The Humble Botanicula Debut

holeraw

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I figured I shouldn't post this in pricewatch, seeing how it not RPG related at all, but I think this is too good to be missed: humblebundle.com has released the The Humble Botanicula Debut .

You can get all three commercial Amanita Design games: Samorost 2, Machinarium and Botanicula which was just released yesterday (and is guaranteed to be awesome). Windosill is also a nice little bonus, short but very unique and creative. (and I don't know what Kooky is yet but it looks nice)

Amanita Design excels particularly in art direction. I haven't started Botanicula yet but Machinarium is one of best examples of why expensive engines and all that shiny 3D isn't at all the only way to go if you want your game to be truly beautiful.
 
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It should be noted that Amanita Design is currently catching a lot of flack from people who pre-ordered the game. Pre-orders for Botanicula has been up on GOG & Gamer's Gate for a while now, at a slight discount. And then on the day of release, they release a humble bundle that is flat out better than the pre-ordered version, because it comes with 2 other games and the complete soundtrack for Botanicula, at a (potentially) lower price. So their forums & facebook page has been flooded with angry customers, who say that they feel cheated by this move.
 
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That's understandable.
People that feel cheated can still get the three games for $0.1 though.

For me it's just one more proof that there's very little benefit in preordering games - especially digitally distributed ones (and I was considering preordering this for a moment). Such games are bound to go into an offer soon, and if you want to support the developer by not getting it on sale then paying more should be an issue.


EDIT:
People that preordered Botanicula from GOG will get The Witcher: Enhanced Edition Director’s Cut for free as compensation!
Finally, we wanted to give you guys something that you couldn’t get in the Humble Bundle to make sure that you didn’t feel like you got a raw deal. To that end, courtesy of our fine friends at CDP RED, we’re happy to let you know that we’re also giving you and everyone else who already bought Botanicula a free copy of The Witcher: Enhanced Edition Director’s Cut! This game will also be on your shelf on Monday, so look for it then.
Who feels cheated now? ;)

It's not the first blunder that Amanita makes but this might actually cost them more than it's worth (if they are covering the cost of all those Witcher copies while denying themselves part of their profits because of the Humble Bundle charity). It's a shame really.
 
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I suspect that the Witcher part might come out of GOG's own pocket, to restore some trust in pre-ordering games from them. It is probably a good move from their side, they (or their parent company at least) own The Witcher, so this does not cost them anything more than a few potential sales, and it build a lot of goodwill. Gamer's Gate customers don't seem to get anything extra at all.
The people who feel cheated will still have payed $8 for the main game. While it might not be a huge sum of money, it was still a very stupid move from Amanita, and enough for me to not consider buying any of their games close to launch again.
 
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Gamer's Gate customers don't seem to get anything extra at all.
They will get Machinarium, the soundtrack and the artbook from Amanita too.


I think the main thing that we need to remember here is that such small indie studios differ from the mainstream in that they are not led primarily by business and marketing departments. As such they are able to have the much coveted control that allows them to be more creative but on the same time leaves them susceptible to such dumb decisions. Of course it was a stupid move but that's the trade-off: if you want game developers that don't see themselves as businessmen then you should expect some bad business decisions. They seem to be responding to the complains as well as they can though so I think it's unfair to crucify them. In the end of the day their big sin was that they wanted to offer a better deal to their customers.
 
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picked it up for $10 for the main title alone, and a steam version of machinarium which means i can delete my direct2drive one.
 
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