Maybe that is enough. They have a few good games in the line-up. CoH 2 alone should sell really well. RTS is on a dry spell and those games are excellent. And it is a completely self owned franchise, unlike the 40K or Metro stuff, therefore profits are higher per unit sold.

Well, I'm sure that's what they are hoping for. But they were hoping the same with Saints Row 3 and Darksiders 2, and they just continued to drop, because sales were lower than expected.

But COH is their finest franchise, so if that won't sell... But also, it's rather PC only franchise, and everybody knows that real money lies in consoles :P

Could not or not willing to make them DRM free?. Might be silly to ask.......

This is what i do myself, no matter what "principles" or personal preference is involved.
The HiB guys are giving a fine service and helping with charity is nice, but all of this is possible only because they have nice games to sell in the first place: so, biggest cut to the devs always.

They are the publisher, you know. The only publisher of COH and other games. They decide. But yeah, they're not EA so it can't be just lack of goodwill.

Unlike EA and Ubisoft that would never make any of their games DRM Free, because they're just evil. Oh, wait...

What makes you believe that the devs are even getting a cut of this?

Because, you know, the devs of those games are actually owned by THQ... If THQ gains money, that money can be used to pay their salary. Pretty interesting I'd say.

I was talking about any bundle, not this one in particular.... anyway read "devs" as a wide term; devs/publisher/whoever that contributed to the game existence in the first place.
So, yes, THQ in this case.

According to wikipedia, THQ's revenue was $665 million last year. $10 mill from this bundle may not make a big difference...
if all other things were equal, you may have a point, but they are not.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Rights Holders!

It doesn't matter who developed the damned games. If they don't own the rights to them, they cannot legally make any money off of them. Why is this such a difficult concept to grasp?

Indeed. If this was an ordinary indie bundle with only Windows Steam keys, it probably would have barely scratched six digits. Look at the majority of the Indie Galas, which almost always have Steam keys only and yet hardly ever reach $100,000.

The sales of this bundle are on the commercial strength of the games alone. Conversely, if this bundle had been released with these games DRM free, it's highly likely it would easily have earned twice as much.

And as I say, looking at Steamgifts.com and Steamtrades, many of these sales are from key farmers looking to boost their Steamgifts score. The fact that the average is rather low seems to support this.
Indeed, and who owns the rights to them? THQ!

(For that matter, was the criticism even directed at me? We seem to have made precisely the same point)

you are seriously over-estimating the DRM free 'movement'...

Steam keys + DRM Free - a little bit more, maybe. But twice as much? very unlikely.

If it was DRM free only and no steam keys, less then now....


edit - by the way, it is good to see the average keeps creeping up.

Maybe, maybe not.

The fact remains though that either PC gamers for the most part lack the balls to stand up for their rights out of fear of the PC gaming market dying, or that the impact of DRM is being downplayed.

Either way, I have no further interest in being taken for a cunt. I've tried my level best to accept the status quo and tried to like Steam, and it's come back and bit me on the ass more times than I can count.

I hope people are paying only this low simply because they already own all the games and just want Steam copies. I think the game I own the least times is SR III, which I own "only" twice ;-).

Maybe you are right; me, I'm a bit skeptical about the "highly likely" expectation of more than 4 millions in 2 days.

... and since they deal only in Steam keys, and could not care less about the drm-free version, this already contradicts your "2X" numbers