Humble Bundle Statistics Thread - Linux Gamers

Ever wanted to know how many Linux users have purchased the Humble Indie Bundle? Ever wanted to see how the average payments for MacOS have varied across every promotion? Perhaps you're interested in the amount of money contributed by Windows for just the "Indie" branded bundles?

Wish granted!

With approval from the Humble Bundle guys, I am proud to present the results of a couple of days' worth of work: The Humble Visualisations, a set of self-updating charts, graphs and calculated statistics that explore and compare the performance of Humble Bundles past and present.

Feedback is welcome, discussion encouraged.

Cheesetalks.twolofbees.com

Edited by: Cheeseness

good job! Just what was needed to show the generosity of Linux users.

Actually this shows well the problem. Important for distributors is only the net-income chart not how much a Linux or Windows guy payed in average. And in this regard the result is clear against Linux. Never been fond of HIB at all since it doesn't help the matter but actually worsens it on various fronts. A typical case of "good idea... for a different reality". A good chart though. Gives me more proof for my views without others having the possiblity to down-call them (as the numbers are processed not by me).

I don't quite follow your point. If only the net-income chart is important, isn't this chart showing a good thing? Before the bundles, people would always say "Linux has only 1% of the market". If a distributor only looks at the net-income chart, doesn't it appear that Linux has near 25%? It's a little easier to justify supporting a market with 25% of the sales.

The net-income is one thing but the other is the number of sold SKU (important for ROI calculation). Linux is at the total lower end in both and Windows fully on the upper end. Furthermore the numbers are declining for Linux with each bundle but increasing for Windows. This shows that the numbers are "hyped up" and doesn't reflect values to count with for future income/ROI. Thus the HIB is a shot in the dark if one looks at the numbers from a business man perspective (as AAA publishers do) not the hand-picked values some enthusiasts muster up. Anything under 100k SKU is simply not interesting. Linux is way below as well as way below in the net-income comparison. Windows gets stronger, Linux gets weaker... that's what the HIB has shown... and that's simply not what people claim. This is why I say we need "real" solutions. HIB is not a solution but actually shows even more harshly the problem.

You're right, the pay-what-you-want model exposes a very different market to the fixed-point model, but I think there are still some positive things that can be derived from these figures.

I'm going to try to write something in-depth early next year, but off the top of my head, I think there's a superficial hint that there may be similar money in the Linux gaming market to what there is in the MacOS gaming market. The numbers of Linux buyers compared to MacOS buyers is definitely less (a difference that floats somewhere between three and fifteen thousand purchases may not seem like much, but when the Voxatron bundle only had fifteen thousand Linux purchases, that difference starts to become significant), but I believe the numbers are still comparable. Comments from developers like Hemisphere Games and Wolfire about the worthwhile-ness Linux ports of seem to support that.

Given that the Linux average payment is higher, we could infer that it's possible that there are proportionally more people in the Linux market willing to pay a fixed price if that price point is above the MacOS average, even though the number of Humble Bundle purchasers is lower.

IMO the bundle model has its own problems (for example, Puppy Games' "withdrawal"from Desura because Revenge Of The Titans wasn't selling when it's pretty likely that a large majority of Desura users received the game via the Humble Indie Bundle #2, and the gradual decline of average payment values over time that indicates what people seem to be referring to as "bundle fatigue"), but misrepresentation of the market isn't one of them.

I'm not really sure I understand what you mean when you say that Windows is getting stronger and Linux is getting weaker. If anything, Linux sales have been more consistent (less subject to the fluctuations that the non-"indie" bundles have seen), whilst the proximity of the cross-platform average to the Windows average suggests that the extra volume of sales that the bundles have picked up over time are from people paying significantly low values. This is fine for the pay-what-you-want model, but completely irrelevant if you're considering interpreted value for fixed price point games.

You can use the graphics on the bottom of the listing there to see what I mean. Windows went from under 100k to over 300k. Linux on the other hand is way below 50k. Another one you can look at is the revenue one. Windows went from under 700k to over 1.4M (+100%) while Linux went from somewhat over 300k to somewhat over 200k (-33%). This is where "windows gets stronger, Linux gets weaker" comes from. The trend shows a hype-effect on the start which fades away. This is the problem here.

I don't think you can claim that the Linux revenue for the "indie" bundles has dropped until the current bundle is over. Excluding the current one, the trend for the "indie" bundles is a slow rise in revenue, climbing $100k to ~$400k for #3.

If anything, you should probably be using the decline in Linux purchasers and the average payment price (across all bundles) since the #3 bundle to illustrate your point.

IMO, it's an awareness thing. I'm pretty confident that a vast majority of Linux users were aware of the bundles with time to buy them. Windows users, however have taken much longer to hear about them - I suspect that we haven't yet seen the true bulk of people on Windows who would be willing to pay over one cent for a humble bundle. I don't believe that this makes Linux weaker in any way though.

A comparison to Windows markets is kinda useless - I don't think anybody seriously believes that the Humble Bundle stats are an indication that Linux is challenging Windows as the dominant gaming platform. The real value is in comparing it to MacOS, which is currently seen by the industry as a far more viable platform for game development than Linux.

Edited by: Cheeseness

Don't know where you take these numbers from. Linux has 300k revenue not counting the last one. Windows went though from 700k up to 1.5M including the last one. With the last one Linux went down to 200k.

As shown on my stats page and on the bundle's download page, the total Linux revenue for the Humble Indie Bundle #3 was $409,204.32.

Like I said, the current one hasn't finished, so I'm not willing to acknowledge figures for it until it has (if by "last one", you meant the Introversion bundle, the Linux sales were actually $153k, but I was talking about the "indie" bundles), though I admit that with two days left, there's very little likelihood of any significant changes happening.

I still don't consider the increase in Windows revenue/purchasers to have much bearing on the viability of developing titles for Linux.

Sorry for the bump of an old thread (figured it was better to resurrect an old one than make a new one though).

I've done the first major update to the Humble Visualisations. They now include combined stats for all bundles, indie bundles only and non-indie bundles only as well as a timeline showing the changes in frequency of bundle releases.

I've also written a lengthy article that explores what all the numbers and lines might indicate, which I'm hoping to publish next week.

Exciting stuff!

Edited by: Cheeseness

I must say the update is nice. You can never have too many charts!
I like the new reverse chronological order a bit more than the last one, too.

Thanks meklu <3

So that article I mentioned is now live! In it, I present some information about how the bundles have changed over time, touch on the open source projects that have come out of the Humble Bundle promotions and talk about what what the platform specific stats might imply about Linux gaming and Linux gamers (as well as the other platforms).

If you're not into reading what I have to say, the article is also sprinkled with quotes from Humble Bundle contributors including Notch (Minecraft developer), Garry Newman (Garry's Mod developer), TPJeff (of Team Phobic), ExpiredPopsicle (of Cryptic Studios), NimbleDave (of NimbleBit), Mt.Gox (a Bitcoin site whose CEO is excited about indie games) and tantepose (a technology journalist with DinSide.no).

You can read it here

Enjoy!