Is it sad?
I think that's the important distinction.
People too often associate 'bundle' with 'bad/cheap/outdated', but it's just a marketing tool.
How it's applied per game differs.
When you've tiers around $12, given that most purchases are likely going to be of lower tiers and the default profit ratios are generally evenly split, you can't easily assume the developers aren't getting a fair recompense for their game.
Think of it as being similar to a store with a 40% off sale [of the game] with some promo items thrown in.
Besides, one of the biggest benefits of bundle, and the main reasons developers use something like HumbleBundle which has massive sales, is that you get a lot of profits, fast.
Even if it's not as much as you might have gotten in the long run, it's a lot more useful to you in a lot of cases, say, if you want funds to start a new game project.
Similarly, it could be a way to help invigorate your company if it's doing poorly.
Don't look at it as necessarily being negative :)
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Indeed, being in a high level in a HB Bundle is far from a mark of shame. It's a far cry from a chronic 1 dollar tier thing on some other sites.
HB stuff generally isn't chronically bundled and generally come off as a limited time deal.
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I think I remember al participants in Humble bundles get the same share of the revenue. I'm not sure and it was a while ago and Humble has been changing a lot... But if I am right, being in a higher tier doesn't make any difference in terms of money.
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You have less games sold (due to most purchases being lower tiered). Ergo, more money per game sold.
That's why people agree to put their high tier games in bundles, at high tiers.
They end up making up a better ratio of earnings-to-sales due to it, than the lower tier developers.
It's an interesting system, but that's why the default split has you paying out to developers evenly.
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What made me more sad is thats it in a 13$ tier bundle. I already own the other games.
Honestly, if a game is in a high tier bundle I dont really consider it "bundled".
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Isn't the game essentially a fantasy Jagged Alliance with combat mechanic even simpler than the XCOM remake?
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Well, maybe games don't need to be revolutionary in game mechanics or especially hard either, do they?
I think more people play this game because of the whole atmosphere and how if feels.
If you look at it in a strictly objective way, this may disappoint you, but if you let the game pull you in, you may become a fan of it. ;)
About the main topic:
I think the "bundled"-stamp is more for games which are sold in bundles for less than 3€ or so.
This time, I think the price to get the game in the bundle is okay because it feels more like a discount to that particular game than just being part of some bundle you bought for something else.
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I get you, and with Double Fine, I even have experience in a similar manner: Brütal Legend had awesome atmosphere but was quite poor/mediocre as a game. Still, for video games, game mechanics are important to people outside the kiddie shooter demographic (who only want graphics and nothing else).
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It's also [subjectively] gorgeous in art style.
That goes a long way- sometimes you just want to play something familiar to you while looking at pretty things.
Certainly explains why each year's set of generic AAA sports and FPS games keep getting such intense profits.. :P
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Those are a little different though with their demographic and their gaming habits. Plus their marketers made them "cool" among the kids, and if you recall, when you were small, you always wanted to be as cool as the other kids with your stuff. For me, I remember that one time everyone had to own a portable Tetris console. One may didn't like the game at all, but had to have one. Same now with CoD: If you don't have the latest one, you are not a real gamer kid.
Plus FPS always has been the easiest genre to pick up and required the least amount of skill to play properly. (The big leagues are another matter. Although I value a good RTS strategist a lot more than someone who can point the mouse and click with good reaction times. CS:GO may be a tactical game, but any old SWAT or Rainbow Six would just laugh at its strategic complexity.)
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Wow, didn't plan to write a wall o'text, but I guess it is too late to go back now, so here it comes:
Only thing that came to my mind reading your comment (See attached GIF). :D
But I don't think that FPS are the easiest genre to pick up. If I think back to my first FPS (I think it was Halo), I were so bad that I did not even make it through the first level on the easiest difficulty. Same thing happened again after getting familiar with FPS on PC and then switching to X-Box ... I tried, failed horribly and never tried to play again ever since.
Entirely different from games which you may find on most handheld consoles (Gameboy/Wii games or most mobile games which already destroyed various game franchises leading to me calling them "The scourge of modern gaming evolution", e.g. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, Roller Coaster Tycoon (in the making), Dungeon Keeper (still giving me the chills!), and so on...).
I don't mean that these games are easy to master in any way, but these games will make sure that new players who never saw a similar game before will quickly experience their first achievements with little to no effort just to keep the player tied or even better obliged.
So yes, I agree with you that FPS are very popular among kids, but I don't think that they are particularly easy to pick up. If you ask those kids about games, which in my opinion actually are easy to pick up then you will most certainly get to hear that those games are for babies or alike.
But I also agree that the skill level of those gamer kids is still so low that any game with a steep learning curve or generally requiring a more complex understanding would easily overburden and frustrate them. Most of the time this will lead to reactions like sadness, sobbing, anger, cussing and finally returning to easier games where they can feel like they would achieve something while looking down on "baby games" and denying the existence of harder games. :D
Oh, I guess this also leads to games becoming more and more casual - a huge part of the market consists of said gamer kids who are easily frustrated...so in order to keep them entertained, games become easier and easier to the disadvantage of skillful players who feel underchallenged in a large portion of all currently available games.
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Halo 1 was a difficult game. It was one of the games that marked the transition from old-school shooters to the modern console shooters, but it retained many old mechanics: non-linear level design, limited ammo, health pickups, limited cover, and enemies who actually tried to kill you. Modern console shooters use linear corridors, almost instant health regen, (practically) unlimited ammo, and enemies who conveniently stand in position in the open and approach you one by one while you are camping behind an indestructible cover.
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Yeah, you are right in all arguments you bring forward.
But for me, it was for the more simple things: I did not hit a single shot and emptied magazine after magazine without getting anything killed ... it was at a friends house and he just sat next to me shaking his head in disbelief and amusement alike.
He later told me that he thought I was just kidding and did it on purpose, but the concept of controls just weren't graspable for me. :D
Little time later I stumbled across GTA2 that finally gave me the chance to learn something about much needed eye-hand coordination in a relatively protected environment.
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Not in this case, as already mentioned its a high-tier and if you take the price for both games vs. BTA, you get them there with a discount around 80%....a high but not unusual discount.
Nowadays the price for some new games is around 50-60 €.....digital delivered with no package, no one in a physical store that must be paid and no room-costs there and so on. In the past we paid around 60-80 DM (30-40 €) for Game in a nice box, with nice people that sold us it and so on.
So I think discounts are more or less the "normal" price even for new games.
What really makes we sad, if I see that a new game still in early access you get for 8-10 € in the store is a few weeks later in a 1€ bundle with 5 other Games. It does not make me sad, cause i paid probably more ( maybe I paid nothing cause early alpha-tester ).....it makes me sad, cause thats the point we all know there will be no further development..... and some of those games are really nice.
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as time goes by, it will drop even further at least on steam sale. It may even get bundled in lower tiers.
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When good game comes to bundle - it means more people can play it. What is sad about that?
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Massive Chalice as a tactics game suck, so no!
To think they said they inspired on FFT to do that...
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If all the games I like could be bundles, i'd be one happy man. So no I don't get why a game being bundled should be a sad thing.
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Any game getting bundled is only kind of sad for someone who paid the full price for it not too long ago. In that case, my condolences. But that's how it is. I mostly stopped buying full price PC games just to be among the first to play a title. Because discounts on PC games these days come way too quick and heavy. Wait not even a year and everything on PC is 90% off. While older console games still cost around 20 € from the bargain bin.
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It is sad that Tim Schafer gets the attention he didn't deserve.
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Just because a game is in a bundle doesn't mean it is bad in anyway. I am actually glad it is in a bundle so that I can afford it. Borderlands 2 was in a bundle and that game was amazing too.
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Mysterious things have happened. Unexplained things
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It's sad for me, because I backed it on kickstarter because I got distracted for an entire day and forgot to cancel my pledge, after having reconsidered. Then when it came out, it wasn't too high on my backlog, but almost immediately the price-point is nudged down a bit cheaper than the kickstarter price. Don't you just love it when that happens? \:3/
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Bought the game back in March, still haven't played, and I'm still not upset about it being bundled. It is in tier 3 anyways, so it really 'bundled'.
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Its pretty much inevitable that most any game will end up as part of some bundle, given enough time.
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13 USD isn't in my 'bundle category'.
I will wait for more better opportunities to obtain this game copy.
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Read Only Memories is like a month old and it's already in a $1.89 Indiegala weekly bundle. That's sad, especially since it's so good.
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Bundle link. No giveaway, sorry. It's actually about the country restriction.
Massive Chalice Steam link.
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