
Humble Bundle #3 is Live - Dysiode
http://www.humblebundle.com/#3
======
joshuacc
The way that they preselect an amount $1 above average is extremely clever. It
appeals to people's need to see themselves as above average without costing
them anything substantial.

Screenshot: <http://screensnapr.com/v/QciSbr.png>

~~~
patio11
I'd love to be a fly on the wall for the A/B test, but I still think something
a wee closer to

[http://images1.bingocardcreator.com/blog-images/hn/deep-
disc...](http://images1.bingocardcreator.com/blog-images/hn/deep-discount-
mockup.png)

would kill both the A/B tested options. Bringing in people's psychological
need to be above average is great, but I might do that by putting a nice
37Signals style yellow highlight on one of the expensive options (for some
value of expensive which would pay for more than a Big Mac) and say "24% of
people went for this"

~~~
ZoFreX
Personally, "Tired of overpriced games from soul-crushing megacorps laden with
spyware and DRM?" really puts me off.

~~~
blake8086
Are you tired of underpriced games from small indie dev shops without spyware
or DRM?

~~~
sliverstorm
It's a somewhat antagonistic statement, and those can rankle.

------
thristian
For people who are interested in the business story behind the Humble Indie
Bundles, the creators gave a talk covering Bundles 1 and 2 at the 2011 Indie
Games Summit:

<http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1014437/The-Humble-Indie>

One of the take-away messages they had was "always target Mac and Linux,
because it's a bit more work but you'll double your revenue".

~~~
benjohnson
As a Windows user - seeing that the software available for different
architectures says to me that the code is more than likely robust and well
debugged.

~~~
Aissen
The thing is you have no guarantee that the Windows binary have been generated
_after_ the port was done. Also, no guarantee it's the same source tree and
not different forks of the same base.

------
jentulman
These bundles are all great. I keep pointing them out to my non-gaming friends
as much as possible.

I've dumped my consoles in the last year and moved to finding 'indie' game
devs like these because, as the old saying goes, 'It's not about graphics,
it's about gameplay'[citation needed] and I don't care how many polygons you
can throw at /next big game/ it is almost invariably yet another FPS.

~~~
estel
I don't think it's fair to say it's "yet another FPS". I think that people who
only play Indie titles are missing out just as much as those who only play
huge AAA releases.

~~~
dasil003
What about people who only play Dwarf Fortress?

~~~
sorbus
You're missing out too - and I say this as someone who used to only play DF.
DF is amazing, but there are tons of other games that are just as amazing or
nearly so (Minecraft, Fallout, Terraria, Portal, Spacechem ... dear deity,
Spacechem. If you buy one game this year, buy it). None of them really compare
to DF in learning curve or sheer complexity, but they're all really good.

~~~
dasil003
Who's got the time though?

~~~
Dysiode
I view it similarly to any other varied hobby. If you like to cook you can
either choose to cook American food all the time or you can branch out and try
different styles.

Although, the difference is that hunger and food are pretty constant in
relation to each other where as there are just masses of video games. But I
think the principle is close enough :)

~~~
lazerwalker
The problem with this comparison is that an average meal doesn't take upwards
of 20 hours to prepare. For someone working full-time, completing a game can
be a large time investment.

~~~
dasil003
Generally I play games maybe 2-3 hours a week max due to the double whammy of
having a family and working at a startup :) This means for the average game it
might keep me busy for a few months at a time. DF on the other hand...

------
listic
A commenter on habrahabr.ru+ noticed
(<http://habrahabr.ru/blogs/gdev/124990/#comment_4110999>) that there are
Russian black marketers buying bundles for $ 0.01 and reselling for around 50
rubles ($1.50) that, unfortunately, may drive the average price down.
Supposedly, people who can't be bothered to get a credit card or Webmoney
account buy from them.

I'm worried how the pay-what-you-want model accommodates this behaviour? I
hope clients buying directly for a reasonable price will always outnumber the
black marketers or people intentionally buying for $0.01 to cause loss, but I
don't know for sure.

\+ habrahabr.ru is Russian IT news blog filled in large part with content
translated from Hacker News.

~~~
nickzoic
Since there's no DRM you can't help it if people are buying one key and then
burning a bunch of CDs, but that won't affect the average price much. Seems to
me that if they're selling license keys for $1.50, the best way to counter
this is to change the download screen title to:

    
    
        Thanks for purchasing the Humble Indie Bundle #3 for $0.01!
    

... if the customer thinks that's fair, so be it, but it might at least
encourage the "resellers" to pay slightly more.

Alternatively, I don't think setting the minimum payment to $1 would be at all
incompatible with the "pay what you want" slogan & worthwhile if it eliminates
the payment fees problem.

(But what would I know? I've bought all four, and last time 'round I felt like
I got my money's worth just out of Braid.)

------
sequoia
vvvvvvv is awesome by the way. You can try it here (assuming you have flash
installed/enabled): <http://www.kongregate.com/games/TerryCavanagh/vvvvvv-
demo>

~~~
BrianBerk
Not only that, but they just upgraded to VVVVVV 2.0, which has a level editor
and bunch of really good new levels. I'm a huge fan of the game, and this is
like the best thing that happened to me today.

------
cookiecaper
Always excited to see another Humble Bundle. I purchased right away and gave a
greater proportion to Wolfire in hopes of encouraging further bundles sooner
(not that I paid that much, but I don't have that much money right now :\\).
The Linux support is what makes this such a happy deal for me.

------
jrockway
Interesting stats. There appear to be as many Mac users as Linux users, and
Linux users pay 2x more than Mac users.

I guess Mac users spend all their money on OS upgrades :)

~~~
2muchcoffeeman
This is a really interesting statistic actually. I got the last 2 bundles and
I'm a Mac user. I am definitely pro-Mac OS. Seeing those stats made me pay a
little more.

I am also an iOS dev and try and keep up on trends. I'd wager most Mac users
are also iOS users. And current stats indicate that most iOS users are willing
to spend money on software.

So why the stinginess here!?

~~~
yurifury
iOS users get many chances to spend money on games. Linux users only get a few
chances, so when a Humble Bundle rolls around, they jump on the opportunity.
You can bet that iOS users spend more money (total, not per-game) on games
than Linux users, because of the App Store.

------
chanux
Linux version pays the best average amount. Is there any message?

~~~
Uchikoma
Yes, Windows and MacOS users spend more money on buying software so their
budget is already stretched, while Linux users have money to spent.

Or Linux users cannot assess the worth of software as they are not used to buy
software.

Both probably not what you wanted to hear, and probably not the real reason. I
just wanted to point out that we can project everything into the fact that
Linux version pays best average amount.

~~~
StavrosK
Or "I'll pay more for this to reward these people for making games for my
platform, and more developers will hopefully follow."

------
voyvf
I'd like to thank the Wolfire crew for making these marvelous games available
at a reasonable price - and especially for the Linux support. :D

------
SageRaven
Lame question: What techniques are used to show real-time stats like that on a
web page? I assume those are truly real-time, anyway.

I'm no web developer, but this feature really strikes me as cool in this
particular instance. I rarely fancy overly-busy web pages, but these stats
seem very nicely executed; interesting in and of themselves, yet clean and
nice visual presentation.

~~~
AdamTReineke
They're constantly requesting a JSON file about once a second. Example
contents, formatted: <http://pastebin.com/uMv7d8xS>

~~~
watty
Seems like excessive transfers. I achieved a "real time" counter by having
requests return a start value and a rate of change per second. The GUI would
then update every second with the estimated values. My AJAX requests would
happen much less often and update the start and rate of change.

------
BenSS
This is always absolutely awesome. I chipped in over average this year but I'm
dismayed by the people throwing in less than a buck, you're just making the
developers pay the CC companies!

~~~
palish
Surely they wouldn't put the transaction through unless they were getting
money from it though?

~~~
rcfox
That's a good point! If they're not going to make any money, there's no sense
in even taking it. Though, it might be illegal to sell something and then not
accept payment. (Fraud? Money laundering? I don't know, but it seems
potentially sketchy.)

~~~
jrockway
It's not fraud or money laundering. You don't see people refusing payment for
the simple reason that most people would never give their stuff away for free.

~~~
rcfox
I didn't mean to say that it is fraud or money laundering, just that it might
look like it.

Anyway, what's the difference between giving something away for free, and
selling something and receiving $0?

------
neovive
I wonder how the Mac App Store and any upcoming App Stores for Windows will
impact these various software bundles. Does the Mac App Store allow bundling?
If not, this would be a nice add-on feature.

------
r0s
Hammerfight is an excellent game, very fun and beautifully rendered.

I hope they make a sequel.

------
JoshCole
The youtube video showing the youtube video was a nice touch. Recursion:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4c6PWtE9mI&feature=playe...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4c6PWtE9mI&feature=player_detailpage#t=95s)

------
twakefield
The promo video is fantastic. Reminds me of those car demolition show
commercials: THIS WEEKEND...CARASAURAUS REX...THE FIRE BREATHING...CAR
EATING...ROBOT MONSTER DINOSAUR! Live at the civic center, tickets available
now!

~~~
kapilkale
The promo video is great, and had me smiling the whole time. John's voice is
recognizable and hilarious.

~~~
spydum
I actually kicked up a couple more bucks towards Humble tips just for that
promo video -- it gave me a good laugh.

------
tobylane
I'm starting to feel foolish every time I look at a indie game in the steam
store. Bought all four bundles, which are about a quarter of the steam games I
own.

------
kin
these are awesome, i just do a $25 and let them decide how to balance it all
out. question though, any chance for an iOS humble indie bundle!?

~~~
seanalltogether
apple doesn't allow for 3rd party sales, best you could hope for is a
jailbroken humble bundle.

~~~
alanfalcon
Think creatively. Create a humble bundle 4 app with an interface that allows
you to play any of the included games within the app. Have it be a free
download with IAP of various amounts to allow people to show their support
that way.

Apple's 30% cut would be a downer, but it could be done.

~~~
malvim
Didn't Capcom did something like that with their old console games? I think
they had an app with some demos and were selling their games as IAP. Might
work!

------
Indyan
The average is less than 5 bucks. That's simply pathetic. If I remember
correctly, it was a couple of bucks higher in the earlier editions.

~~~
citricsquid
Pathetic, how so?

The people paying that amount could already own the games, they could already
donate to charity. This is pay what you want for a reason, a large portion of
people purchase _just because_ it's a donation thing. If someone has a spare
$5 why don't they spend it here? It isn't pathetic, it's better than nothing.

~~~
Dysiode
"It's better than nothing"

Agreed.

Introversion managed to stay alive through selling their four games for $5 on
Steam. That's ultimately not too much better than the current average bundle
sale
([http://forums.introversion.co.uk/introversion/viewtopic.php?...](http://forums.introversion.co.uk/introversion/viewtopic.php?t=2512)).

These deals tap into the reservoir of people who aren't invested enough in the
games to pay full price (I forget the exact term for that), and these games
certainly aren't new, and each has been on sale on Steam at least once so the
people who were going to buy for full price likely already have.

~~~
Wilduck
Price discrimination. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_discrimination>

~~~
dbalatero
Not sure what your message is exactly, can you clarify?

~~~
StavrosK
Dysiode said they forgot the term, Wilduck reminded us.

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tete
I don't consider myself to be a fan of that kind of music, but I always enjoy
the Humble Indie Bundle ad. It's so awesome. :-)

------
hesdeadjim
These guys rock, they always do a great job on the pitch video too and this
one might be their best.

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mgkimsal
Anyone else get 'cogs' to work on the mac? 10.6.6, 13" 2010 mbp, and cogs
won't start.

------
slowpoke
As awesome as this is, I'm quite bothered with the payment options. As it
stands, I can't pay even if I wanted. I don't have a CC and all of Paypal,
Amazon and Google are utter no-gos for me. It makes me a sad panda that
options like PaySafeCard aren't as widespread as I would like them to be.

~~~
brianleb
I think HIB did due diligence by offering CC, PayPal, Amazon, and Google. I
honestly think you're an extreme outlier and would fall into a fraction of a
percent of their users. I'm not saying that it's OK to marginalize you, but if
I were them, with complete honesty I would have thought that those four
options would cover everybody, and then doing something like Bitcoin would be
going an extra mile. I've never heard of PaySafeCard (not to say that it can't
be cool if I haven't heard of it, because it is), so I think it may have a
long way to go before it's widely accepted.

Edit: You elucidated why you aren't using these services here
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2809572>, but really you've painted
yourself into a box. It's not that you _can't_ use those services, it's that
you _won't_. I understand why you don't want to (really, I feel you, I'm an
idealist too), but at a certain point I just have to bite the bullet and if I
want something bad enough and I can only pay for it in certain ways, then I'm
going to do it.

~~~
slowpoke
You're right, I kind of miss-phrased that. And yes, I am aware that I'm part
of a very tiny fraction of customers. My post shouldn't be understood as a
demand or anything, I was just rambling.

Oh, and for PSC: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paysafecard> , if you (or
anyone else) is interested. It's based in the EU (Austria to be exact) and is
used and promoted here, but it's pretty much unknown in the US (and the rest
of the world) as far as I know, so I'm not really surprised when people tell
me they've never heard of it.

