Man I love Operation Matriarchy! Played it a few years back and had a blast, but was always sad that it was strapped with DRM. Thanks for letting me know about that bundle, I'll be getting it for sure!

If you didn't care for the game it might be because you're missing the fan-made patch which adds beautiful music to the game and improves the sounds (see http://www.devisraad.com/op-m/). It's an awesome game if you can appreciate the humor and give it a little slack.

I didn't know they set an initial average price. Makes sense though, I guess.

Have you looked at the Christmas release schedule this year?

That's why, it's hard to parley Torchlight when TL2 is out, Borderlands 2, the new Fable, Halo 4, Assassins Creed 3, Far Cry 3, and a crap ton more...

That and a good part of the internet is currently feeding their WOW addiction this week:)

My view on the bundles:

1) They are losing some steam in general because they are no longer the new thing; they are a "done" event so the novelty aspect has worn off a bit.

2) Many of the other bundle sites have somewhat scraped the bottom of the barrel with game quality - often having only one solid gaming title mixed with a lot of lower grade or simply lower appeal titles. I think this has dulled the community a little - so even when Humble turn around and put a lot of solid titles into a bundle it feels "done that"

3) Quite a few are repeats or are games already sold at a fairly cheap price or they are older games. As a result many already own most of it not all of the core games they would want from a bundle (as is my situation with the HB6). Good games - solid titles - but already owning most means I'm less likelly to jump in.

4) Game listings getting too big - lets face it, we don't really like our steam/desura accounts full of long lists of games we don't play and don't want to play. It also builds a bit of a constant reminding guilt pile of "unused games". Whilst there are ways to gift games away with many of the bundles I think some are also thinking "I only want 1 game and I don't want any of the others at all"


In the end I think the bundles will stick around for a good while, heck Steam does them every big holiday with the major brands (granted they are much more expensive bundles - but then again they are chock full of mainstream titles). The game market itself though is oversaturated (like many many others) with SALES and DEALS and BUNDLES. The power of money off is weakening I think since they happen so often that its not longer got that pressure on the consumer to buy - because they know they can just wait and it will be on sale in a few months time again - and heck it might even be on sale for even less!

With the reduced pressure on the consumer to buy NOW for the deal I can well see that we'll have many more ideas like the bundles appear in the following years as retailers and distributors try to respark that desire for impulse and fast buys. Sadly I've a feeling this means we might see a rise in limited access content - that is to say DLC only sold at certain times in sale periods; or DLC limited to specific distribution outlets etc... anything they can to make you "panic" to "buy now" .

To be fair, HIB have always been slightly better quality than the other bundles, usually having way better games, never compromising their DRM free promise, providing executables for the 3 major platforms almost always, and providing Steam keys based purely on feedback.

The only other indie bundle in the quality department is Indie Royale and I still don't consider it the same league.

There aren't enough appealing games in the bundle. That's what wrong with it.

Are you kidding? Not even counting the new games that they just added, SPAZ or Vessel are worth it all by themselves. Most folks have Torchlight already, I grant. Rochard may or may not be fun, the videos make it look fun but having not played it I hate to say one way or the other, regardless this is its first bundle I'm pretty sure...

Even then, almost no one has TL DRM free, unless you have a boxed or GOG copy. This is the first SPAZ that's 100% DRM free as well.

And finally, if somehow you don't have copies of the new games they added just recently, that's really good. But the base games in the bundle were already good, and even though the last numbered bundle was "better", a lot of folks had actually played those games.

Plus, soundtracks, if one likes those they're a really nice addition.

I am one who usually buys every bundle available (as long there is at least 1 interesting title). For HIB6, all of the games were in bundles before, or I do have them already from damn cheap steam sales.

So, no cent from me this time.

I think it's a pretty good bundle. I didn't have any of the games in it other than Torchlight (and don't particularly care for that one anyway), but I've heard good things about half of them and the others looked like they might be pretty good as well. Now they've added four more games (none if which I have, and all of which look interesting), so I think this bundle's a huge win.

HiB V was so awesome, I don't think the current bundle can sell like the previous one.

The thing is still working anyway, I wouldn't call it a failure. I got the bundle, I missed a few games and I was interested in Shatter (which is awesome, go play it, I also rock its soundtrack in my car and usually I really don't care about techno music).

Bundles are so common today, even the Humble Bundle is not a big thing anymore. It's like a Firefox update, they used to be "something", now they launch Firefox 10, 11, 12, 13... I don't even know the current number. :P

I didn't have any of the games in the bundle, not even Torchlight! So while it's not a mega-all-star cast like HIB5 was, I'm still very much looking forward to playing all of the games. The only one that doesn't really look appealing to me is the Bit-Trip game. I'm not really a connoisseur of bundles, though, I've only been watching them in earnest for 6 months or so.

SPAZ was in it from the beginning. I've only played it briefly but it seems pretty awesome.

Hm. I did not know the bundle had added SPAZ. I had never heard of SPAZ, but its gameplay is reminiscence of Escape Velocity Nova, a game that I enjoyed playing many years ago. I do not own Torchlight. My interest in Torchlight is low. But I loved Diablo 2, so I'll play Torchlight if I ever get the time to go through all other games in my backlog... and that can take forever.

Everything else in the bundle seem to be platformers and puzzles. I do not really like platformers and puzzles, and I already have too many of them on my Android. I am sick and tired of platform and puzzle games. They are a dime a dozen on smartphones. Seriously developers need to stop making any more platformers and puzzles, especially for phones.

Anyway. I just paid $6.50 for the bundle. Honestly the only game I want from the bundle is SPAZ.

I think there is nothing wrong with the bundle. Its just most people have at least part of the games and may not be interested in the rest. Torchlight for example was on promotion few times and it was added to the pre-orders of 2 on steam.
Plus HIB showed after all the other bundles last week so people on budget haven't been able to get it yet.

Agreed, I've seen one or two other bundles that were worth going for, but even then the game titles were much more fringe releases. Humble Bundle did it first and they appear to have gotten themselves a very good reputation which seems to help land them good solid titles. Indy Royal I'd agree rates a good second, sometimes a bit more hit and miss, but generally worth looking at.

They shouldn't be setting the average price... the average should be determined by the first purchaser.