In less than 24 hours, the latest iteration of the Humble Indie Bundle — a pay-what-you-can bundle of computer games from independent developers — has raked in more than $2 million in sales.
The Humble Indie Bundle is unique because it packages five to six independent titles in a no-amount-of-money-is-too-small bargain, then allows buyers to dictate how much of their money can go towards developers, Humble, or charities. The titles include indie hits such Bastion, Psychonauts and Amnesia: The Dark Descent, as well as the adventure title Superbrothers: Sword and Sworcery EP and the dark puzzle platformer Limbo.
The charities receiving donations are Childs Play, which donates video games and other toys to children in hospitals, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which helps protect web users' rights. The games are available for PC, Mac and Linux systems, and one code will work for all three.
After the fantastic success of the first day's sales, the Humble Indie Bundle staff and the games' developers all participated in a Reddit Ask Me Anything post. Notable guests included gaming godfather Tim Schaffer, developer of Psychonauts as well as classic adventure titles like Day of the Tentacle, and musician Jim Guthrie, who provided the whimsical soundtrack for Sword and Sworcery. But each game had at least one person behind it present, leading to a very robust AMA.
We've gathered some of the highlights from that AMA for your reading pleasure.
We're Humble Indie Bundle V: creators of Psychonauts, LIMBO, Amnesia: The Dark Descent, Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP, Bastion, and Humble Bundle.
EnderbyEqualsD: Followup question that has always plagued me – Do you guys actually lose money by the jerks (OK, maybe they aren't all jerks) people that only give $1?
parsap (Humble co-founder Jeffrey Rosen) PayPal has a floor of $0, so we don't actually get charged for penny purchases. With that said, we do lose money on the actual bandwidth of the game downloads.
Andrefpvs: Forgetting for a bit about charity and altruism, is it viable for developers financially to sell their games at what I'd imagine ends up being a much lower revenue than what you'd get at normal prices? (is this even true?) Or do the sales volumes make up for this somewhat? Individual experiences from each developer are appreciated.
TimOfLegend (Tim Schaffer)
Over the last couple of years I have learned that sales are magic. (accidental brony reference) It seems that the more you give away, the more money you make. The logic of that used to confound me, but now I accept the "magic" hypothesis.
bovicide What do you think the most important thing is in successfully marketing indie games?
SG_Greg (Greg Kasavin, Supergiant Games writer and one of the designers of Bastion)
The game itself is the most important thing by far. If you're making something that's interesting, then I think there's going to be potential interest in why and how you're making it. Being transparent about that process (via Twitter, videos, blog posts, whatever), responding to people's questions openly and all that, I think starts to build excitement around what you're doing in a natural way.
phort99: How did the Humble Indie Bundles influence your decisions to port your games to Linux? What was the porting process like?
TimOfLegendLinux was like a party that sounded fun we were afraid to go to because we didn't think we'd know anybody there, and the HiB guys were like your socially fearless friend who says, "Don't worry, we'll go together." And when he gets to your house he says, "Is that what you're wearing?" and you say, "uh…" and he says, "Don't worry. I know a guy." And he lends you a cool leather jacket and you go to the party and when you walk in there's a needle scratch and everybody turns to look at you and your friend gives a cool nod and then everybody goes back to the party.
So kind of like a John Hughes film. Hope that helps explain things. That's about as technical as I can go. I just hope I don't accidentally knock over a beer can pyramid that some tough guys are building.
potexto: I usually give 5-7 dollars to the HIB,I know but some peaple who give 0.01. What do you think about it ?
SG_Greg: Paying a penny for the bundle is better than pirating the games for nothing, and pirating the games for nothing is better than not playing them at all. The beauty of pay-what-you-want is it's one of the few models that does a decent job of "competing" against piracy, by offering value-conscious players a straightforward and legal way of getting games for very little. It's a good thing that the guys paying a penny get balanced out by guys paying more of course, since if no one paid anything for these games then it would be even more difficult to make them.
jtraub: Jeffry, How much time does it take to make all agreemenents (+paperwork?) and include a game into a bundle? When have you started preparation for Humble Bundle V? I am just curious how much time does it take from an idea to the release.
qubitsu (Richard Esguerra, Humble Bundle organizer)
ometimes it can take a few weeks, and sometimes it takes basically no time at all. We started thinking about Humble Indie Bundle V pretty much right after Humble Indie Bundle 4, but there are a lot of formative conversations that happen before a bundle is officially a bundle.
jamesdrm: Question; any tips for musicians wanting to get into the Game audio industry?
jimjammers (Jim Guthrie): I get asked this a lot and there's no easy answer. My advice is to just do, do, do / work, work, work and put yourself out there. I've been making music for 20 years and S&S is the result of my being apart of a community of artists. I wasn't looking to do music for games. I just wanna make music and it lead me here. Is that a good answer?
What do you think of the Humble Indie Bundle and other pay-what-you-can online initiatives? Let us know in the comments.
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario