

The Humble Indie Game Bundle - daniel_levine
http://www.wolfire.com/humble

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samd
They probably shouldn't put the average amount paid so far on the website. The
idea is to get people to pay what _they_ think the games are worth, not what
other people think the games are worth.

~~~
patio11
Here's how I would have done it:

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

Anyhow, the idea was to simplify the workflow and simultaneously abuse the
power of defaults and user psychology. I also intentionally ditched some parts
of the offer which I don't think add business value, such as fine-grained
control on the split.

(I'd A/B test including "65% of people pay this much" on the #1 step, probably
with a subtle yellow highlighting.)

~~~
nopassrecover
Haha of course. I thought "wow this is great, who is this? they're worth
talking to in the future" then see that it's you patrick. Every time..

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BoppreH
I don't usually buy things on the internet. Mainly because it requires money
in a PayPal account or similar, and it's very hard for me to get that (I have
some dollars from a freelancer work, but it's a hassle to transfer between my
bank account and PayPal).

If I had heard only about a "indie game bundle" containing those titles, I
would probably have run straight to The Pirate Bay. But this one caught my
attention.

The devs are willing to give five high-quality games for whatever I want to
pay. The guy even sang a song for the advertisement, for god's sake.

I loved the ad. I loved the bundle. I even loved the website.

This selfish pirate is reaching for his wallet. I will not pay the full $ 80
sum (though more than the average, for sure), but I'm one that would probably
not have paid a penny otherwise.

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BoppreH
If you are worried about the process, don't. After filling the short form and
login in my PayPal account, the email with the download page was sent
instantaneously.

Their bandwidth is excellent and all downloads are direct (no login, download
token, download code, wait time, bandwidth limit or whatever).

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barmstrong
Haha...on the "no middle man" logo is that a condom (as in don't get screwed
by the man) or a bomb. Can't tell :)

Well executed idea!

~~~
BoppreH
That looks like a tie for me.

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albertzeyer
Maybe they should combine the old Shareware model with this one. And make it
all very easy. Like you download the full game and in the end of the first
level, this payment stuff pops up where you can just pay whatever you want to
proceed (whatever you think it is worth).

The point is, I really don't know what these games are about and how much they
are worth.

~~~
levesque
These games all have a demo version.

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daniel_levine
The games are World of Goo, Aquaria, Gish, Lugaru HD, Penumbra Overture

edit: removed some incorrect info

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stevenp
EFF and Child's Play are actually charities that your payment is split with.

~~~
daniel_levine
you're right, i was just copying the bar across, my bad

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JCThoughtscream
In a vacuum, the Humble Bundle can't really be called a success. As I'm
writing this, assuming equal split, each developer and charity gets an average
of $1.09/purchase - hardly a windfall, though I'm sure the actual numbers
actually favors the charities more.

But it doesn't exist in a vacuum. I wonder how much attention the involved
studios'll get for future projects as a direct result of this? Aquaria,
especially, has been out for quite a while now - this can probably be more
accurately considered a way of breaching access to any possible remaining
audiences before launching their Next Big Things.

~~~
aw3c2
You are thinking about it wrong. Digital copy distribution is basically free.
With your $1.09 each party gets 30000 dollars. How is getting 30000 dollars
for a quick sale not a success?

Don't forget that these games are already "old" in terms of the normal gaming
market. They already had their heyday.

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harada
This is such a great idea. I donate to charity regularly anyway and I'm a
sucker for games. Now I can have both!

I ended up paying $100. Most of the money went to Child's Play but the devs
still got $20 and the EFF $10.

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SingAlong
The video could have been a little better while showing the games. I had to
rewind a lot of times to view all the 4 squares for each game. Nevertheless,
awesome offer and rap song :)

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benologist
Average contribution of $8.64 for 5 games or $1.72 per game.

It's a nice PR move but that's just disgusting I'm sorry.

~~~
heyitsnick
Well I just purchased it for $10 and I already own 2 of the games. And the
other's I never would have considered buying if it wasn't for this bundle.

And I'm pleasantly surprised with gish so far; already checking out the
developer's site to see what else that have on offer.

Other people might be paying that average and are only interested in 1 or 2 of
the games in the bundle.

You can't just say a blanket "5 games or $1.72 is disgusting".

~~~
benologist
It's disgusting in the sense that it's a horribly poor valuation of their work
by consumers - each of those games is worth approximately half a latte.

The sad part is it'll be celebrated as a victory because they'll gross a lot
of money and it's "money they wouldn't otherwise have" ... unless they set
their own price and reached a tiny fraction of the consumers that'll buy their
games today.

~~~
steveklabnik
It can't be a poor valuation of work, unless you subscribe to a labor theory
of value. Our current economic system does not.

Things are only worth what people will pay for them.

~~~
benologist
That's true, except the bit where there's plenty of evidence to support the
theory that people are willing to pay more than a dollar and change for a
game.

~~~
steveklabnik
But you don't know if these people would or not. Also, I've payed $50 for a
game in the past, but I'm not sure that I would any more.

~~~
benologist
These people maybe not... but how does that matter? The 6,000 people that
bought the pack are just a tiny portion of the gaming market.

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NathanKP
I would have bought it, yet the Amazon checkout refuses to let me pay using my
Amazon gift card balance. It seems to want me to buy via credit card. If there
is a way to buy it using my gift card balance I don't see it.

Ah well, and I was willing to give the developers $20 or so.

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kevinh
Seeing analogpixels.com being one of the top 10 donors made me wonder: How
many people would donate more if the current top 10 paying people got a link
to their website/product for the duration of the sale?

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Khao
Wonderful! I just bought them for 50$! I only know of Gish and World of goo
since I've played the demos and never got around to buy them, but now I just
can't miss this incredible offer!

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nnutter
Watch the video! So worth 2 minutes of your time.

~~~
algorias
It rhymes!

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delluminatus
Try submitting $0. Hilariousness ensues.

edit: Yes, I would have bought it for $0 if they let me.

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jaaron
I know and love both World of Goo and Gish. Any reviews or recommendations on
the others?

~~~
daniel_levine
to be honest they're all pretty cool. Aquaria is an Independent Games Festival
winner. Lugaru is sick if you're into awesome fighting rabbits. Penumbra:
Overture is highly rated across a bunch of gaming sites including metacritic.

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bseo
I like this model. Surely the developers behind these games are going to get
some new fans and customers.

As an anecdote, I played World of Goo at a friend's once. He copied it on my
USB stick and I played more at home. A few months later there was a "pay what
you want" promotion for just World of Goo. I bought it to support the
developers, even though I had already finished the game and there was nothing
new to play with. It's a great game and I recommend it for a few hours of fun.

~~~
patio11
I think they're going to get a huge influx of pathological users who mostly
pay amounts which would amount to 80% off the face price of the cheapest game
in the bundle.

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reitzensteinm
...who almost certainly wouldn't have bought the games anyway. The exposure
that some of these sales bring is immense, partly because they're novel. Who
cares if a large percentage of people get the games for really cheap? They
could easily get it for free at The Pirate Bay.

The total is going up by over $300 a MINUTE right now.

~~~
bryanh
This is by far the biggest argument in favor of the "pay-what-you-want" model.
It's an efficient way to capture customers that would have been priced out of
your product. The other edge of the sword is the tendency of customers with
the cash to skimp.

