Is Humble Bundle slowly dropping the ball ?

I think you should judge HB from its main bundles and view the weekly bundle, the mobile bundle AND the irregular flash bundles as one massive bonus.

the bundles might be going backwards but still humble bundle is doing great deals and alot of people just like to pay the BTA price themselves so nothing to complain about humble bundle

Never bought a mobile humble bundle but I still believe the humble indie bundles are top quality and regard it as #1 compared to other bundle sites.

Don't forget the common high tier that's intended to make the bta shoot up high, and if you don't have the money to bta or you just don't want to pay that much, well you must be not human or wanting to abuse the system, so have a captcha. I don't mind entering in some letters and numbers, just the principle of the matter is insulting. And the high tier to make bta shoot up along with having to bta in order to get the 2nd week bonuses... ok so it may be good business, it's still WRONG.

Also, there's the fact of them over-pricing games in bundles, especially repeats. The RPGMaker bundle had a $6 game in the $12 tier and To the Moon (a repeat) in the bta. The Frozenbyte weekly had a 3+ year old game (repeat to boot) in the $6 tier.

Their vaulted policies only make me want to purchase the min anymore, if I want the bundle at all. This is coming from a guy who happily was bta almost all the time 2-3 years ago when HiB was in their golden age. And back then they even gave early buyer loyalty to bundle buyers! Where did it all go?

Oh and on the subject of HiB offering crapware in their bundles... don't forget that one of their mobile bundles had QWOP, one of their bundles had Surgeon Simulator 2013, the sad joke that somehow totally bypassed Steam's Greenlight system, where imo it deserved to rot in. And then on the subject of what's not even games, they had Proteus, Dear Esther and Gone Home.

Lately, all I care about with bundles is: do I already own this stuff? :) Good, bad, no idea since I'll never remember to play them anyway... :)

It's fun when you buy something only because it was cheap, and later hear it's actually a great game. For example I bought a mountain of random nonsense in Steam's summer sale, and didn't know where to start. Someone said I should give Gone Home a try, and they were right! :)

p.s. looks like Gone Home is in the Humble Indie Bundle 12 right now... :)

We're doing pretty damn good if this is really all that some of you have to complain about.

Well with all that the new trend is Bundle pre-orders.. blindly paying cheaper for something you wouldn't buy if you knew what it was. Nice strategy.. Well i'm pushing it again.. Groupees Ion Robots Bundle gives an hint at least.. IonBall 2: Ion Storm has to be in it.. can be worth the 1$ already for some.

Has been a long time since i cared about any bundles to be honest.

Some observations:

1. Humble Bundle havn't been on the ball for a long time. In my opinion the decline started with the EA Origin bundle. That bundle was EA's way of sucking up to the LGBT community by promoting various self-interest lobbies as charities. (I'd bet most people didn't even look at where the money was going.) That whole thing made me extremely hesitant about continuing my support of HB.

2. Then there was the hidden keys thing, where they sell you games in a bundle, presumably keeping the games that you already have (i.e. which cannot be activated on your account), without giving you any kind of discount in return.

3. Lastly, other bundle sites have really upped their game since late last year. Bundle Stars and Indie Gala are now top dogs on the bundle scene. (I'd give Bundle Stars the edge.) Even Groupees have resorted to pumping out loads of filler bundles in between the really good ones (which is a pattern you also see with HB nowadays).

Well i dont play stupid indie platformers,so HB is the only site that may release an actualy good game from time to time.And we all know where the best bundles happen...

Humble Bundle has sucked for a while, but they really came back in force with the 2K and Square Enix bundles.

They're still good but I can't say anymore that they're the best. Bundle Stars, Indie Gala and Groupees have sometimes way better bundles than HIB.

In answer to the edit question, if people market correctly - as in do a full price release on a game with a unique hook, then slow sale, followed some months later by a half price sale, then deep discounts, and finally after all that, THEN bundle - bundling actually increases your sales, and not just during the bundle, but also afterwards when you go back onto full price. The trend to bundle to short-circuit the Greenlight process is another ticket entirely, though.

People should know that there's something called "charity"

It was inevitable. There was no way they could keep giving stuff on the level of the THQ bundle away for $1 to people which was utterly insane value for money (if you ignore the charity aspect).