Nintendo of America and key Indie partners caused a stir recently when the Humble Nindie Bundle was unveiled, which allows eShop gamers in the Americas - it's not available in PAL territories - to pay what they want for a batch of excellent Wii U and 3DS games. If you pay over certain limits you get more games.
This bundle is going to be headlining for two weeks, but has already had a notable impact. At the time of writing - and after being available for just 24 hours - there have been around 37,000 units sold, raising over $340,000 in sales. Those sales will be split between three organisations - the developers / publishers themselves, Humble Bundle and also the designated charity - Code.org.
At the moment the average purchase is at over $9 - this will have been inflated by some generous purchases; the highest at the time of writing is from Nintendo of America's Dan Baker, who pitched in $500 for the games. Naturally some will be (arguably) missing the whole point of voluntary generosity and paying less than $9 to just receive the three core games, though others may simply pay for the first batch if they already own all of the others. A broad scale of payments will have been made across tens of thousands of purchases.
These are impressive early results, especially as this is limited to the Americas, and there are still plenty of days to run with more games yet to be added. If this continues to perform this well and raise a lot of money, it'll certainly increase the odds of Nintendo and Humble Bundle returning with more offerings in future.
If you are in the Americas and want to check it out, just head over to the official Humble Bundle website.
My paycheck hits tomorrow night. Then they'll be mine. I want to chip in at least $20.
be even more if they could get thier act togeather and allow other countries to buy it but hey what the heck do i know.
@tlegg They are trying to make it worldwide.
I only own a couple of the games. Might do the $10 and give away the games I already have.
@tlegg Multiple regions, multiple codes, one huge headache for Humble Bundle. It's not an inherent choice to disallow other regions. It just because nearly impossible to know what region you are from since people have to get the right codes. And if someone owns a NA Wii U, but lives in EU, and gets an EU code, it's going to be a mess. It's beyond what Humble Bundle is capable of handling.
@Vineleaf I like that you're not just spending $10 to get everything for the lowest possible price.
So....people paid an average of $9? Nintendo should do this with some of their older games, it may win back some gamers who had gone mobile. If older console games can be bundled and sold cheap, it will be a better deal than mobile games.
@Captain_Toad 10$ is wise since the stealth inc 2 costs 14.99$ alone so if you want that game might as well get it now.
@Jayvir they could have postponed it. they could have done somethnig instead of saying well we tried. they could have actually told us what the problem. they oculd have finally said which country the whole thing is in they could have abadorned teh bullpoop concept that only americans buy the humble bundle.
My first ever Humble Bundle purchase, hopefully more will come from Nintendo and maybe Sony and Microsoft will join in.
@XCWarrior yes and they failed.
@tlegg Life isn't fair, stop your female dogging and get over it.
@tlegg Man, you really are angry. Maybe you should chill. I never thought I'd see someone rage over a charity fundraiser. You act like there are never any deals for Europe/Australia/wherever that the US never gets.
Like @freaksloan said, get over it and stop being a whiny baby.
@tlegg no offense but...geez, shut up. They said they've tried to do this for all regions for months and that they'll keep trying. They also explained that it couldn't be done because of licensing issues (because several Indies let different publishers handle their games in different regions) and @Jayvir already explained the problem with Humble Bundle itself.
@tlegg consider this a warning, stop the excessive cussing.
yes i am angry i'm angry that the humble bundle something which has always been drm free has to do this. i'm annoyed at the fact that they haven't bothered to tell us why this is and just saying oh we've been trying. and i'm annoy that apparantly this is the future of the humble bundle. and also the fact that the majority of the games are actually avaible on the eu shop.
@shigulicious yeah you get extra games.
I am amazed at how many games I have purchased through humblebundle in the past year. I currently have over 175 games on Steam. Having an eshop humblebundle is a bit of a surprise. I have most of the games on this list. Guacamelee is my favorite, and you only have to spend one measly dollar to get it (and 2 other games). I highly recommend spending 10 to get SteamWorld Dig and all the other games. I might do that and give away the ones I already have.
Going to put the twenty I normally use for eshop credit twice a month to this.
Edit: Just made my purchase.
I'm glad to see this doing so well. I would love to see this adopted further afield in the future. Hope it encourages them to do stuff like this again and push the boat out with interesting incentives. Obviously great that it helps a worthy cause too.
I've been using Humble Bundle for quite a while now (at least since July of last year), and there have always been some games that require DRM. Usually it's Steam. It hasn't been solely DRM-Free for quite a while now.
If you actually care about DRM and are not just salty about Nintendo of [Your Region] not approving the bundle for your region, you can go to GOG.com - but don't expect to find all the games they have on the Humble Bundle.
@tlegg There have been literally DOZENS of Humble Bundles which were not DRM-free. They were all by major publishers, and only active on Steam (or EA's Origin in a couple cases). This is no different, except that a DRM-free version of eShop games would literally be impossible to provide. As many have already said, you need to relax. I love Humble Bundles, and I'd be bummed to be missing out on this one, but you're patently wrong and seriously need to chill out.
I'm proud to say i paid over the average and gave the games I had to my nephews.
@tlegg "Joined seven hours ago" as of now.
I would have bought the full bundle but I already owned every game in the bundle aside from Guacamelee (most of my game money goes towards my 3DS and Wii U) so I paid $1 to get Guacamelee. Depending on what the future games are I may just buy the whole bundle and give away the extra codes.
Also I find it hilarious that one of the mods here has Tommy Wiseau as his username.
I apologise I have been annoyed at the fact that the humble bundle first console release has been disappointing I am annoyed because really this is a big deal and it's been held back by one of the stupidest things that nintendo done and continues to do.
I think this is fantastic, I actually never knew what the heck a humble bundle was.... but I do now lol. I'd love to take part myself and hopefully some day I'll see it in my region. Well done to everyone paying a little bit extra, and fair play to anyone getting some really good games for next to nothing!
All props to Nintendo for actually getting the **FIRST** Humble Console Bundle out the door, even if it does have a few limitations.
I will forever be eternally optimistic that they can do the same for other regions (inc AU/NZ) in the near future!!
though the fact that this is only North America, I'd figure that it is hurting sales.
I've been thinking about getting these games just because the deal is really good. Problem is, I have most of them, some are on my PS4 and the others on Nintendo systems. Even with that said I'm still considering it lol.
How many do these usually sell in the same amount of time?
That's pretty cool. I have to wait after the 29th to see if I have enough in my game budget (more accurately any left), but if I do I'll put in at least $25 since one of the game on the list I'm most interested in cost $15 and it's for a good cause.
I bought several bundles for the last year or so and I was very surprised and happy to see this 3DS and Wii U pack.
I almost bought it without looking at all the details, even when I already own half of the games in the bundle it is a great deal and of course part of the money goes to charity.
I paid my fair share of 1 dollars, since I already have Moon Chronicles, OlliOlli and SteamWorld: Dig, and that I don't own a wiiU... But this may change with new games, if anything worth comes.
So I am assuming that when the other games are added I will still receive all of these in addition to the new ones? If so then I will wait to see what they are!
Decided to get this. Pretty stoked for sure.
@edgedino Ehhhh.. Ok, you convinced me. This will keep me ready for a few months. Ten dollars it is.
This was a really cool deal! I may even buy it again to give away some codes to friends! I hope more Nindie Humble Bundles happen later on!
Can we get this in the PAL regions please!
I have a question. When new games are eventually added, will they add to the bundle or reset it entirely?
To anybody wondering, as long as you pay more than the average donation at the time that you pay then you'll get the three extra games plus the games that will be announced next Tuesday. It said so on the website, but I had to open a box first, so there is an excuse for not finding it. $10 for all of the games is a steal, even if you only have a 3DS or a Wii U. You also are able to set how much of your donation goes to each party (code.org, the developers and Humble Bundle itself) without changing what you receive from the bundle. My limited understanding is that code.org is a charity that funds and supports computer science programs in high schools, which is hard to argue with. Pretty non-controversial.
Myself, I've been enjoying OlliOlli more than I expected to. It reminds me of a higher quality version of a flash game I used to play back in the day.
@ikki5 EA has the record, and it put some of their bigges games on it, Dead Space 1-3, Dragon Age Origins and 2, Battlefield 3, Crysis 2, Medal of Honor.
A bunch of indie games will never surpass that, worldwide or not. Let alone PC playerbase its infinite times bigger.
I have most of the games but still want the 2 or 3 that I'm missing in my library. Will check back next Tuesday once all the other games are added.
@Captain_Toad and any games you don't want or already have you can always give to some1 who might want it.
How many games typically get added into these bundles? This was the first Humble Bundle I've ever bought, and I'm really happy with it. I'm just curious about the additional games that might be added.
@VIIIAxel It's usually about 3 games added from what I've seen, although I have seen a couple instances where it was 2 or 4 games.
I don't have a Wii U yet, so if I bought this bundle, how long would those Wii U codes remain active? Indefinitely?
Unsurprisingly, I'm a bit skeptical about getting 10 codes for 8 games at a minimum of $10 from a website I didn't even know existed until a month or so ago. Does anyone who's bought the bundle know if I can trust this site with my money?
@KodyDawg rofl, humble bundle has been going for ages, minimun 5 years ago.
@tlegg One of the issues is that some of the games in the bundle are not even available yet outside of NA on their own. That's hardly an issue with Nintendo alone.
People in the EU would still complain as that would require restricting the bundle to only games released in that area. In fact, it might cause an even greater outrage in that scenario as people would be complaining they're being charged more for less.
@VIIIAxel The additional games are usually at least slightly related to whatever the theme of the current bundle is (well some bundles I've seen have no theme). Most likely they'd be some other high profile indies on the Nintendo eShop going by the games in the bundle (so The Letter for example won't show up, well hopefully anyways).
@CodyDawg I can understand being concerned, but Nintendo isn't anywhere near the first major name in the games industry to work with Humble Bundle, if that helps. I think you can pay through Amazon as well. The codes are there because that's pretty much the only way to buy an eshop game through a browser and they've all worked for me.
@Dodger @Faruko Sorry if I came off as ignorant, but that's great to hear! The reason I've never heard of it before is likely due to the fact that I've been solely a Nintendork for most of my gaming life.
@KodyDawg Totally fine. It certainly isn't wrong to be sceptical of websites asking for your money. This is the first time I've purchased anything through them, mainly because I don't use Steam as much as I use Nintendo consoles.
From what I've found, they often sell e-book bundles on the side too, which is kind of neat. One ended yesterday with a lot of books of the theme of making things for only $15 for the highest tier and now they are offering a bunch of graphic novels with the highest tier being about $20. It would be cooler if they were physical books, but I bet the shipping costs would get insane.
with most humble bundles i'm usu. only interested in one or two of the games, but eshop is awesome and this has some great stuff. this is such a steal, so even though i have a few of these i'm putting in more than the minimum b/c part of it goes to charity and plus i can give my duplicate codes away. hope we see more of these!
@Nashew They last longer than 2 years at least.
I paid $10 and don't regret it one bit, though, I'm wondering...could I add more $ to that later if I want the next batch of indie games? I would've given more if I knew about the next batch beforehand. I'm assuming you have to purchase the whole bundle, again. Dang it.
I wonder will Woah Dave! and Moon Chronicles ever come to Europe?
Could NLife team perhaps reach out to the devs that are they even trying to bring the games to Europe or is everyone just hiding behind the ratings board nonsense as usual.
Maybe devs like Nicalis and Renegade Kid should contact Curve Digital since Curve's games tend to come always at the same time in Europe and Americas.
Would have sold a whole lot more if it was available to PAL as well!
This is an awesome idea as there are so many indie games I want but I can't afford the price mark this will allow me to pay what I can but also enjoy the experience. Some money is better than no money.
So far, we're really enjoying OlliOlli! (the only one we had a chance to play).