I suspect various noted companies aren't as keen as putting their games in them as they used to. I remember the Puppygames blog ranting about how bundles rip off devs.

That and most bundle hunters have hit the point where there's not much that's not super new to get and as such trying to put such games in a bundle may be too costly. Same reason why steam sales seem duller compared to the first one that people took part in.

I've talked about this in other places, so for some this will be repeated information:

I've been listening to indie devs talk about the state of the market, game bundles and sales, and there's a reason why indie devs don't want to put their games in bundles quite so quickly anymore, and why selling your game for cheap in a sale might not be quite as good either.

Back when bundles first started, getting your game in a bundle was great for marketing. While your game might not have earned a fortune from the bundle itself, indie devs noted that after the bundle, sales were generally quite high compared to before the bundle, and even months after the bundle, they still had increased sales. The added exposure of being in a bundle made it all worth it.

Fast forward a bit and the market got really saturated with bundles. Bundles and an ever growing amount of really really bad games on steam. Due to the amount of bundles, the added exposure of being in a bundle really adds very little value for the developer. This makes sense as being in a bundle when bundles were released every few weeks was something special, being in a bundle when some bundle sites release several bundles per week really means nothing. Worse yet, you're feeding the grey market with keys if you put your game in a bundle, which in turn can result in lost "proper" sales.

This also in a way explains why we see slightly lower discounts on steam. Pricing your game low used to be a good marketing tool, people would see your game and would be more likely to buy it. With the current state of Steam, pricing your game low means that it's more likely to just disappear in the flood of asset flips, hentai sliding puzzles and baby's first games+. Thus many developers, and indie publishers have taken to price their games higher than they would have 3-4 years ago, as being more expensive really does not hurt your sales. Heck, pricing your game under 10€ might even cost you sales compared to pricing it over 10€.

So this explains why we've seen a bit of a decrease in bundle quality. For groupees it's doubly bad, as they've also got a reputation as being a garbage monger among devs, so it's hard for them to get some really good games in their bundles. Something one of their staff commented on back during the Holiday Helpings debacle, when they promised more games than they had been able to sign on, and had to extend the bundle several times just because they could not find any games to fill the slots.

Granted that may be true, but since we are speaking of Groupees history as it relates to Humble Bundle (a game-focused discussion) then to me that begins with the first Be Mine bundle.

I can't say I feel Groupees is worth much of my time anymore, so I only gave the chat a few cursory glances during the preorder.

Still, just with that I did see that in other comments (beyond the one Lugum quoted above) they clarified and even emphasized that it was all specific to the Be Mine label, though I didn't see any clear indication as to why they were choosing to retire it. I mean, it's not like their build-up negative reputation was due to Be Mines (despite the subscription fiasco), rather than their open-armed embrace of trashware, dropping of speciality bundles [eg, such as JAST ones], and their mostly limiting the rare decent game to grab bags.

Which is to say, their quality has been bad across the board, Be Mine quality dip and presentation issues have mostly just been taken as more of the same broader site decline. Rather, dropping that last bit of nostalgia for "old Groupies" seems like a losing gamble. Still, by this point, I suppose any change of pace could be a good step for the site to take. Just not really the most intuitive option for them to have decided to go with. :P

Personally, I'm just curious if my coins'll ever be able to be applied to anything half-way decent in the future. Maybe it's just my lack of investment in the site in recent years, but I've gotten the impression that non-game bundles may have declined in quality as well. I've been itchin' to break from the site completely, but I just haven't managed to find anything worth investing the coins, up to this point.