Humble Bundle Pros and Cons for the Publisher

[djotaku]

As I just got my notification of the Shadowrun Humble Bundle (and there's currently also Fallout TTRPG and a physical book TTRPG bundle) I thought of something - if you're a publisher (and a recent thread revealed there are a ton of indie publishers on here) - what's the pros/cons of doing a Humble bundle? As an example from the video game world of why it might not just be an unqualified good - some game devs have said that doing a Humble Bundle suddenly throws your game at a bunch of people who didn't pay full price, but want full tech support; this can be overwhelming.

Granted, tech support probably isn't a big deal in the same way with TTRPGs, but I was wondering, nonetheless. How is the conversion rate? Do people who get $900 worth of books for your TTRPG end up coming back and buying more books, modules, etc at retail price from you? Any cons to having it out there for people to try?

As a customer I can provide the anecdote that I did the Traveller Humble Bundle years back and never played it. Same with a Starfinder 1e Humble Bundle. I recently got the cheapest tier of DCC, but I'm not sure if I'll play it. They might make some money from me since they provided a coupon for their weird dice so if that coupon still lets them make money.... I guess what I'm trying to say in this paragraph is that the HB removes a lot of the friction of BUYING a new system since I can get the books/adventures for $30 instead of $100s. But it doesn't necessarily make me any more likely to actually run them if I'm already busy running a bunch of other games. (Which I am: ToV for my kids, D&D for some work friends, and Cosmere for a different set of work friends)

The only one I'm considering playing (that I got from a Humble Bundle) isthe Pathfinder and that has WAY less to do with Humble Bundle and more that Cosmere has made me curious about the 3-action economy and I already love how ToV (5e variant) allows so much player customization and PF does that times 100. Also, I've been collecting the books for SF2e based on some actual plays I listen to and the fact that I was a SF nerd WAY before I was a fantasy nerd. I think I could probably rope some of my Cosmere table into SF2e and/or PF2e once we finish Stormlight and before Mistborn comes out.

But one person's anecdote means nothing in this industry, so I was curious about what the average experience was.

 

[Morrus]

My experience is with Bundle of Holding (we're not big enough for a Humble Bundle).

The pros--it's like a flash sale. It'll bring in a chunk of cash (not massive amounts, but it makes for a nice blip in the cash flow) and a bunch of new people will be exposed to your stuff.

The cons--it can annoy customers who recently bought stuff at full price, and I suspect (but have no data) that a good percentage of those who picked it up don't ever engage with the purchase (they just grabbed it on impulse).

 

[Cergorach]

Not a publisher.

See it as additional exposure, piracy mitigation, and additional revenue.

The example mentioned: Shadowrun PDFs, I already own all the SR 1/2/3 edition books, i bought pdf bundles for these, but for SR 4/5/6, I wouldn't be buying these at MSRP at all, as I have very little interest in this era of SR world. So I see this as additional revenue for the publisher they wouldn't normally have. It also worked as additional exposure, sudden interest in SR, which resulted in a sale of the original Anarchy 1.0 and probably Anarchy 2.0 PDFs. There's also piracy, when you can buy 90 PDFs for €23,15, do you even bother looking for pirated copies when you have that money?

With the WFRP4e bundles I moved from focusing on 2e to 4e, but eventually bought all the FVTT WFRP4e modules, something similar happened with the Dark Eye...

Quinns from Shut Up and Sit Down did a wonderful review of Spire: The City Must Fall, I thought it very interesting, but didn't really see a realistic opportunity to ever play that. A short while later there was a Bundle of Holding for it and bought it, it's now in my 'bag of tricks' to play as a one-shot in the future, exposing more people to it. If successful, we might play it more, leading to some to buy the physical rulebook, and me buying the rest of the PDFs that weren't in the Bundle. That exposure also got me buying the Heart Bundle of Holding, which I never would have considered before.

I do think it has very difficult to easily quantify benefits to the publishers, but some of those benefits might be years down the line.

The danger with these kinds of bundles is the customer's perceived value of your IP and (pdf) RPGs in general. Something similar is happening with computer games where cheap bundles (and deep Steam sales) are devaluing computer games. I'm for example at the point that I buy virtually no computer games at full price anymore, with a library of almost 4,000 Steam games... I'm starting to get in a similar situation with Bundles of Holding (250+), each ranging from a few to dozens of books per bundle. That's not even including the Humble Bundles with RPG books. It might be even worse then piracy from a publisher's perspective, because with piracy the pirate always has that feeling of illegality around the activity (some are more comfortable with that then others), but with bundles everything is legal and people paid penuts for the product.

I still sometimes buy (close) to full price PDFs, because I 'need' them at time X or because I still have a few holes in my 'bundle' collection... I spent a pretty penny on PF2e Core books, when half a year later they showed up in a Bundle I bought anyway due to the other content in it... I do tell myself that at the time I bought those books to evaluate PF2e as an alternative to D&D5e 2024. But it does sting a bit...

 

[djotaku]

The cons--it can annoy customers who recently bought stuff at full price, and I suspect (but have no data) that a good percentage of those who picked it up don't ever engage with the purchase (they just grabbed it on impulse).

I think this is probably the hardest part (or at least a very hard part) about running a business. I remember a few years ago Nintendo actually whiffed this one so hard they actually gave the annoyed customer a credit or something. But as a customer who already has too many books, TTRPGs, and video games and who doesn't need to be part of the day-one social media BS, I have a long list of games and TTRPGs that I will pick up if/when it's on sale and not before. And I know there are 4 steam and GOG sales a year. I know Pathfinder will have a humble bundle AT LEAST twice a year. I know Kobold Press will put stuff on sale during KoboldCon. Almost everyone does Black Friday and/or Cyber Monday. So now you (not Morrus, but the business community) have told me everything will eventually be on sale, so I feel like a chump if I don't wait. Real life example - I got the SF2e books from some family members for Christmas. I'm waiting to get the PDFs until there's an eventual Humble Bundle sale because it's not like I need the PDFs, I have the physical books. Since Paizo is always doing this for PF, I'm sure it's coming for SF once they have enough adventure paths and/or Starfinder societies that they can make the bundle a decent bundle.

And this doesn't count stuff like coming out with the next version/edition. (Don't get me started on how annoying it was to buy 5e 2014 one year before 5e 2024 came out!)

 

[Morrus]

I know Pathfinder will have a humble bundle AT LEAST twice a year. I know Kobold Press will put stuff on sale during KoboldCon. Almost everyone does Black Friday and/or Cyber Monday. So now you (not Morrus, but the business community) have told me everything will eventually be on sale, so I feel like a chump if I don't wait. Real life example - I got the SF2e books from some family members for Christmas. I'm waiting to get the PDFs until there's an eventual Humble Bundle sale because it's not like I need the PDFs, I have the physical books. Since Paizo is always doing this for PF, I'm sure it's coming for SF once they have enough adventure paths and/or Starfinder societies that they can make the bundle a decent bundle.

That's the other con. You train your customers to wait for a big sale.

 

[djotaku]

Not a publisher.

See it as additional exposure, piracy mitigation, and additional revenue.

The example mentioned: Shadowrun PDFs, I already own all the SR 1/2/3 edition books, i bought pdf bundles for these, but for SR 4/5/6, I wouldn't be buying these at MSRP at all, as I have very little interest in this era of SR world. So I see this as additional revenue for the publisher they wouldn't normally have. It also worked as additional exposure, sudden interest in SR, which resulted in a sale of the original Anarchy 1.0 and probably Anarchy 2.0 PDFs. There's also piracy, when you can buy 90 PDFs for €23,15, do you even bother looking for pirated copies when you have that money?

With the WFRP4e bundles I moved from focusing on 2e to 4e, but eventually bought all the FVTT WFRP4e modules, something similar happened with the Dark Eye...

Quinns from Shut Up and Sit Down did a wonderful review of Spire: The City Must Fall, I thought it very interesting, but didn't really see a realistic opportunity to ever play that. A short while later there was a Bundle of Holding for it and bought it, it's now in my 'bag of tricks' to play as a one-shot in the future, exposing more people to it. If successful, we might play it more, leading to some to buy the physical rulebook, and me buying the rest of the PDFs that weren't in the Bundle. That exposure also got me buying the Heart Bundle of Holding, which I never would have considered before.

I do think it has very difficult to easily quantify benefits to the publishers, but some of those benefits might be years down the line.

The danger with these kinds of bundles is the customer's perceived value of your IP and (pdf) RPGs in general. Something similar is happening with computer games where cheap bundles (and deep Steam sales) are devaluing computer games. I'm for example at the point that I buy virtually no computer games at full price anymore, with a library of almost 4,000 Steam games... I'm starting to get in a similar situation with Bundles of Holding (250+), each ranging from a few to dozens of books per bundle. That's not even including the Humble Bundles with RPG books. It might be even worse then piracy from a publisher's perspective, because with piracy the pirate always has that feeling of illegality around the activity (some are more comfortable with that then others), but with bundles everything is legal and people paid penuts for the product.

I still sometimes buy (close) to full price PDFs, because I 'need' them at time X or because I still have a few holes in my 'bundle' collection... I spent a pretty penny on PF2e Core books, when half a year later they showed up in a Bundle I bought anyway due to the other content in it... I do tell myself that at the time I bought those books to evaluate PF2e as an alternative to D&D5e 2024. But it does sting a bit...

The back half of your reply echoes the reply to Morrus I wrote while you were writing this one. 2 data points don't mean much, but they mean more than just one!

On the topic of piracy - I 100% agree with you that the easier it is to get something legitimately, the less it's worth the trouble of seeking it out on the high seas.

 

[Reynard]

I too am interested in the perspective of the publishers on this. My experience as the customer of such bundles won't likely add much to the discussion.

 

[Voadam]

I buy a lot of Humble Bundle and Bundle of Holding stuff that I wouldn't buy at their normal prices and a bunch that I probably would not buy individually even if they were individually on sale. For a publisher that is money they would not otherwise get from me.

I am a little annoyed sometimes at having gotten stuff recently beforehand that was later included in the bundles. On drivethru with their bundles it is nice to know that if you buy an individual one at least it's portion of a bundle price will be removed from a drivethru bundle if I pick bundle up later, unlike the ones at Bundle of Holding and Humble Bundle.