Buying this?
Has anybody even figured out what the incentive to subscribe is?
10 bundles minimum for $21 is $2 a pop (or less) and, all else staying the same, it means I can just sit and watch and decide on a per case basis.
Excluding the pessimistic options, the only thing that comes to mind now is an increase in quality and prices of future bundles.. I wish that were the case, oh if I wish that, but it doesn't seem very likely, and if they increased the price without the quality going up as well then it'd be worse than pointless.
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$2 minimum, $2.5 sometimes and $3 in a rare case. They're also saying they're going to change the presale system (so maybe the presale price for Be Mine bundles will be more expensive from now on, who knows?). Plus you receive that $3 coin (you might not be able to use it on the bundles you want, though).
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I can see all of that, but unless one is a collector or a serial purchaser, acquisition of unwanted games is a waste of money no matter how little the expense is.
The model is very close to that of the old IndieRoyale Mystery bundles, and it was discarded because the price was only attractive when the contents of the bundles were unknown, but ended up being too expensive for a not really enticing line-up after the full reveal.
I mean this thing may have some value for the novelty factor, but ultimately regular purchasers do not value the uncontrolled acquisition of unwanted games as a positive. If that's the public they're after, then they have to change more than the packaging: Humble Monthly sells because of the average quality of the selection.
If they're only after the bulk buyers who prioritize minimization of the expenditure over control on acquisitions, well they're getting $21 today instead of $2 each month, which is fine if they place high value on the monetary worth of time(?), or ...they're short of cash.
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It's the same reason companies start relying on rebates, to earn interest on the advance and help their cash flow. These new subscription models are a version of that.
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If you auto-buy everything from them it is ok...
Because there is no big saves.
10 bundles * 2$ preorders = $20...
BMA subscription = $21
So you basically pay only $1 for BMA bundle, while you have to buy every next be mine bundles for one year, and you pay in advance all of them now with no bargain ^^
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well you also get that 3 dollar coin, which is worth a minimum of 3 dollars. (plus the preorders aren't always 2 dollars, sometimes more)
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and the yet released BMA4 bundle that was $4 last year.
https://groupees.com/bma3
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Yeah, that's why I'm considering it.. Since I buy every Be Mine anyways, and the bundles have been great and others okay ish. So it hasn't been a loss. But meh, $21 is still a lot.. At least all at once.. v.v Especially after the HB Freedom bundle..
I need to think about this... Sigh.
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The coins really are a fucking waste of time. I have several coins worth $19 or so on my account, and they can only be used on single bundles worth a couple of bucks, with no change given
Seriously, Groupees. What a crock of steaming elephant eggs :(
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well that's why a lot of ppl use them earlier on once they find a bundle they want enough but don't have actual cash.
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Yeah $19 coins are only worth it on the comic or VN bundles.. and they started disabling coin usage for comic bundles..
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Cant you buy multiple copies of the same bundle?
I used that 19$ coin but cant remember what I used it on
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Does Groupees let you buy multiple bundles at once? I never knew that :)
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I dont know really, just something that came up when I thought about what I did with my 19$ coin.
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No, they don't. I've already tried that with my coins.
The only use I've ever found for my coins was that bundle of music + Brigador and I really didn't like Brigador so yay.
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I don't see why they don't try a store for revenue.
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Hm. Actually thinking about this. BM26-28 were terrible. But the ones before it were good. Heck, if I was still trading, I could have covered half the cost of this subscription from selling the Hive from BM23 alone.
Can't decide.
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I wonder what will happen to Groupees in 6 months after Steam Direct release. Sure, many will publish games at first, but after they suffer a loss rather than profit because no one will buy their game, developers will stop producing the games. After that Indiegala and Groupees are doomed. 😱
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There was enough shovelware released on Steam in the last 12 months to keep Groupees and Indiegala going from now until half-past Ragnarök.
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Just look at DIG store..
And DIG bundles, and Otakumaker and all other bundle sites...
We won't run out already cent level trash anytime soon...
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I like DIG for their oldish strategy/RPG games, mostly from 1C Company, which have been bundled in the past by groupees, but are still good :D
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They will just adapt, to whatever will happen. We don't know all details yet.
And... greenlight bundles buyers will have more chance to get keys from past bundles...
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If I would end up buying this.. And Groupees would go down with the ship, I will be furious.
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It's unbelievable, but Groupees and Indie Gala existed 3 and 4 years BEFORE Steam Greenshit was invented.
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Got myself this subscription. I like getting every bundle they have, but the need to check it out every time is killing me, and I sometimes get there too late. Subscribed for all and I know that all BM bundles will be in my library.
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Indeed, this is the only advantage I can see.
So I don't miss the preorder price again.
Would have been nice if there was a bit of a discount though...
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oh boy, Groupees too?
As much as I love their site, Im not sure most of their bundle offers would sound enticing enough for me as a gamer to sign up
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well from a financial and logistical point of view, if you were going to buy every be mine anyways, this just saves the hassle of needing to be online to preorder it when the bundle is announced (already yours with this prepreorder)
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Two Humble Monthly will have more games interesting than the last 3-4 BM bundles (which have been zero). I think the answer is obvious.
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I wouldn't buy anything with that coin. The only bundles that cost more then $5 are the VN bundles, and those are not my thing.
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True. Even g2a monthly (can similarly cancel at any time like humble) will be some competition at the same price point if it is as good as launch.
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I'm not sure, superhot being so cheap means G2A has probably paid almost full price to developers, to engage people in g2a suscription and traffic to their main webiste. I think that bundle is only bait. Hopefully I'm mistaken and their bundles keep having quality.
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could be bait but the anniversary bundle 4 at groupees may be amazing as bait :) The developers are polish (as are lord of the fallen), g2a is poland based i believe, so some kind of deal was reached ....
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AFAIK it's a Poland-based company that makes sure EU rules don't apply to them by having a front in Hong Kong.
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maybe it is similar to cdkeys.com where they front from hong kong / dubai for tax evasion purposes. Swear they were polish or at the very least european based.
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Think the disappointment with Groupees has hit a critical point.
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Actually, if I were sure that Groupees stayed in the market, I wouldn't consider that offer too bad. I considered most Be Mine bundles quite good, sure worth my money. But with GameBundle closing just this week, I do not actually believe that any small bundle site is safe enough to remain in the market to pay for anything in advance. If they close and wouldn't deliever their promised 10 bundles, there would be little to do for most of us as sueing a company in a foreign country costs way more than the money we put into buying such a subscription.
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If greenlight is really improved and changed ... there will be blood in the low end bundle market; think you could be right.
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well Groupees may at the worst return to their music bundle catering service
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So, I understand you won't be able to buy the monthly subscription with coins, but does that also mean we can't use coins to buy the core bundle?
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I need to consider this for a while.. A lot of money to pay at once. But they are already planning to make at least 10 Be Mine's? Damn.. I hope that doesn't mean the quality will get even worse.
Thanks for all the info! Been busy all day yesterday, so it's nice to have all the info gathered in one post! :)
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If you won't miss any pre-orders, it is like paying the money you'll pay in a year, at once. Plus you'll get a coin you can use for some sexy VN bundle or something, not sure where you can use coins if you have most bundles already reserved though...
This might be wrong if they change the presale system.
I'd say for anyone who needs to think twice before spending that amount, it might not be worth it.
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Who are we kidding, we are going to fall for this! :p
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Don't buy it! Instead use the money to buy Gin and me games! \ʕᵔᴥᵔʔ/
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Not buying that for sure. Groupees is for me one of the worst bundle sites out there. Last time i bought anythign from them was sure a year or so ago.
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well value is subjective for sure. I see very little value in Indie Gala and Lazy Guys and Otaku Maker and DIG.
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IG repeats most of the good games that Groupees bundles for cheaper, so there's no reason to go with Groupees most of the time unless you want music/comics. Lazy Guys/Otaku Maker/DIG are complete trash though. I don't think I've bought a single Lazy Guys/DIG bundle, and only a few OtakuMaker bundles when the site first started.
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well Groupees still does Greenlight, if you're into game totals groupees is King for their greenlight additions, which means 70% of the time you'll get those greenlight games as steamkeys...
Indie gala doesn't do greenlight anymore.. Lazy guy does, so does Otaku and DIg. I can't comment on those ones
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I thought greenlight was being shut down, so Groupees can't do greenlight bundles anymore
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I think I bought 2? DIG bundles... maybe one HOG one for giveaways, and one for that ARG game that I don't remember now (edit: The Temporal Invasion).. they are just as bad as most of the IG's "freshly released out of GL" bundles, but they are repeats as well :D
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To be honest, I don't see Groupees surviving a year now that Greenlight is dead without a major revamp. Gonna pass on the yearly preorder.
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Maybe this subscription idea is part of the major revamp?
Or it might just be the take-the-money-and-run bundle... ;-)
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well they have the music bundles they can fall back on
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Well if Groupees manages to survive by falling back on music, that is good for them. The problem is that I'm not at all interested in their other products, so putting up $21 on something that I'm not even sure will be around in the current form within a year doesn't make sense to me. I wish them the best, but I'm skeptical to say the least.
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Finally something to spend coins on ... or not! What is their problem? I don't want (their) comic bundles, and I'm certainly not spending real money on 10 (11) blind bundles. This kinda looks like they saw the Freedom Bundle price + sales and thought they could get away with that at their standards ...
Edit: Just saw, they even say they're giving 20% to the ACLU, definitely looks like copying Humble
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Groupees coins are financially backed by groupees. Most businesses wouldn't put themselves in the position of having to finance multiple items themselves, (ie pay devs for products). Unless you want a really shitty product bundle.
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a really shitty product bundle
= 95% of Groupees' bundles.
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judging by your comment count, you seem to be new to the forums ... welcome to the place where we exchange opinions ^^
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Still true. But regarless of the precentages you're right that groupees would be stupid to fund their biggest preorder/subscription from their own pickets, that's why coins count as a discount, so no charity-money given either.
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?? How does that relate to how bundling works? My complaint about the coins is why make these available + let them increase in worth so significantly (up to $18 for me per coin) if we can't use them on items with a similar price? The only thing they sell is bundles, but coins seem to be only enabled for cheaper ones. Just cap them or something, don't pretend like we have some sort of wallet saved up on the site when we can't actually use it on anything/have to throw away most of it when we do.
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It relates in the terms of economics...
...but anyways, reference ANY post by cyanic in regards to coins and their usage. They aren't limited to small bundles. HH3 was actually open to coins for anything.
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Again, why have it if it's not economically stable? (not really asking you to explain, just reiterating my point - if they'd offered the option for more of the expensive stuff, I imagine they wouldn't have to worry about being able to "absorb" all the coins used here, since there might not be that many left, or they could say coins only usable for 100 bundles, first come first served)
Also, I have no idea what HH3 is ... Holiday Helpings? Was that a bundle? I either missed it or didn't want anything in it. And I know sometimes charity is involved, so I'll look for a bundle I can spend more on with a charity I'd support attached. What might help you understand my point(/perceived outrage/anger maybe?) a bit better: I only recently got back into even checking Groupees, and the last time I did they said they'd work out a way to give back unspent coin value, so I was a bit disappointed to learn that's not even being considered anymore. That up there was just me venting about that a bit more, I'm well aware that devs usually expect something in return, BUT you can never say how many bundles will be sold in a run, and I highly doubt they have all 10+ Be Mines lined up for the year already. (another thing was the timing relative to the Freedom Bundle, where devs don't get any money from the bundle, but a similar price and overall similar amount of (unknown) games)
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btw I wish you'd have just written "I don't think you understand how Groupees coins work." - I would have just agreed with you, since I'm pretty out of the loop on that, and we could've left it at that. Now I'm writing all these rambling posts, probably still not explaining very well why I don't like this bundle/not being able to use coins/having coins in general.
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Groupees don't go to devs and pay them money for Steam keys and then put those Steam keys into bundles.
(which https://www.steamgifts.com/go/comment/9ZgcEe5 sounds like)
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As I am a curator I am fully aware of how it works. That is no where near what my statement was saying. Groupees does pay devs however - just after bundle participation.
Anyways, this was 2 weeks ago... let it die.
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buying preorders like this is too risky for me,, 21 dollars isn't a lot and I'll likely buy all of them anyway but still, I'd like the option to avoid buying one or two if I could.. I'd have likely bought it if you could have used a coin to do so.. especially since I have two or three 20+ dollar coins sitting on Groupees I'll never find a bundle to buy with..
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I feel your pain, I saw preorders and I couldn't resist!
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whatever. I buy them anyway and I get a coin and save a few ;) . I've spent ~$50 in coins, so I don't have a problem spending them. The $100 tier in the last one was good.
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So basically, in the future, waiting for reveals will cost us money. That means no free hints with this one.
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Huh. That's not the way I'm understanding it at least. This should only be about this subscription and Be Mine Anniversary 4 bundle. "Cyanic explains BMA4" .. hopefully it's not the way you said. That would truly suck if that would be the case. :O
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Yeah, you were right. I thought they were changing the pre-order method for all future Be Mines, but it's just for this anniversary bundle.
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I have repeatedly exhibited a high tolerance for crappy bundles and blind preorders. I'm usually not terribly disappointed. I'm still hesitating on this one, that's not a good sign.
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BMA can be preordered now for $1,50, Skyboats (http://store.steampowered.com/app/510780/) revealed as one of the games.
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Meh.. they couldn't have started off with a more unappealing game. Looks like something you would have seen in their greenlight bundles. Not looking promising.
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Counter theory: you start with worst as you don't want lots of people to preorder at the lowest price I.e if best game first. I preordered as a man of science !
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Be Mine Anniversary 4
Extended for ~10 days and several hours (ends around March, 13th... unless extended again).
Pay $21 for
$3.95
Retail: $??.??
CV: ?.??
Be Mine Anniversary Grab Bag #1 & #2:
You will receive two random games (might be the same twice) from:
* 3 games only (Blackwell retail bundle on steamdb): Blackwell Convergence, The Blackwell Legacy and Blackwell Unbound (thanks Ponxha). Be careful if you do a giveaway for this!!
Greenlight:
Music:
Comics:
Q&A
Based on observations and the Groupees chat. Please post your own questions in the comments, or post any relevant information you might catch on the chat yourselves!
Q: Can this be bought with Groupees coins?
A: No (oh, the irony)
Q: How many Be Mine bundles will be released this year?
A: There will be a minimum of 10 Be Mine Bundles (excluding 2018's BMA)
Q: Which period is covered by this subscription, does it include the latest Be Mine bundle recently released?
A: The subscription includes all Be Mine bundles that launch from today (14 Feb 2017) until Feb 14 2018. Does not include Be Mine #29 which was released last week.
Q: What the regular price for a Be Mine bundle?
A: $2-$2.5 on preorder, ~$4 after preorder. Please note that Be Mine Anniversary 4 will introduce a modified presale where each day a game is revealed and the price will increase until the full contents are revealed for the full price.
Q: What will happen to the previous Antimatter Jonny coins? Will they keep the price or will they be lowered to fit the $3 dollar price?
A: cyanic (Groupees HQ):
Q: What's with the "Core Bundle" wording? (are we looking at a BM29 situation, where arbitrarily more stuff might be added on top that we then don't get?)
A: cyanic (Groupees HQ):
Q: How long do I have to decide if I get the subscription or not?
A: Christian Blunda (Groupees HQ)
Q: What will the price of BMA4 be?
A: cyanic (Groupees HQ):
Are you interested in knowing other ongoing bundles? Feel free to check out the new master thread!
Wondering what games you already own from this bundle? There's an extension/UserScript for that! It's called the RaChart™ Enhancer!
Thanks to aresda for the heads up and to Sighery for making our lives easier with each update of his charting tools.
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