Cross-platform Support In Humble Bundles
What Is A Humble Bundle?
Most Humble Bundle promotions are comprised of six core attributes:
- Limited Time
- Pay What You Want
- (Mostly) Indie Games
- (Mostly) DRM Free
- (Mostly) Cross-platform
- Customiseable Payment Allocation Between Devs, Charities and Humble
What Is A Humble Bundle?
Since the first Humble Indie Bundle, Humble Bundle has raised over $11m for:
With the remaining $24m divided between individual game developers and Humble Bundle itself via a customiseable "Humble Tip".
What Is A Humble Bundle?
Cumulatively, Humble Bundles have also:
- Sold nearly 5.5m units
- Shipped around $13bn worth of digital games **
- Debuted 58 titles on Linux
- Debuted 21 titles on Mac
- Debuted 22 titles on Windows
- Brought 21 titles on to PCs for the first time
- Showcased the development of 17 new titles/prototypes
What Is A Humble Bundle?
Not to mention:
- Three game jam events exclusively supporting charity
- One music bundle
- One ebook bundle
- Seven android friendly bundles
- Twenty new source releases and/or Free Software Projects
What Is A Humble Bundle?
Although, there have been a few non-cross platform and controversial promotions:
- One android-exclusive bundle
- One Windows exclusive promotion
- One Windows and partially Mac exclusive promotion
- One title with its Linux and Mac ports months late
- One title ported by Codeweavers using a Wine "bottle"
- One botched exclusive launch
- Several titles for which DRM free versions are not available
- Several titles which stretch the definition of "indie"
- A number of poorly maintained "ports"
What Makes A Game Cross-platform,
And Why Is That Important?
What Makes A Game Cross-platform,
And Why Is That Important?
For the purposes of this presentation, "cross-platform" implies that the title in question:
- Runs on Linux, Mac OS and Windows (PC cross-platform).
- Is officially packaged and distributed for those platforms
- Has some level of vendor provided support
What Makes A Game Cross-platform,
And Why Is That Important?
Cross-platform titles show some level of "platform agnosticism" on the part of developers and can:
- Encourage users on different platforms to feel like a part of one community
- Allow users to feel more comfortable migrating to a different platform
- Allow users migrating to different platforms to continue using their software
- Expose broader markets and opportunities
- Expose vocal minorities, evangelists and power users
- Encourage growth and diversity on less acknowledged platforms
What Makes A Game Cross-platform,
And Why Is That Important?
From a development perspective, it can also:
- Encourage the development of more robust and broadly tested code
- Encourage the development of more portable code
- Prevent the use of less-portable/restrictive in dependencies
- Encourage the use of Free/Open Source Software dependencies
Cross-platform "Debuts"
Cross-platform "Debuts"
Cross-platform "Debuts"
Looking at the rate in which titles have appeared on new platforms for a Humble Bundle, it is clear that:
- Debuts are continuing to increase in spite of non cross-platform promotions
- Mac OS and Windows are underrepresented
Previously Cross-platform Titles
The flip side of debuts, titles that were previously available for all three PC platforms are by developers such as:
Porters
Porters
Porters
Looking at the numbers, it is clear that:
- Most cross-platform titles were ported internally by the original developers
- Of externally ported titles, Ryan "icculus" Gordon and Ed "urkle" Rudd have handled the most
Technologies
Libraries and dependencies can have a big impact on whether a title can be made available cross-platform.
The right dependencies and tools used in the creation of a game can make make well written code portable with little to no effort, whilst the wrong dependencies can require portions or even the entirety of a codebase to be refactored/rewritten.
Technologies
Some technologies which make cross-platform support easier/more well received:
- Libraries which are already cross-platform (eg: FMod, )
- Engines and runtimes which are already cross-platform (eg: Unity 4, Unigine, Java, Mono)
- Free/Open Source dependencies (eg: OpenGL, OpenAL, SDL, ODE, Freetype)
Technologies
Some technologies which make cross-platform support harder/less well received:
- Wine (perception of "non-native")
- Non cross-platform dependencies (eg: Wwise)
- Discontinued or retired technologies (eg: Adobe Air)
Post-bundle Availability
Post-bundle Availability
From these numbers, it is clear that:
- Humble Store is used by one third of cross-platform game developers
- Own storefronts are second most popular
- One third of titles not available (or not ported at all)
Statistics!
Statistics!
Humble Bundle have also highlighted per platform statistics for their promotions which have:
- Challenged industry assumptions regarding Mac OS and Linux
- Demonstrated the viability and profitability of Linux markets
- Presented "dominant" platforms (Windows) in as having less favourable purchasing behaviours (leveling the playing field?)
Some Conclusions
Humble Bundle have:
- Had significant impact on the visibility of cross-platform gaming and the promotion of platform agnosticism
- Been responsible for bringing a significant number of titles to new PC platforms
- Helped support the "second golden age of Linux gaming"
- Provided a number of porters with ongoing work
- Indirectly increased the number of cross-platform titles being published by creating something that developers aspire to be a part of
Some Conclusions
As a counterpoint, Humble Bundle have also:
- Compromised the previously flawless cross-platform reputation and not been deterred by negative feedback
- Cast their commitment to platform agnosticism into doubt
Looking at statistics from promotions following the first Humble THQ Bundle, it doesn't appear that this has hurt sales figures noticeably.
Some Conclusions
Now seems to be a time of change for Humble, with:
- Recently launched Humble Weekly Sale promotions
- Increasing Humble Store uptake
- Ever growing customer base
On the cross-platform side of things though...
- Concurrent non cross-platform promotions
- Original founding ideals no longer seem to hold
- Less platform agnostic community
At this stage, it remains to be seen whether cross-platform support will continue to be a primary focus moving forward.
Some Conclusions
Regardless of where things go from here, Humble Bundle's impact on cross-platform gaming to date has been dramatic and positive and its legacy will hopefully continue to inspire developers and gamers towards a platform agnostic future.
A Quick Note
The bulk of content for this presentation comes from my December 2012 article on the same topic.
Unless otherwise noted, figures should be considered accurate to the most recent revision of that article (2nd of February 2013).
If you have interest and time, please take a look through that article, which includes quotes and input from game developers who have participated in Humble Bundles, Humble Bundle organisers, and game porters in addition to my own research.
This presentation was created using Mike Bostock's Stack presentation library.
Further Reading And References
- Cheesetalks:
- Humble Bundle:
- Wikipedia:
- PCGamingWiki: