Upcoming Humble bundle (Discussion/Guess thread)²

Well, when I said goodbye it was not really for lack of arguments but because I do not usually get into discussions with people who, as I perceived in your reply, do not respect a different opinion, and I really thought in not reply you, but I think it is good to clarify certain points.

And I start with something that you mention and in which you are right, the industry is in constant development, there is a lot of difference between today and 8 years ago when I bought my first bundle and I knew the digital distribution of video games and I can go further back when cultural products began to be distributed digitally (music, books, movies and of course video games), this marked an important change in the industry in the relationship between consumers and producers, produce a copy of the product, in this case a video game stopped having a series of additional associated expenses, such as support (cd, dvd, boxes, covers, etc.), the transportation and storage of these goods.

And what does this have to do with bundles? A lot, one of the reasons behind bundles is to reach a large number of buyers in a short and restricted period of time, without generating additional expenses. And this was something that interested the video game industry.

Of course the developers and publishers must recover the money involved in making their creations and not only that, they must generate profit for future projects, that is the reason why the prices of the games in their first months are maintained in a more or less constant, unless the game fails at launch, but after 6 - 8 months this price begins to drop and after perhaps a year and a half or two, sometimes more depending on the game, it reaches a price that is could consider standard, and it has discounts more often and maybe the time comes when the game can be offered in a bundle, for example that first bundle I bought was from ORIGIN EA, with Battlefield 3, but this game was already two years old launched, and that's part of the business.

And one can think why a company is going to sell their games for less than it needs to recoup its investment, well, because the amount of sales at a low price in a short period of time can easily exceed the sales that are generated in several months at normal price, everything is recovery money or earnings, in 2017 a very interesting article came out about the donations achieved by Humble Bundle and that can give an idea of the sales of the bundles, this is the article:

https://www.cnet.com/tech/gaming/humble-bundle-has-something-to-brag-about-100m-to-charity-so-far/

If humble bundle managed to raise this in donations, it is likely that the publishers would have also managed to get some good sums of money with their bundles, and one may think that it is not like that because a good percentage goes to donations, but even in these cases the developers win, I'm not sure if publishers who participate in humble bundle campaigns can apply for tax deduction, but at least in my country if a company donates to charity campaigns receives a series of tax benefits, which can be more juicy than the same donations, of course this is an advantage that benefits large companies more, but suppose that it is not the case, even these companies and their brands are associated with this type of campaign and all advertising is good.

But let's go back to the games, a company of course is not going to bundle a game that was released a few months ago, there are exceptions, a multiplayer that is dying due to lack of players may be, but they are usually games that have already passed their stage of hype, and these additional sales are what can attract both large and small companies, the case of square enix and capcom seems interesting in that sense, I will return to them later, so these upsells of a game that probably doesn't sell regularly is a way to entice a company to be part of a bundle.

But the industry is in developing, and consumers too, and one of the black points of the bundles is the gray market for games, the bundle is designed to be sold in a reduced period, it is the same as when a company decides to give a game as a gift , and the fact that the bundles are for a limited time creates this demand for games that comes from bundles and this began to affect how companies react to the bundles, so maybe one way to fight that market is to put games back in bundles, which I think is the case with Capcom and Square Enix, Tomb Raider has appeared in bundles 5 times, Resident Evil Revelations 4, and so on with other games, and maybe that's an answer to that gray market, by making certain games come back you can make sure that people will probably buy them if they didn't get a chance the first time, and yes, some will say only repeated, and others will say (as happened to me with Choose Wisely) I already have several games but it's worth it for the others that I don't have, and I end up buying games that I already have.

Now back to the point that originated the whole discussion, I still believe that the person who chooses and negotiates the games that appear in the humble bundle monthly must learn about the Choose Wisely game selection, and ironically it is probably the same person, The monthly bundles have had a huge reduction in quality in the course of the last years, sometimes there are pleasant surprises, when we see several games from the our wishlist and some bundles may like some and others may not, but in general they are games that do not have something striking for everyone, and with this I do not mean that it has to be triple AAA or games released six months ago, but that they must be games that have quality, the two games that top the list of Choose Wisely are really good, and can even attract the attention of those who do not like this type of genre, and the rest of the games share that characteristic, even the repeat ones
But if in the monthly bundle you put 10 or 12 games that do not attract attention, they will not sell it and sales are what attract companies, suppose that the other 5 Choose Wisely games were regular games, or multiplayer about to be extinguished, I think that Quantic Dream would not have wanted to put their two games with others that do not keep a correlation, because that can affect the sales of the bundle and the profits that they can generate.

So the person who chooses the games in a bundle, the best thing could do is choose good games that can generate sales so the companies that own these games say hey this is a good idea, let's do it, let's get some money out of that game that seldom sells or that has not had good sales lately, of course there are going to be companies that will never enter the world of bundles (Activision that's for you).

I do not want to extend more on this, these are my arguments, this is what I understand from my experience and what I know from the industry constant development, so if you tell me "You still don't get it, do you?" I say you take it easy, every one can have their opinions, and sadly respect the opinions of others seems to be an unfamiliar concept these days.

To the readers, I apologize for any grammatical errors, English is not my first language