What the Humble Monthly could do for your game. (sales related)

[Jimrpg]

I was curious to see today, the number of Humble Monthly subscribers on the Humble Monthly page.

That's 300,000 subs at $11-$12 a month, meaning between $3.3m-3.6m per month. A nice tidy sum. 5% goes to charity - about $180,000.

Then I was curious to see if this actually did anything for the indie titles, because an indie title that has 300,000 owners would be a success.

Note: I only checked February Humble Monthly, but i suspect that the pattern holds true for other months.

I checked Black The Fall first.

Black The Fall was released in July 2017, and had only 5,000 units sold up to Feb 2018. After Feb 9th, about a week after Humble February Monthly unlocked, it grew from 5,000 units to 185,000. Interesting also to note that only about half the people even bothered to activate the game. From there though, it rose to 225,000. Now some of these could be late activations, purchases off key sites or even off forums like Resetera's BST, but I'd expect some of these to also be true purchases off retail websites and steam. In fact there are just 17 offers for Black The Fall on Kinguin, 56 offers on G2A. Quite a small amount vs the 40,000 owners within the last 3 weeks.

I also checked Snake Pass.

Snake Pass was released about a year ago in March 2017 and had 35,000 units sold up to Feb 2018. After Feb 9th, about a week after Humble February Monthly unlocked, it grew from 35,000 units to 200,000. From there it rose to 250,000 units.

For completeness sake, I also checked Owlboy.

Owlboy was released over a year ago in Nov 2016. It's already sold 325,000 units up to Feb 2018. After Feb 9th, it grew from 325,000 to 450,000 owners. It stayed there for the next three weeks.

Conclusion: If your game isn't getting the number of units sold, the Humble Monthly seems like a good way of getting exposure on the game and people to try it out. If it's good, people are going to spread the word of mouth. I suspect Humble may also not even pay for these type of games or perhaps devs may even pay Humble to put their game on the Humble Monthly. Thus Humble may only pay for the AAA games which draw in more subscribers to the service. For games that already have a large number of owners, it may not really help sell the game as well as the word of mouth was already there. However it's still useful to get the game into hands of people who haven't tried the game and in turn make them fans so they buy the following game that comes along.

 

[Ryuichi Naruhodo]

I wonder what money games like Snake pass or owlboy or black the fall get per Humble Monthly copy in average ?

It is of course a nice way to have your game gets the exposure and sell a lot of copies that couldn't be sold at a normal price , but just wondering what money they get per copy ? I guess even if it is like $2 per copy then $600K ain't that bad

 

[Knight613]

Considering 300K subscribers, it doesn't necessarily seem like a lot extra copies are actually getting sold on Steam vs people delaying in redeeming codes. Not that we can tell either way what is happening I suppose.

It is kind of interesting to think about though.

 

[Mechaplum]

Nice thread. Another bonus is to get visibility, not just for the companies but also for the individual devs, artists etc.

Cyberpunk I think it may be less than $1 per copy to be honest, or a tiered approach.

 

[Jimrpg]

I wonder what money games like Snake pass or owlboy or black the fall get per Humble Monthly copy in average ?

It is of course a nice way to have your game gets the exposure and sell a lot of copies that couldn't be sold at a normal price , but just wondering what money they get per copy ? I guess even if it is like $2 per copy then $600K ain't that bad

Click to shrink...

As per my OP, its my guess that Humble don't pay for indie games or may even charge the dev for them. After the initial activations you can see the sales/owners graph steadily rise for that month which leads me to believe Humble helps the exposure of the game and may even charge for this.

Humble may just pay for the big AAA games like Civ VI or Dark Souls III and use them to get subs.

 

[Evolution of Metal]

Sending your game to the bundle is like giving up on the sales potential and accepting a low-revenue bulk deal.

There is another problem with bundles, the games' value tanks so a lot on the re-sale websites, the graphs show activation over time, which could mean that there is a ton of humble-bundle keys circulating as opposed to new Steam sales.

The data presented here makes a leapfrog prediction that monthly bundles increase exposure which adds additional sales. If there are indeed around 300k monthly keys, the graphics show the 200k increase in the playerbase over one month, which goes against the idea that there are additional sales (as opposed to activations) over that period of time.

 

[Jimrpg]

Sending your game to the bundle is like giving up on the sales potential and accepting a low-revenue bulk deal.

There is another problem with bundles, the games' value tanks so a lot on the re-sale websites, the graphs show activation over time, which could mean that there is a ton of humble-bundle keys circulating as opposed to new Steam sales.

The data presented here makes a leapfrog prediction that monthly bundles increase exposure which adds additional sales. If there are indeed around 300k monthly keys, the graphics show the 200k increase in the playerbase over one month, which goes against the idea that there are additional sales (as opposed to activations) over that period of time.

Click to shrink...

It's hard to know after the 200k odd number of activations, what is an activation and what is a steam/retail sale.

However its clear that devs/pubs do go for bundles after a period of 6-12 months if the game is not a sales success, just to get the game into the hands of people so there is a chance of word of mouth that could generate into some sales.

 

[newmoneytrash]

I had no idea the Humble Monthly was this popular

 

[Teeth]

As per my OP, its my guess that Humble don't pay for indie games or may even charge the dev for them.

Click to shrink...

No. Source: me.

Edit: to expand on this - putting your game in a bundle slashes its perceived value by a lot. You might get a slight bump from some forum chatter, but it's barely anything.

Also, there is no audience "loyalty" in indie games. Check almost any indie developer legacy and you will see a steady downward trend in their sales (regardless of sequel or new IP for successive games). "Getting your game out there" in hopes of selling more of that game, or more of the sequel/follow up doesn't work.

 

[SirNinja]

I had no idea the Humble Monthly was this popular

Click to shrink...

For $12 you get a very recent $40-$60 game as an early unlock plus 5-6 other games later on. Notably, it was a way to get XCOM 2 for $12 at a time when the next-lowest price it ever went for was around $35. That, plus you keep the games if you unsub, and each game is a separate key (so you can give out keys for games you already own to friends), and Monthly subscribers not only get 10% off everything in the Humble store (stacks with other discounts) but also access to the "Humble Trove" (a large collection of DRM-free games). It's a crazy attractive deal.

 

[Evolution of Metal]

However its clear that devs/pubs do go for bundles after a period of 6-12 months if the game is not a sales success, just to get the game into the hands of people so there is a chance of word of mouth that could generate into some sales.

Click to shrink...

As I said, I think you are jumping to conclusions, which are:
• Humble doesn't pay for mystery games
• Humble monthly generate additional sales via exposure
• Developers using monthly bundle as a primary marketing tool for the game

None of your charts or information support those conclusions. I give you this, developers do use bundles and other promotions (free, PS+) to market, but they either grow the community (Rocket League on PS+, Rust in bundles) or they use the older game's promotion for the new content or game (You will see Xcom, Civ or Warhammer DLC being pushed as an ad in the monthly bundle, developers doing a good-will to win some customers for their next game, doing Xcom bundle to promote Xcom 2). However, the bundle-product is a loss leader in that case, you are using the product as a promotion for another one.

Developers will go to the bundle even if they are successful. It is the tool to maximize revenue, once you depleted your native interest in the game (Steam or single-key shops), you turn to HB for the bulk deal.

 

[fireflame]

There are games I am interesredin that I would have never bought if not in monthly. I had not heard about war for the overworld before getting it in a monthly bundle for example.

 

[Ge0force]

There are games I am interesredin that I would have never bought if not in monthly. I had not heard about war for the overworld before getting it in a monthly bundle for example.

Click to shrink...

Same here. Humble Monthly was the reason I played Total War Warhammer, which I ended up playing hundreds of hours. Such amazing value!

 

[Jimrpg]

No. Source: me.

Edit: to expand on this - putting your game in a bundle slashes its perceived value by a lot. You might get a slight bump from some forum chatter, but it's barely anything.

Also, there is no audience "loyalty" in indie games. Check almost any indie developer legacy and you will see a steady downward trend in their sales (regardless of sequel or new IP for successive games). "Getting your game out there" in hopes of selling more of that game, or more of the sequel/follow up doesn't work.

Click to shrink...

No as in Humble dont pay for indie games? Or no the OP is wrong and humble do pay for indie games?

Also why do devs go with humble if they barely get any sales increase? Do they just take a small bump in revenue for putting the game in Humble?

It may go against the grain but a cuphead 2 would do well. Just saying :D

 

[Jimrpg]

As I said, I think you are jumping to conclusions, which are:
• Humble doesn't pay for mystery games
• Humble monthly generate additional sales via exposure
• Developers using monthly bundle as a primary marketing tool for the game

None of your charts or information support those conclusions. I give you this, developers do use bundles and other promotions (free, PS+) to market, but they either grow the community (Rocket League on PS+, Rust in bundles) or they use the older game's promotion for the new content or game (You will see Xcom, Civ or Warhammer DLC being pushed as an ad in the monthly bundle, developers doing a good-will to win some customers for their next game, doing Xcom bundle to promote Xcom 2). However, the bundle-product is a loss leader in that case, you are using the product as a promotion for another one.

Developers will go to the bundle even if they are successful. It is the tool to maximize revenue, once you depleted your native interest in the game (Steam or single-key shops), you turn to HB for the bulk deal.

Click to shrink...

Yes i see how its unclear whether there are additional sales from those graphs alone, maybe devs could chime in on how bundles have performed for them revenue wise.

 

[Madjoki]

Bundling kills your sales. Resllers will buy tons of copies (even if you see only 17 offers, each of them is going to have many keys).

If game isn't particularly popular, it will quickly drop to sub $1 prices on these sites. Less popular game is, more devastating results.
Keys will last longer, more of potential buyers know these sites.

That seller has 81 keys at that price. Good luck trying to sell full price game.

In addition to charity, easily up to 30% goes to fees like taxes (19%-27% in Europe, depending on country), payment processor fee.
It's not unreasonable to think profit shared is less than $10 per bundle. (Then there is longer sub discounts, coupons, promos etc.)

As for how much goes to early reveals:

Current monthly gives $5 wallet to Japanese customers instead of God Eater 2. That is just one of three games missing. (not counting Mafia 3 DLC).
(I think they've done $8 when only early reveal is missing)

Of course it doesn't mean they pay $5 or $8 per game, but it definitely means majority goes to early reveals.
So smaller games will get scraps and then value is ruined. Even further indies usually don't have planned how to get further income from customers who like their game. (No DLC, no upcoming sequels).
AAA's usually have DLC or Sequel to compensate loss of value.

 

[Teeth]

No as in Humble dont pay for indie games? Or no the OP is wrong and humble do pay for indie games?

Also why do devs go with humble if they barely get any sales increase? Do they just take a small bump in revenue for putting the game in Humble?

Click to shrink...

No, as in, everyone gets paid (by Humble at least) for putting their games in a bundle.

People will put their games in bundles because some sales are better than no sales. Also, in the case of the monthly bundle, it's a near-guaranteed baseline amount. But the biggest reason for putting your game in a bundle is to capture sales to people who wouldn't buy your game anyway. Basically, it's saying that there are people who will buy your game at certain price points (full price, 25% off, 50% off, 75% off, extreme discount) but then there is a portion of people that would never buy your game ever. A bundle is a way of hedging your bets against people that never would have bought your game vs. people who would have bought your game at extreme discount. It's saying "now that my game sales have dropped to almost zero sales per day, I'm guessing there are more people that would have never bought my game than there are those who are just waiting for further discounts, so I will trade those future POSSIBLE profits for a guaranteed theoretical lowered profit off of people that wouldn't have bought my game anyway."

The pessimistic way of looking at it is saying that devs are profiting off of people buying their game who will never play it.
The optimistic way of looking at it is saying that devs are incentivizing people who wouldn't have tried their game to be able to try it at an extreme discount.
The realistic way of looking at it is that sometimes you gotta take any opportunity so that you can eat.

Finally, one thing you might be missing about the un-resolved keys - there are people who will buy up multiples and then sit on the keys until the market is less flooded with them so that the price goes up on resale. Right when a bundle is launched, the keys for a given game are at their absolute nadir (price-wise) as the supply is flooded. But after a year or so, the price can come climbing back, as there are new players in the market (kids are born every day, people discover the joys of PC gaming every day), so as long as the games are interesting, there's a chance the price goes back up.

 

[TangoAlphaLima]

I suspect Humble may also not even pay for these type of games or perhaps devs may even pay Humble to put their game on the Humble Monthly. Thus Humble may only pay for the AAA games which draw in more subscribers to the service.

Click to shrink...

I highly doubt anyone is paying Humble to put their game on Monthly, with the potential exception of a F2P-ish game, and I don't remember one of those being in a Monthly. However, Humble is probably paying some of these devs peanuts for their games. After all, when you have 300k subscribers, even assuming an average gross income of $10 for each after discounts or payments to Paypal/Amazon, that's $3 mil per month for Humble to divvy out. Even $50k or $100k would be a lot for some devs who have already made the cost of their game back, and have seen sales dwindle over time.