The Humble Friends of Nintendo Bundle, now in its final few days, has demonstrably been a success. Unlike 2015's Humble Nindie Bundle it's been available in multiple territories around the world, with a mix of retail and download-only titles tempting eShop gamers to part with case. The Humble Bundle's blend of outrageous bargains and charitable giving has been a success across multiple platforms for a number of years, yet Nintendo is still the only of the big three hardware manufacturers to take part. In fact, it's now done it twice.
We spoke to Humble Bundle co-founder John Graham in 2015 about the first bundle, so decided to catch up with him once again. To say he has a sunny disposition about the performance and future potential of the Nintendo collaboration is an understatement.
This is the second Nintendo Humble Bundle, arriving a little under a year after 2015's Nindie bundle. Can you talk about when it was first proposed and how it initially came together?
I think right after the first promotion ended, and we had seen over $750,000 come in for developers and charity across 82,000 purchases in two weeks, we began trading ideas and plans for the next promotion.
In this case it's a truly global bundle, was that the priority after the first edition was North America only?
The first promotion was a great initial experiment, but in looking at customer feedback it was clear that we were missing out on fans around the world by having to zone the promotion to North America.
Nintendo is super easy to work with and like us wanted to listen to fans and their feedback from last time.
What kind of logistical challenges did that global release pose? For example were you working with both Nintendo of Europe and America concurrently, or was there one primary team and contact with Nintendo?
Nintendo is super easy to work with and like us wanted to listen to fans and their feedback from last time. I think the fact that we've set a new Nintendo bundle record this time around with $1,318,912.29 in sales and 134,926 bundles sold with a few days still left in the promotion speaks for itself.
This bundle also includes some retail games; can you tell us about how partners such as Capcom and SEGA became involved?
Humble Bundle is blessed to have grown strong relationships with companies big and small all around the gaming industry. We try to run our new initiatives by all of our major partners, and Capcom and SEGA definitely get credit for their courage and willingness to try new things. I think they very nicely complemented the content we curated into this promotion.
There are a few eShop exclusives in the line-up, was that a priority in order to give this bundle extra appeal?
Yes, with Nintendo's help, we wanted to dig deeper and create excitement across major Nintendo platforms and on the eShop itself.
Looking at the sales so far, are you happy with the bundles sold and money raised?
Yes, I'm so excited to see that we have bested our previous Nintendo bundle by over half a million dollars in sales and over 50,000 purchases.
The average purchase, rather like the Nindie bundle last year, is a little under $10. Is this still above average for a typical bundle?
Gaming bundles tend to have averages that range from $5-10, so you are right that this is on the higher side. I think it speaks to the generosity and excitement of fans in the Nintendo community.
I think by opening up to Europe, we've unleashed the excitement of an international swarm of Nintendo fans.
How have purchases been split between developers, Humble Bundle and the supported charities? Are those that edit the distribution still edging towards giving more to the charities?
We generally don't like to publicly reveal the total splits for our promotions because we don't wish to create popularity contests about whose slider or sub slider moved where over the aggregate of a promotion. We tend to find that the slider defaults have a fair bit of inertia but that there's usually also a slight bias towards charity.
Have you had a sense that the eShop audience has been excited about this bundle; how would you quantify the level of 'buzz' around this one?
More buzz than a hive full of Mega Beedrills. I think by opening up to Europe, we've unleashed the excitement of an international swarm of Nintendo fans.
Last year we spoke about the potential for bundles like this to attract a different audiences to Nintendo's eShop; do you think that's a factor this year?
Humble Bundles, by their very nature, are a bringing together of different parts of the gaming industry in such a way that audiences from one group can discover content in another. So I definitely think we're seeing that play out here with the Nintendo eShop as well.
Nintendo's still the only console platform holder (outside from PC / Mac / iOS / Android) to support game bundles. Why do you think that is?
Nintendo is showing that they are forward thinking in their approach to digital distribution. I think if they maintain this attitude that they are likely to become the fastest growing of all the console providers.
Do you hope to run annual Nintendo bundles, or is there even scope for them to be more frequent?
I think we now have irrefutable evidence of the excitement that Nintendo Humble Bundles cause, and I'd love to see this continue to blossom into a more frequently recurring tradition.
Nintendo is showing that they are forward thinking in their approach to digital distribution. I think if they maintain this attitude that they are likely to become the fastest growing of all the console providers.
In 2015 we asked about whether you can envisage a day when eShop games will also be sold at conventional prices via the Humble Store. Do you think that's a possibility, and is that an arrangement you'd be interested in exploring?
Our Humble Store sells premium gaming content of many different types. Now that we can see with certainty how much Nintendo love there is in our audience, I think this would be a great to try out one day if possible.
Finally, with the Humble Friends of Nintendo Bundle heading into its final stretch, what's your overall perspective on its success levels and impact this time around?
My expectations have been exceeded. I'm so happy we were able to put it together with the help of Nintendo and our awesome game developer and publisher partners. And I can't help but feel like this is just the very start of even more awesome things to come.
We'd like to thank John Graham for his time. What have you thought of the Humble Friends of Nintendo bundle? Let us know in the comments.
Further Reading
Comments 60
I loved all the games in this Humble Bundle and hope the next Nintendo bundle will be soon.
thanks for doing this wonderful thing,
@gspro15198 hope the next Nintendo bundle will be soon,
same here
@TheY it was
next time i hope nintendo through in some more retail games
This bundle was awesome, better than the Nindie Bundle from last year, I hope we can see a bundle with First-Party games from Nintendo in the future. Or at least a "Virtual Console Bundle"
That was one heck of a bundle. Every single game in the package was good at worst, top-shelf excellence at best. Some seriously, SERIOUSLY good games on offer.
We Nintendo fans tolerate a lot of subpar services from Nintendo, but, they do exceed expectations from time to time. I think this is the future for serious Nintendo digital sale promotions going forward. And really, this is as good if not better than PSN sales which have historically been the best in the console industry.
i love this
Do you hope to run annual Nintendo bundles, or is there even scope for them to be more frequent?
I think we now have irrefutable evidence of the excitement that Nintendo Humble Bundles cause, and I'd love to see this continue to blossom into a more frequently recurring tradition.
Best part about this bundle was that they are ALL good games with high production values. At little something in each genre.
If Humble Bundles are a regular thing, I may not buy indie eShop games with my eShop credit anymore. I'll just wait for these and grab a bunch at a time. It saves me a bunch of money.
Those games for that price was a steal alright. Although they should not do this too often because it would just completely destroy peoples willingness to buy indies if they could later get like 10 of them for 10 euros.
The humble bundle was simply amazing all-round!!
Great games,.amazing prices , great community support and sharing galore nothing but positive. I'm made up!!
The only thing I can criticize is the lack of Nintendo games, vc or e shop in general, involved in this bundle. If this becomes a more regular thing then shame on Nintendo if they don't add one of their own!!
This bundle was just great, and hopefully we'll see more of these in the future.
I think this is a load of mashed potato honestly. The bundle was so successful because owners of Nintendo consoles hardly see huge discounts, ever. And if Nintendo is so awesome, why it is always other companies' games that have to be discounted?!
"More buzz than a hive full of Mega Beedrills." Nice Pokemon reference there.
Where's Nintendo putting their own games in a bundle or even giving us discounts in general?
Glad to see the bundles doing well. Winners all round, we win, charities win.
I donated $1 last week and then another $10 this week. So if I donate another $2, would I qualify for the $13 bundle?
these bundles are basically the only way I get stuff off of the eShop these days sans a few VC... (bought 4 VC this year, up form the 2 or 3 this year)
@SLIGEACH_EIRE I understand what your saying but if nintendo even puts 1 game in here... whats stoping from people not buying nintendo games and hoping for more bundles...
I've only bought 1 nindie game last year without the humble bundle, and it is worth every penny I paid.
if they offer the game in a bundle I'll just give away the game.
The Nintendo Humble Bundle is an amazing thing! So many great games available at a low price; best part of it is that the money can go to charity! Hope to see more of these bundles in the near future, and hopefully be just as successful as this one, if not more!
Dang! The extra games they added to the bundle are solid (Swords and Soldiers 2, Runbow, Nano Assault Neo), very pleased with the selection on offer!
@spizzamarozzi I typically agree with you, but at the same time, Nintendo did release Nintendo Selects on some of their more popular games lately (can't argue with $20 Super Mario 3D World)! So yes, but also Nintendo has taken some good steps in the discount direction, lately
This year's deal was so good that you really would have to be a fool to pass it up, unless you already own the games of course! I now have almost every single E-Shop game that I have ever wanted to own, except for Fast Racing Neo!
I loved this bundle! It allowed me to try several games I might have not bought otherwise.
Man, I can't believe I missed out on Shantae before this!!
This bundle was great. Hopefully they won't exclude Europe again in the future.
Nice to hear that Nintendo was easy to work with. I wouldn't give Nintendo too much credit here, though- Humble Bundle and PC game industry standards are what brought this great deal to fruition.
Nintendo would have never hosted such great deals and charity in their own marketplace. Maybe now, though, at least Nintendo may reconsider learning from the PC game market a bit more. This kind of great deal is nothing new to PC gamers- as Mr. Graham said, paying almost $10 on average for a bundle of this nature is historically on the generous side for Humble Bundle grouped sales. Judging by the comments, it seems that many console gamers are only just now learning about this kind of marketing, and are indeed greatly excited for having this opportunity.
Now that eyes have been opened, hopefully we will see more demands for reforms in sale offerings. Nintendo's archaic sales structure has been laid bare, and I hope this will turn out to be more than an experiment for Nintendo. If so, then the success of the NX will be assured.
I still haven't finished all the games I got last year! I feel like they shouldn't push it too far, but doing this every 6 months or so might be the right balance. Otherwise these games might become devalued quite a bit.
I would love to see a virtual console bundle. I doubt it would happen, but it would be nice.
@spizzamarozzi This success is a sign that Nintendo gamers are hungry for progress.
ignoring all the charity nature of this company for the following statement
seriously I love the humble bundle guys, I had a problem with a gift order and a soon as they found out the extent of the issue they bent over backwards to fix it and compensate (gave me back Humble's cut of the purchase price)
@SLIGEACH_EIRE Yes, you would get the retail games from the pack if you add $2 (and I highly recommend this, because you will never find Darksiders II and Street Fighter IV 3D at $1 each).
Hopefully this will become a recurring thing for Nintendo. Old games that site at RRP on the eShop for several years could do with a bundle like this. Developers won't get the short stick and can sell games in their back catalogue. They don't need to put games that are a month or two old in a bundle.
@crimsontadpoles I highly doubt they will. I mean, the person literally said that they had gotten a huge boost from last year, and most of them should be from Europe.
@-DG Wich games did they give last year?
@Parkour_LMan Yes true, I already own Darksiders II on disc but for $2 more it's a bargain. Thanks.
I made 3 separate payments over the past couple of weeks totalling $13. I paid the remaining $2 to get to $13 but just received codes for the first level of bundles. Anyone know why?
Here's to a next bundle!
@SLIGEACH_EIRE Because I don't think that's how it works. It's not like a Kickstarter pledge or eBay bid where you can keep changing it before the deadline hits. When you first paid you bought the bundle at that price for the games that came at that price, and that was that. I don't know why it's letting you give them more money, but that money doesn't change the terms you agreed to.
@PanurgeJr Well that's annoying. I read in several places that I could upgrade the donation to qualify for the next tier. It's weird, when I logged on it said donate $3 for the Darksiders II and Street Fighter IV bundle. I knew I only needed $2 to make $13. So I paid the $2 and now it says I only need to pay $11 for the top bundle. This bundle has been o.k. but not brilliant for me.
This bundle was so awesome! I've spent the last week grinding through these games, and they're really something. I also gave Darksiders 2 and Rhythm Thief to a friend who was pretty stoked about them, too. Hope to see some more bundles soon.
@SLIGEACH_EIRE
With Humble Bundle you can indeed increase your payment after your purchase to get the next tier, but it sounds like you might have actually bought the bundle again rather than increasing your payment. To increase your payment go to your purchases, click on the bundle, and then click "Like what we're doing? Then click here to increase your order amount!" Add however much you need to add, and it should upgrade your order (if you're about to add too little, it should warn you about what you won't get). If that's what you did already, and it didn't work, I recommend contacting Humble Bundle.
@SLIGEACH_EIRE If they're telling you something different than me go with what they say and contact customer service. Since I've never bought a bundle that didn't qualify for every tier I've never actually seen whether they try to upsell you or not.
@abbyhitter It also costs developers a lot in lost revenue. You have to buy some games at full price or you risk there not being as many games to save on in a bundle because developers won't be able to afford to make them in the first place.
I thought this was a great bundle. I had most of the games already but to get Retro City Rampage DX and Shantae on 3DS, and Citizens Of Earth and Runbow on Wii U for around £10 was still well worth it for me...I'm actually enjoying Runbow much more now (didn't like the demo) and might drop cash on the DLC
It was nice being able to give a few free codes away for my spare games on here too Hopefully encourages people to try a few games they wouldn't normally have bothered with
Loving this bundle. Here's a few freebies usable in the USA (also posted in the trade forum):
Shantae Wii U:
B0L7SPP831156J8X
Street Fighter 3D
B0L6LGN61KKYX9J5
I already own both games and just wanted to share rather than let them expire. Have fun! I hope we get more awesome bundles and sales from Nintendo.
@TrueWiiMaster Thank you very much. I followed what you said and it worked.
I was really jealous off the first Nintendo Humble Bundle so I had absolutely no excuse not to jump in This Time Around!! Fantastic, I thought it was very exciting, great games, I got to give some codes away, and I think it's been brilliant. No need to become a regular thing, but I'd love to see this happening again! Great job all round, well done Humble, Nintendo and all those who brought their games to the table.
@MJKOP This Time Around! I see what you did there.
@SLIGEACH_EIRE 👍 😉
Paid $10 but my Aussie 3DS won't accept the codes. Maybe because it's in England now. I dunno. Nintendo still find a way to piss me off, even when I'm donating to charity. I think our relationship might be toxic at this point. I don't want to leave but I probably have to
@Mario_Fart
Contact Humble Bundle. They may have misrepresented your location and given you the wrong region codes. Just tell them what region your 3DS and Wii U are for and they may be able to give you different codes instead
Nintendo Humble Bundles should happen at least every couple of months instead of years
I bought this and I still haven't downloaded a single game... I love a bargain! And it's for charity!
The US only one was great too! Guacamelee, Steamworld, mighty switch force, Olli Olli... I'd donate to that too if they offered it now!
Damn. Missed out on it just because I didn't have my bank card at the time I intended to purchase it. Then I forgot about it...
This was an amazing Humble Bundle, even my very part-time gaming brother got in on it! Looking forward to the next one!
AHHHH Music to my ears 'the excitement that Nintendo Humble Bundles cause, and I'd love to see this continue to blossom into a more frequently recurring tradition.
Hopefully Nintendo themselves get aboard for the next bundle to offer some of their download only games like Pushmo and Card Jockey, among others. Maybe even DLC for some of their full release titles to further push these titles into view.
Please see this as a new way forward Nintendo and not just a mini side project.
@OveDue it's still available, there are multiple ways to pay, I just used my bank card. Being a console only gamer, (exclusively Nintendo!), it was my first experience with @Humble and I think it was brilliant.
god bless
Just gave them my $13. I have done both Nintendo Humble Bundles, the only other one I have done was the Pathfinders one.
I wish Nintendo does more and Sony and Microsoft also do some.
Just picked it up tonight. Did just above the average, the two $13 games didn't interest me. Now I just have to get around to playing them all, lol.
@PanurgeJr they made money on me, first of all these are all games I would have never bought so a little money from me is better than no money from me. Second we're loving runbow so much I'm going to buy the DLC (doing this on games with DLC is brilliant). Third I'd never played a Shantae game before and I'm loving it. I'll probably go back after I finish it and buy their other 2
This bundle introduced me to Shantae and for that I'm eternally greatful... Such a great game. Played it on the 3ds all night till I beat it and I'm looking forward to doing it all again on the Wii U. I'll definitely be picking up Risky's Revenge too.
I'm glad the bundle was a success. I hope to see more in the future.
This was really a great bundle, I did buy it in the last 10 minutes before the end. Didn't have any information, so it was just pure luck.
Thank you Humble Bundle and Nintendo!
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