting Sail, Coming Home (End Theme). Wonderful soundtrack.

------
jere
Not implying that they don't deserve it (they absolutely do), but I'm blown
away by how lucrative this is for the developers. With some reasonable
assumptions, it looks like the original 5 developers have already made
$300,000 each.

Quite a payday for games that have already been released for a while. I think
(from my rough calculations) that's about what Braid made on its opening
weekend.

~~~
forrestthewoods
I was just thinking how _not_ lucrative it is. When it's all said and done a
500k check for "free" down the road ain't bad, but it's not terribly
impressive either when you consider these games truly are the best of the
best. It's even less valuable if much time was required to port to Linux as is
often the case.

Gamers have shown that they are willing to pay a whole entire dollar per game
for some of the absolute best indie games released in recent years. I find
that far more depressing than encouraging.

There's a reasonable argument to be made that the devaluation created by
Humble Bundle and perhaps Steam sales cause more harm than good in the long
run. Of course there's a reasonable argument they do more good than harm as
well. It's interesting to consider but impossible to prove either way.

~~~
batiudrami
>Gamers have shown that they are willing to pay a whole entire dollar per game
for some of the absolute best indie games released in recent years.

That assumes that people don't already own some of the games, and that they
actually want all eight of the games. For instance, I already own Braid, Limbo
and Psychonauts (and paid $10+ for each of them), so when the bundle came out
I paid my $10 for Bastion and Sword and Sorcery (and I was only really
interested in Bastion). Of the additions announced today, I already own Braid
and SMB.

I think it's a lucrative week for the devs, but I think a bigger issue is that
when you offer games so cheaply you significantly reduce your potential
purchasing base for the future when you essentially give it away. That being
said, I've seen plenty of stats which show game sales slow to a crawl very
quickly unless you push it up with significant sales - it's not like 'work'
software where a big sale can significantly decrease your perceived value
(imagine if Adobe sold it's Creative Suite for 75% off once a year - no one
would ever purchase at full price again!). Gamers are an impatient bunch and
are prepared to pay full price for something they're really excited for.

You have to try and find out whether the increased volume generates more
volume than it potentially removes in lost future sales, and I tend to think
that it does - especially for games like Bastion which had a huge marketing
effort when they were on Xbox Live Arcade which would have given them a lot of
full-price exposure.

~~~
rogerbinns
> ... you significantly reduce your potential purchasing base for the future
> ...

It isn't quite that bad. You do get a whole bunch of money and customers at
once. Is it better to have one dollar today from a customer than getting 5
dollars in several months time, from the same customer and have to spend all
those intervening months doing marketing and other things to try and get the
customer? Consider the price a discount for not having to spend the effort to
get the customers.

You also get more certainty over your future. eg if you get a cheque today for
$500k then you know how much you can spend making your next game. Getting the
usual daily dribbles instead makes it far harder to plan for the future.

And of course you can add your game to multiple indie bundles over time so you
do get multiple bites at the cherry so to speak.

~~~
batiudrami
Oh yes, of course. Like I said, these games are all several years old and
have, I think mostly run their course in terms of full price sales, so I don't
think these bundles significantly affect these game's future sales, and
getting exposure to lots of people opens up opportunities for sales of
sequels/future games.

Still, it'd be worth doing the maths on - if your game is still selling well,
putting it in a bundle would be foolish.

------
prayag
I hope they show up in the ubuntu software center. They are pain to find
(after installation) using the .deb files.

~~~
hexis
Considering I still haven't seen Psychonauts in the software center, I am
prepared to be patient for these new games.

~~~
jeff18
I believe Psychonauts is being delayed due to its massive size. I would not be
surprised if there are technical hurdles for packaging it that need to be
overcome for the Ubuntu team. We've actually received some support messages
that certain file systems cannot actually contain a 4.5 GB file, which is a
new one to me!

These new games, on the other hand, should be finished tonight.

~~~
prayag
Super meat boy was already there but cost some 6 dollars or something. Ubuntu
software center seems like an alpha.

I am glad you guys integrated with this because I want the software center to
be a successful product but are you as frustrated by it as the users are?

------
res0nat0r
I've added the previous games to my Steam account, can I add these new ones
which have just been added also? I'm not home to actually try this yet but it
would be awesome to have these new games managed by Steam also. Since I
purchased this bundle previously I'm wondering if that is possible.

~~~
jmcnevin
Yep... if you follow the link you received previously, there's a new Steam key
available for the added games.

------
melvinmt
I'm not even interested in these games but I went ahead and ordered a bundle
for $8.50 just because I'm a huge fan of pay-what-you-want concepts and the
Humble Bundle execution of this concept is awesome.

~~~
fishbacon
If you haven't played them, do yourself a favour and try them, they are all
very good games and well worth their original prices.

~~~
sharkweek
I don't consider myself a huge wuss but I'm still only about half way through
Amnesia -- make sure you play late at night with the lights off and good
headphones on.

------
JackpotDen
Alright chums. My home laptop can't have linux on it and be online. How do I
buy this, and make it look like I paid for it on linux?

~~~
Paul_S
After you buy the bundle it lets you choose how to classify your purchase.

------
olalonde
Why is this on the front page of HN?

~~~
a_bonobo
Three possible explanations:

1) An example of an unusual pay-what-you-want business strategy that is
EXTREMELY successful

2) An example of a successful start-up (Humble Bundle Inc.)

3) Cheap, "independent" games

~~~
olalonde
That's what I think as well but this is the _fifth_ Humble Bundle and it's not
even the official announcement, simply an addition to the original deal. I'm
just a bit surprised this is of interest to so many HNers.

~~~
yew
The Humble Bundles are the only reliable source of high-quality Linux-
compatible games that I'm aware of, so I expect them to continue to get a fair
bit of attention.

Though I voted this submission up because of its informational value. I saw it
before I got an email about the update.

------
thekungfuman
Any love for those of us who already bought this? I don't want to pay twice,
especially considering the only other game I want that I don't already have is
Super Meat Boy.

~~~
ricree
I just checked my download page, and the new additions are showing up even
though I bought several days ago.

According to the front page, the new ones are for people that paid more than
the average. If you have bastion but not the new three, then perhaps they were
based on the average when added to the bundle. That's likely gone up, so if
you paid less than the current average but more than the average when you paid
you might not have gotten them.

~~~
dlevine
You get the new games if you paid more than the average when you originally
purchased. I paid $7, which was a bit more the average when I originally
bought the bundle (day 1), and the new games show up in my account.

~~~
Fargren
No. You get them if you paid any amount before they were added. I had payed
well below average (buying foreign currency is currently very hard in my
country) and I got the games added.

Also, from a recent interview with the guys from the bundle[1]:

 _RPS: Is there any temptation to have it be so you only get the extra games
if you up your payment to above the average?

Richard Esguerra: No, I don’t think so. That’s not been discussed as an
option, but it has been communicated internally that that would be gross. It
feels like a bait and switch, you get penalised for buying earlier. That
doesn’t make any sense for customers. If there’s anything that we’re super-
rabid about, it’s about gamers – it’s about the gamers’ experience, about how
awesome the experience of participating in a bundle is. Getting to pay what
you want, getting to choose where the money goes. We want all that to be as
awesome as possible, so we really try to avoid experiences where people will
feel like, “Oh, why did I buy this when I did.”_

[1][http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/06/07/humble-bundle-
v-a...](http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/06/07/humble-bundle-v-added-
braid-meat-boy-lone-survivor/#more-111053)

