Braid, Super Meat Boy, and Lone Survivor Added to Humble Indie Bundle V

http://www.humblebundle.com/?additions

by gokhan • 14 years ago

179 66 14 years ago

Any love for those of us who already bought this? I don't want to pay twice, especially considering the only other game I want that I don't already have is Super Meat Boy.

ConstantineXVI• 14 years ago

If you grab the bundle link from your email, you should have them now.

thekungfuman2• 14 years ago

They DO love us. If you go to your unique Humble Bundle purchaser URL the new games are already there. Indie Devs are the best!

peapicker• 14 years ago

For future reference, Humble bundles have always worked that way... :)

ricree• 14 years ago

I just checked my download page, and the new additions are showing up even though I bought several days ago.

According to the front page, the new ones are for people that paid more than the average. If you have bastion but not the new three, then perhaps they were based on the average when added to the bundle. That's likely gone up, so if you paid less than the current average but more than the average when you paid you might not have gotten them.

dlevine• 14 years ago

You get the new games if you paid more than the average when you originally purchased. I paid $7, which was a bit more the average when I originally bought the bundle (day 1), and the new games show up in my account.

mikeash• 14 years ago

I checked my HB download link instead of complaining, and discovered that the extra games were already added for me.

r00k• 14 years ago

For those that have already bought: if you follow the link they emailed you, you can download the additional games.

latch• 14 years ago

Not to be ungrateful, but any chance that we'll get soundtracks with these as well?

The addition of FLAC soundtracks was great..and for anyone who hasn't checked it out the Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP soundtrack is _amazing_, as is Bastion's.

FiddlerNero• 14 years ago

I've been listening to the Bastion soundtrack on repeat for the last week :-). I feel like it very much fits in the style of Firefly, but maybe that's just me.

tumblen• 14 years ago

I thought the same thing! Totally agree.

simcop2387• 14 years ago

I can't get Zia's song out of my head myself. Wonderfully done sound track.

SquareWheel• 14 years ago

The lyrical tracks are my favorite. Just fantastic music.

packetslave2• 14 years ago

You can find the details of the Braid soundtrack here:

http://braid-game.com/news/2008/08/the-soundtrack-to-braid/

tl;dr version: it's all existing licensed music that the Braid guys don't have rights to distribute

xyzzyb• 14 years ago

That's actually out of date. Magnatune got all the music together for an album (with a great cover) they released later that year: http://magnatune.com/artists/braid

Edit: it was actually released in 2009, not 2008.

CrazedGeek2• 14 years ago

If they don't add them, and you're still craving the soundtracks:

http://dbsoundworks.bandcamp.com/ has a few Super Meat Boy soundtracks. You'll probably want the Digital Special Edition. (I physically have a signed Double CD copy, and it is glorious.)

http://spacerecordings.bandcamp.com/album/lone-survivor-orig... is the Lone Survivor soundtrack.

And the Braid soundtrack was linked elsewhere in the thread, but for completion's sake: http://magnatune.com/artists/braid

prayag2• 14 years ago

I hope they show up in the ubuntu software center. They are pain to find (after installation) using the .deb files.

dpitkin• 14 years ago

Lone Survivor and Super Meat Boy should be there by the end of the day, Braid already is.

hexis• 14 years ago

Considering I still haven't seen Psychonauts in the software center, I am prepared to be patient for these new games.

jeff18• 14 years ago

I believe Psychonauts is being delayed due to its massive size. I would not be surprised if there are technical hurdles for packaging it that need to be overcome for the Ubuntu team. We've actually received some support messages that certain file systems cannot actually contain a 4.5 GB file, which is a new one to me!

These new games, on the other hand, should be finished tonight.

jere3• 14 years ago

Not implying that they don't deserve it (they absolutely do), but I'm blown away by how lucrative this is for the developers. With some reasonable assumptions, it looks like the original 5 developers have already made $300,000 each.

Quite a payday for games that have already been released for a while. I think (from my rough calculations) that's about what Braid made on its opening weekend.

sheldor• 14 years ago

No trying to be offensive but Indie Developers, might be the only ones at this particular point in time, to make a difference with their creations, in a field that looks so stale. I believe they deserve their reward, if not more, from the current bundle.

jere3• 14 years ago

I agree. I love indie games and I think they are important.

I'm simply noting that many indie game studios would kill to have this kind of revenue.

benbeltran• 14 years ago

There's a great book on this by Anna Anthropy (auntie pixelante) http://www.indiebound.org/book/9781609803728

Being a gamer my whole life, it's sad to see how the industry has been in a rut ever since the PS2 era. As of late however, it's very interesting to see how indies are picking up what the big companies left during the SNES era. Also noteworthy for those who are just beginning tojoin the indie game scene, there are some nice games out there that haven't been in a humble bundle yet: look for games by nifflas, cactus, jon mak, kenta cho and auntie pixelante.

Goladus• 14 years ago

They're offering a product people are quite willing to pay for. Drm, hassle-free, hand-selected[1] indie titles is valuable, and donation models, especially "suggested donation" models have long been used in the right circumstances to get better returns than transactional-style sales when you're offering something people actually want.

Users don't have to wait another 5-10 years for the programs to end up on an abandonware site, and the original developers actually get the proceeds. Win-win.

[1] I realize there's likely politics and negotiation that happens in the background when arranging the humble bundles-- the point is that there's a level of endorsement here attractive to players who may not have much time and energy to spend trying out indie games.

forrestthewoods2• 14 years ago

I was just thinking how not lucrative it is. When it's all said and done a 500k check for "free" down the road ain't bad, but it's not terribly impressive either when you consider these games truly are the best of the best. It's even less valuable if much time was required to port to Linux as is often the case.

Gamers have shown that they are willing to pay a whole entire dollar per game for some of the absolute best indie games released in recent years. I find that far more depressing than encouraging.

There's a reasonable argument to be made that the devaluation created by Humble Bundle and perhaps Steam sales cause more harm than good in the long run. Of course there's a reasonable argument they do more good than harm as well. It's interesting to consider but impossible to prove either way.

batiudrami2• 14 years ago

>Gamers have shown that they are willing to pay a whole entire dollar per game for some of the absolute best indie games released in recent years.

That assumes that people don't already own some of the games, and that they actually want all eight of the games. For instance, I already own Braid, Limbo and Psychonauts (and paid $10+ for each of them), so when the bundle came out I paid my $10 for Bastion and Sword and Sorcery (and I was only really interested in Bastion). Of the additions announced today, I already own Braid and SMB.

I think it's a lucrative week for the devs, but I think a bigger issue is that when you offer games so cheaply you significantly reduce your potential purchasing base for the future when you essentially give it away. That being said, I've seen plenty of stats which show game sales slow to a crawl very quickly unless you push it up with significant sales - it's not like 'work' software where a big sale can significantly decrease your perceived value (imagine if Adobe sold it's Creative Suite for 75% off once a year - no one would ever purchase at full price again!). Gamers are an impatient bunch and are prepared to pay full price for something they're really excited for.

You have to try and find out whether the increased volume generates more volume than it potentially removes in lost future sales, and I tend to think that it does - especially for games like Bastion which had a huge marketing effort when they were on Xbox Live Arcade which would have given them a lot of full-price exposure.

InclinedPlane2• 14 years ago

I think you might need to read this: http://www.geekwire.com/2011/experiments-video-game-economic...

Deep discounts don't "devalue" games, they bring in massive increases in revenues when done correctly. For example, in a particular experiment that Valve performed a 75% reduction in price resulted in a factor of 40 increase in gross revenues. It's hard to argue with numbers like that.

duaneb• 14 years ago

I never would have bought any of these games if it weren't for the bundle.

vl• 14 years ago

At the end of iPhone and iPad versions of World of Goo there is interactive animation which basically tells you that it's impossible to have quality games if price is 99c.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIsajVs2uL8 (starts a 1:00).

jere3• 14 years ago

Actually, you're right. I wasn't thinking of it in terms of "best of the best." No doubt that's what these games are. I was thinking about from the perspective of, maybe, a one man team that would be delighted to see even $100k in the lifetime ROI.

res0nat0r• 14 years ago

I've added the previous games to my Steam account, can I add these new ones which have just been added also? I'm not home to actually try this yet but it would be awesome to have these new games managed by Steam also. Since I purchased this bundle previously I'm wondering if that is possible.

jmcnevin• 14 years ago

Yep... if you follow the link you received previously, there's a new Steam key available for the added games.

olalonde2• 14 years ago

Why is this on the front page of HN?

a_bonobo• 14 years ago

Three possible explanations:

1) An example of an unusual pay-what-you-want business strategy that is EXTREMELY successful

2) An example of a successful start-up (Humble Bundle Inc.)

3) Cheap, "independent" games

olalonde2• 14 years ago

That's what I think as well but this is the fifth Humble Bundle and it's not even the official announcement, simply an addition to the original deal. I'm just a bit surprised this is of interest to so many HNers.

NathanKP• 14 years ago

Humble Bundle is a YC company.

mortenjorck• 14 years ago

Whoa, I had no idea. That's pretty cool.

melvinmt• 14 years ago

I'm not even interested in these games but I went ahead and ordered a bundle for $8.50 just because I'm a huge fan of pay-what-you-want concepts and the Humble Bundle execution of this concept is awesome.

fishbacon• 14 years ago

If you haven't played them, do yourself a favour and try them, they are all very good games and well worth their original prices.

sharkweek• 14 years ago

I don't consider myself a huge wuss but I'm still only about half way through Amnesia -- make sure you play late at night with the lights off and good headphones on.

JackpotDen• 14 years ago

Alright chums. My home laptop can't have linux on it and be online. How do I buy this, and make it look like I paid for it on linux?

Paul_S• 14 years ago

After you buy the bundle it lets you choose how to classify your purchase.

Braid, Super Meat Boy, and Lone Survivor Added to Humble Indie Bundle V

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