Anyone have the feeling that bundles are becoming the opposite of what they were supposed to be?

Moar cheap games. As a consumer, I have nothing to lose and everything to gain so I'm happy.

Not really. And the charities are just a plus. If your true intentions are to donate to charities, then you'll go ahead and donate straight to their website with nothing in return.

The good - More cheap games for everyone.

The good - Help small developers get more income for their next project.

The bad - I don't dare to buy indie games anymore. Even WD and AW are in HIB now. Just unbelievable.

The bad - It's become too commercialized and the focus on charity is more or less blurred now. Some organizers don't even give to charity if I am not wrong.

I'm starting to see this as a major advantage to playing games on the pc instead of a console. You will never get this deep of a discount on a console game, even used games sell for way more than these bundles that contain several titles at once.

Charity or no charity; it's clearly hugely profitable for the sites and the developers.

But also in the bang for buck we get as gamers.

Win-win all round??

I don't disagree with the general premise - the bundle market is definitely over-saturated, and the idea that a game will probably show up in a bundle at some point sooner or later has influenced my game buying choices. However, I think it's worth noting that good bundles are still bringing in as much money as they ever were. Humble Bundle 8 is only a couple days old, and has already raised more than HIB1 did in its entire run.

So .. this numbers say the opposite

Top Contributors

1.@notch
$5,000.00
2.@awesomium
$1,337.00
3.@WrapBootstrap
$1,256.00
4.Get me out of Top 10
$1,000.00
5.Why?
$999.00
6.@Afterlightapp
$755.09
7.The Devil
$666.00
8.@LinuxGamers
$513.00
9.@ExpiredPopsicle
$512.00
10.@SlamacowSteven
$300.0

And also this considering that last bundle HIB was only 1 day out

Total payments:
$1,560,952

The bundles have become one of two things...
a) A dying companies swan song.
b) A marketing tool for indie developers and "past their prime" development studios.

I fail to see how either of these impact the industry negatively. The original concept of the bundle was cheap indie games, the only thing that changed is non-indie companies (typically ones with money issues) are coming on board. Before the bundle they would've just died off lol.

DRM-free games + Linux support + extras (Actually i only follow humblebundle.com). The only other place i can find such things is gog (and they don't have the Linux version).

BUNDLES GIVE ME MOAR BUNDLES AND STFU

I is never paying $1 only for them
I do support the charity thing (also IRL)

You get cheap games, money goes to devs and charity, I don't see anything wrong with this :)

"Nowadays there is a new bundle of sorts almost every day, sometimes up to 5 or more bundles in the same time. Bundled games lost all their value - I'm not talking about just trading or gifting here, but in general - you get more and more games for a dollar, the next bundle is following the last, you get even more games and so on, but how many of them can you actually play? "

this has gotten BETTER over time, which based on the way you worded your OP you seem to imply things are getting worse. It started out that you could pay a penny, the HIB people would lose money because of PayPal fees, and you could still get keys. A lot of the newer bundles have minimums were before there were none ($1 for BeMine, a floating minimum around $4-5 for IndieRoyale), as for games losing there value, I don't think back then games didn't lose there value, there just weren't as many that lost there value. I think in the end it must be worth it because developers still want to be included in bundles else we wouldn't have any, it still helps plenty of games get discovered by people who wouldn't have otherwise heard of it or played it.

Meh, I buy a lot of bundles that I would never buy the individual games if they were just separate, even at 75% off. Like Thomas Was Alone, for instance. That game is ... well charming is the only word that really fits. That game is charming as hell. In a good way. And I'd have never even played it if not for the HIB. So no, I think the bundles are still doing what they set out to do, generate sales for games that would not otherwise get them. And word of mouth is a powerful thing. For instance, you now know that Thomas Was Alone is both good, and charming as hell. And now you may want to buy a copy, or the bundle, to find out what a game that is charming as hell looks like.

This is such a weird issue to discuss. It is like saying video game consoles are forgetting what they were originally made for and should stop having all the extra stuff they do like chat interfaces. Evolution is a good thing, you know. Sometimes things evolve into something great, even if it is nothing like it originally started out as.
As for the issues of the bundles being crap, that is the games fault and not the concept of having a lot of bundles.

I think the matter you brought in this topic is too hard.

You have to consider that while most people get the bundles for 1$, some people go way over the top, (notch) and most of that goes to charity.

Mixed feelings really. On one hand I think it is great that they are still doing this for charities and so forth. On the other I know that a lot of people tend to go on the cheap. The ones that make doing those worth while are the ones who offer a lot of money for it. For example I have seen a few people donate 50-100 USD.

Regardless.. keep in mind most of these bundles ( in particular the HIBs ) are mainly done for charity. The devs allowing their games to be placed in them are doing it mainly for that. At least the ones I have seen speak about it at any rate.

Yes, I really do feel like they've lost their true purpose. While it is really nice to get great games at a very small price (TWD @ 5$ = lol) it is really questionable whether they're helping. On the other hand, if TWD was so soon in bundle, I think it is obvious that devs are doing more than good and are obviously comfortable with giving up on what could be pretty big cash. Also, devs have to wonder who will buy their game at 50€ price when 6-7 months after that everyone expects it in bundle at some cheesy price.

I think you're right, the only bundle which keeps selling great game is the Humble.

Although, you're not looking on in from a different perspective. As an indie game developer, those bundles are great way to put your game on sale and advertise it and do it for the sake of charity.

yeah, alot of them seem to be a bit. Groupies seems to be doing a good job keeping with the spirit though

Just a question. Let's say you gave away 5 walking deads before the bundle, will it remain at what it was originally worth or will your contributor value be capped at $30?

Keep in mind that the steamgifts/steamtrades community is only about 25K maybe 30K (I got this number from those developer giveaways like galactic arms race of 10k copies, which i assume a large majority will enter). The rest of the 99.9999% of gamers still buy their games at normal/regular sale prices. So I don't think this effects the digital stores profit too much.

Anyways, the point of these bundles for publishers is that they are seeing little to no revenue on these older titles so it doesn't cost them anything to let them go nearly for free.

Additionally, on the larger scale, very little know about indie games and would not even consider paying $5 for a crappy looking game that likely isn't that good. (I know alot of people think indie games are the greatest, but to the majority of the population, they aren't comparable to AAA or other well-marketed games). Bundles gives these indie games some exposure to people who would otherwise never touch them

Yeah, I just got 19 games for $10 today. I'm starting to get a little worried about how it will affect the market.