Humble Bundle

Humble Bundle, English for humble bundle is a series launched in 2010 by computer game marketing experiments, a form of digital distribution. In the Humble Bundle are several, usually English, bundled games to a small collection (English Bundle, that is a bundle offer), which can be purchased at a fixed price from the buyer ( Pay -What- You- Want). The concept was expanded and adapted since the beginning and has been repeatedly taken over in a similar manner by other vendors.

Concept

Core idea is that the buyers themselves individually determine the price of the offered games ( Pay- What-You- Want). For buyer - orientation statistical feedback on the recent sales and revenue is on the order page where differentiated according gaming platform. The limited offer time frame, typically one or two weeks, is celebrated as an event. This includes offering extensions, news about achievement of goals ( eg sales number from which the source code of a game is released ), and a " Top Contributor " list, individual buyers or buyers Communities fight in the first ten places. As an additional incentive some of the games have been released as open source (eg, Lugaru, Revenge of the Titans ) with sufficient number of buyers. Often as more extra power and the game soundtracks settled.

Another aspect is that a set from the buyer share of the revenue goes to non-profit organizations, so far the working with computer games children's charity Child's Play, the American Red Cross, the " charity: water " organization and the fighting for civil rights in cyberspace Electronic Frontier Foundation because of their commitment against DRM. The self-selected amount, the buyer can distribute ( for bandwidth, organization, promotion, etc.) freely between the game developers, nonprofit organizations and the organizer Humble Bundle, Inc..

Part of the bundle's overall concept, it is also that the games offered cross-platform ( Windows, Linux, Mac, and some Android ) and DRM - free download. Here are some of the games were consuming ported to other platforms also specifically for the Humble Indie Bundle, for example, Psychonauts, which has been available for Linux with the fifth bundle first.

Payment should be as simple and accessible and can be done via PayPal, Amazon Payments, Bitcoin and Google Checkout.

History

The idea for this form of digital distribution comes from Jeff Rosen, CEO of Wolfire Games. Rosen stated that the inspiration came originally through similar bundle promotions of the digital distributor Steam. Rose had noticed that such promotions were known by the communication possibilities of the Web about viral marketing effectively. Another influence was the "pay- what-you -want " action of World of Goo on the first anniversary of the title, which has sold over 57,000 copies in the game, which generated $ 117,000 after PayPal fees. Roses for quite some time had good contacts in the independent video game developer scene and was able to convince other developers on the idea that earned their games in the bundles so.

The first two releases in 2010 were then as a Humble Indie Bundle ( HIB ) is known. The name derives these from getting that first exclusively indie games, were represented by so-called small indie development studios. The Humble Indie Bundle # 1 and # 2 were very successful and achieved by about two million dollars for charitable purposes. Rosen's marketing idea inspired several similar projects of other publishers, such as Indie Royale by Desura. Through collaboration with other online platforms Indie Bundle for some games were subsequently issued additional activation key at the first Humble. Originally, in cooperation with both Desura and the Valve Corporation these additional activations were offered in later Bundles only for Valve's online Steam platform, which has integrated a form of DRM ( " Steamworks " ), which led to controversy.

Introduction of minimum prices

Regardless, it is a principle that is Beat the Average ( BTA). This gives additional games if you pay more than the average. There are now more often instead a fixed BTA limit of $ 6 usually. When Deep Silver Bundle also there was a second BTA- limit of $ 25 fixed for Dead Iceland: Riptide.

In games without these additional price limits, the aforementioned $ 1 limit does not apply for their soundtracks, even if there is only Steam Keys for the games.

Android support

During the fifth Indie Bundles ( " HIB V") in mid-2012 there was a controversy about the Linux port of LIMBO, which was done with the help of a Codeweavers version of Wine. As some Linux users had a "native" port expects an online petition was started against this version, although the developer of Limbo had explained the reasons for this Portierungsart.

The Humble Weekly Sale

Humble Weekly Sale starting on 19 March 2013 following completion of the Humble Bundle with Android 5 The concept is to offer long every Tuesday one week packages. At the same time can run other actions. Unlike before, this games are also offered individually, usually including bonus material ( for example, DLC expansions to games, soundtracks, notes to the soundtrack, merchandise etc, . ). As before, there is an average price, which must be exceeded in order to obtain additional package components. Contrary to the original plan, however, there was even weeks without Weekly Sale and others start date.

The first Humble Bundle Weekly Sales received loud openly viewable statistics a keen interest, but did not come to the acquisition of larger numbers of previous packets zoom (as of 2nd package on April 9, about 127,000 packets sold, average price about $ 2.85 ). Meanwhile, there are also greater Weekly Sales Publisher. Thus, the two-week Humble Bundle Mobile was beaten 2 ( 155,249 piece to average $ 4.64 ) which took place within this period for a week Weekly Sale for Nordic Games ( 228 267 pieces to average $ 5.31 ). The following subsequent Weekly Sale for Focus Home Entertainment surpassed the sales of Mobile Bundle 2 on the first day, but achieved a lower average price.

Indie Gala is in the selection of games now with the Weekly Sales comparable and also offers games from renowned publishers such as Two Worlds 2 but actions often take longer and also have games that are added during the term. Specialties include various actions for one hour each. Thus it can be set at a lower price, for example, the Beat the Average time to time.

Indie Royale also works on a similar principle as the Humble Bundle, but has a complicated pricing system and is not as commercialized.