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[Hangedman]

Most people know already, but here's a thread.

So, there's this thing: http://www.indieroyale.com/
PWYW above a default cost. More buyers = higher cost. Higher buyers = lower cost.

ARES, Gemini Rue, Sanctum, and Nimbus.
I know little of the first two but I do know that both Sanctum and Nimbus are nice little games each alone well worth the price.
Seems a little odd that Gemini Rue be included as it came out just a short time ago. I'd expect a bit more time for people to buy or something, maybe they're banking on this.

Not sure what will come of this, discuss.

[Syrion]

Very nice! An original idea, too.

But, my actual first thought was: Sales left and right, who will bother buying games at full price in the future?

[dEnamed]

Well didn't Sanctum just come out as well?
One way or another, I'm happy there's another bundle. An alternative to Humble Indie Bundle, because I was rapidly losing respect for that one and how things were handled.

Anways, I'm having a bit of a problem with this one, my keys were duplicates. But they're aware of the problem, judging by their tweets and I've already sent my mail, so I'll wait and see.

[Hangedman]

Actually, Sanctum's been out for months. It's just that no one knows about it. Which is why it makes much more sense to be in the bundle, as the multiplayer is an absolute blast but their playerbase has shrunk from lack of notice.

The biweekly bundles thing seems kind of odd. But not necessarily bad.
I guess we just have to wait and see what comes of these.

[dEnamed]

Well, I've known about the game since the Modding days but was never quite hooked on the concept. Although in my mind, it had been a rather recent release - then I checked and saw it was released in April.
If the multiplayer really is dead, that does sound like something I've come to call the Section 8 Syndrome, as in: Split an already small community by introducing map dlc and thus create two even smaller communities (note: I don't know how the DLC in Sanctum works and whether people without it can join multiplayer servers with it)

[TheLastBanana]

That's neat. I already own Sanctum, but the other three games look interesting, so I bought it. It'll be interesting to see how their pricing method works out.

[SundownKid]

WOW, considering what I paid for Junkman (aka ARES) back at release, this bundle is a steal. I bought it for Gemini Rue. I fear that it might make people even more hesitant to pay full price with the large amount of bundles going around.

[dEnamed]

That's neat. I already own Sanctum, but the other three games look interesting, so I bought it. It'll be interesting to see how their pricing method works out.

Quite interesting indeed. I reckon it'll be slow climbing at first, there are few people willing to pay more than they absolutely have to and since there isn't that much of a guilt trip here, they're more likely to take it. Once it has risen enough, it would start to put off people but by then they had enough time to hype themselves into buying it and perhaps pay more than they planned.

One way or another, I'm really happy there's none of this "You're a scumbag no matter how much you pay" and instead a more positive spin on things. I'll follow it (and well, have bought it) and see how it'll develop. Best of luck to them though.

[Alevice]

It seems they fixed the seam keys, but now I am getting a 404

[deathtotheweird]

Quite interesting indeed. I reckon it'll be slow climbing at first, there are few people willing to pay more than they absolutely have to and since there isn't that much of a guilt trip here, they're more likely to take it. Once it has risen enough, it would start to put off people but by then they had enough time to hype themselves into buying it and perhaps pay more than they planned.

One way or another, I'm really happy there's none of this "You're a scumbag no matter how much you pay" and instead a more positive spin on things. I'll follow it (and well, have bought it) and see how it'll develop. Best of luck to them though.

what the fuck are you talking about? the humble bundle doesn't guilt trip you, and the humble bundle doesn't have any "You're a scumbag no matter how much you pay" mentalities around it. unless you're talking about that "poor indie" sign that shows up if you type in 0.99 or lower. and you are a scumbag if you pay less than a dollar. 1.00 and above doesn't show that message.

Anyways this Indie Royale thing doesn't give me much incentive to pay more than the current price.

With the Humble Bundle, I could choose where my money is going. I can choose how much I give to the Humble Bundle guys, various organizations, or give it all to the devs. With this bundle I don't have that option. If I wanted to donate 50 dollars I'd want to make sure the developers get the most of it. But since I can't do that, why would I pay more than the minimum?

The people that started the Humble Bundle were indie developers. The people who started this Indie Royale are not. It's a bunch of people wanting to make money off independent developers. I dunno, I don't like it.

[Alevice]

WHos making this indie royale thing anyway. And how much do they get from the sales?

[larsiusprime]

It looks like the IndieGames/Gamasutra/GDC/IGF people are behind it. Simon Carless has been tweeting about it and it looks like he's directly involved.

[deathtotheweird]

also the people from Desura are in on it too. FAQ says joint partnership between them and the owners of indiegames.com. Michael Rose was interviewed in Wired so he has a part in it too.

and I'm not sure how much they get. but whatever it is, it's too much.

[Inane]

The games (or atleast, Sanctum and Nimbus, which I have played) are good It'd be nice if we knew they were getting a good deal, but I'm buying this regardless.

[larsiusprime]

Sent a tweet out to Simon Carless asking what the split is ... imagine I won't be hearing back for a while as he's probably got his hands full just trying to keep the servers up.

[Falmil]

Aww, I was happy to pay $10 and then everyone had to go and be a buzz-kill about where the money was going...

[SirNiko]

I've got too many games from the last bundle. I haven't even touched Frozen Synapse yet.

It's a fun way to try out new games, but when I get a game I don't really enjoy I feel guilty for not playing through it anyway.

I'll probably just buy Nimbus at full price later on when I'm caught up again since that's the one that I really want.

I think I'll pass on this one. I'm all bundled out.

[Theophilus]

I'm getting this but I won't be able to until later this week, hopefully it's not too much by then. ARES, Sanctum, Nimbus look great.

EDIT:

Something about the model of this bundle seems to not jive. I would pay minimum (And hopefully not raise the price) if I'm telling friends to buy it, I wouldn't want them to pay more than I did.

[unsilentwill]

Pay what you think games are worth. Personally I think anything else is disrespectful to the game designer. That said, also don't pay unless you know how much the designer is getting. Why it doesn't say in giant red letters is beyond me. Why it doesn't say at all is inexcusable.

The thrill of being indie is seeing a broken system and getting a chance to do it right. The Steam sale/mobile market/humble bundle system is effective at raising money, but seems to literally devalue the enormous effort it takes for anyone, especially a small number of people to make a game.

[SirNiko]

My initial thought was the "Price Drop" thing wouldn't fly. I was anticipating a lot of folks anonymously buying the games at min price, drive up the price, and bundles stop selling when it hits 5.01. But they've sold 15k without the price topping 3 bucks. I wonder if it'll keep going like that.

I guess the idea is that when somebody buys for a big chunk they get a fancy star and get some attention? I'd have put that bit at the very top of the page to get max exposure. Maybe let the contributors put a little slogan to show up on the top of the page, instead of just the little @person names they use now.

It's neat how they have three more bundles already planned, with catchy titles and images to hint at what they may contain. I'm a little curious what they may contain.

If this takes off I'm worried we might hit a bundle bubble where everybody is packaging up bundles of game for pay-your-own-price until everybody is driven to min-price everything. Or maybe it'll just spur Steam to put their entire back catalogue on pay-what-you-want and crash the market for all indie games forever.