Also worth noting that according to the thread on the r/gamedeals subreddit, the keys are bundled per tier. Tier 1 at $1 will give you all those games under 1 key, same for tier 2 etc. So keep that in mind if you want some of the games for yourself and some for someone else. I was considering picking up Civ cheap to see if it interested me and give the copies of XCOM to my brother, but I guess i'll pass and stick to family sharing and not bother with civ.

jag272
Also worth noting that according to the thread on the r/gamedeals subreddit, the keys are bundled per tier. Tier 1 at $1 will give you all those games under 1 key, same for tier 2 etc. So keep that in mind if you want some of the games for yourself and some for someone else. I was considering picking up Civ cheap to see if it interested me and give the copies of XCOM to my brother, but I guess i'll pass and stick to family sharing and not bother with civ.

Argh! That actually encourages me to buy the top bundle for Beyond Earth and gift the others to friends. Or enemies, so that I can ruin their productivity and sleep cycle. Thanks!

I got the 15 $ deal, i think only for beyond earth it's already worth it!

Is there any Steam account in the world that doesnt already have Xcom, it seems to be 75% off in every sale?

Ironbuket
Is there any Steam account in the world that doesnt already have Xcom, it seems to be 75% off in every sale?

Which feeds into the thought that immediately hit me.

I know 3/4 of 5/8th of beggar-all about the actual values as, being someone that refuses a Steam account, I haven't looked at their prices in years,

But whenever I see (in non-gaming terms) offers “worth £x”, they often aren't worth anything like £x, unless you pay the highest office available.

For instance, a recent tv/bb/phone bundle I saw advertised including a free tablet “worth £130” when I'd just bought one, and in a local John Lewis not some mail-order box-shifter, at £95 ( or it might've been £99, not sure now). You had to hunt around to find someone still selling it at £130.

This sort of thing happens so very often is makes me sceptical as hell about “worth £x”.

So, out of sheer curiosity as I'm not buying anyway … is this genuinely “worth” $211, or is it another bit of hype, like that tablet deal? What do you lot that actually buy these bundles think?


Note: I'm jot asking if it's good value. It probably is. Just about that valuation.

It's always RRP, or more likely launch-price in terms of software. And once it's been featured in a bundle or two, the “worth” is obliterated.

this is one of the more tempting bundles as I haven't really played any recent XCOM/Civ games. But I've just dumped my budget on a new CPU/cooler.

Saracen
Note: I'm jot asking if it's good value. It probably is. Just about that valuation.

Yeah, it's good value, if you achieve a minimum ‘efficiency’ with the bundle.

The pitfall of the bundles is that very often you'll have some or most of the games in the bundle and you'll have to pay the most to access the top layer with the one game you don't already own.

So, if you want and don't have any of the games then they're normally great. Amazing if you only want a game on the intro level where it's only $1 (£0.70) and still great value if you get 5 or so games with some DLC and maybe a discount coupon for the store for later use for $15 (~£10.50). But the area in-between is a sliding scale of value.

This bundle is fantastic for me as I own none of the games, (gasp). So I'll probably jump for the top layer.

Saracen
This sort of thing happens so very often is makes me sceptical as hell about “worth £x”.

So, out of sheer curiosity as I'm not buying anyway … is this genuinely “worth” $211, or is it another bit of hype, like that tablet deal? What do you lot that actually buy these bundles think?


Note: I'm jot asking if it's good value. It probably is. Just about that valuation.

There's no way it's worth $211. XCOM: Enemy Unknown was actually given away free in 2014.

One of the top-tier rewards, Beyond Earth, is currently retailing for £29.99 on Steam, which would suggest that $15 is a bargain. But according to IsThereAnyDeal.com, it previously went for £11.99 on Gamesplanet. So $15 is still a deal, but certainly less of a deal.

Which I suppose answers your latter point.

I can see why they do it - they're hardly the first - but I can't say that I ever pay much attention to it. It's more a question of do I get $1, $9.50 or $15 of value from the respective packages. Sometimes I do, but in this instance I've got almost everything already. So not much point.

74p for xcom:doodar, civ III and pirates is good value in anyone's book.

jim
I can see why they do it - they're hardly the first - but I can't say that I ever pay much attention to it. It's more a question of do I get $1, $9.50 or $15 of value from the respective packages. Sometimes I do, but in this instance I've got almost everything already. So not much point.

Agreed. I've never once looked at it and thought “oh cool, $210 for $15”, always just, oh id like to play x game and y game from this bundle. Go off and check the price, usually come back and get it on the bundle cos its cheaper at that time.

In all honesty regardless of RRP this bundle is great value, and I can wholeheartedly recommend the XCOM games. I'm simply opting out because while I would like to try out Civ as I hear a lot about it, I've never cared enough to throw money at getting it just to try out. At present enemy within is getting in the way of me doing that. If it were to be me paying $10 to get XCOM and Enemy Within for my brother, and bagging myself Civ5 as a bonus I would happily take that offer, but the bundling of the keys is getting in the way for me this time, not worth me rebuying xcom and effectively paying $10 (or atleast $9 more than tier 1) in order to just try out a game I might not even care for.

Saracen
Which feeds into the thought that immediately hit me.

I know 3/4 of 5/8th of beggar-all about the actual values as, being someone that refuses a Steam account, I haven't looked at their prices in years,

But whenever I see (in non-gaming terms) offers “worth £x”, they often aren't worth anything like £x, unless you pay the highest office available.

For instance, a recent tv/bb/phone bundle I saw advertised including a free tablet “worth £130” when I'd just bought one, and in a local John Lewis not some mail-order box-shifter, at £95 ( or it might've been £99, not sure now). You had to hunt around to find someone still selling it at £130.

This sort of thing happens so very often is makes me sceptical as hell about “worth £x”.

So, out of sheer curiosity as I'm not buying anyway … is this genuinely “worth” $211, or is it another bit of hype, like that tablet deal? What do you lot that actually buy these bundles think?


Note: I'm jot asking if it's good value. It probably is. Just about that valuation.

I think I can help there. I use (but am not assocated with,) a website called IsThereAnyDeal which monitors prices for games on a watch list at various online retailers. According to this https://isthereanydeal.com/specials/ (click on Show Details next to the Humble Bundle,) currently:

The $1/£0.70 tier games would cost you £12.83 at the cheapest etail prices if you bought them right now, falling to £3.12 if you'd bought each at the lowest price it had ever been sold at.

The beat the average tier (ave is currently around £7.30) would cost an additonal £46.51 currently, or £11.94 at their lowest ever prices.

The $15/£10ish tier games would cost another additional £30.16 right now or £9.98 at their lowest ever.

So the whole lot would cost £89.50 at the best prices currently available, or £25.04 if you'd managed to get all of them at the lowest rates they'd ever been offered for. All in all it seems a good deal. Obviously for individuals that may change assuming you own some of the games or have no interest in a few of them.


I'm a bit of an armchair economist, and love websites like isthereanydeal and new pricing models brought about by the likes of Humble. Not so much from a buying POV, I just like mentally taking things apart and understanding how/if they work for the consumer.

jag272
Also worth noting that according to the thread on the r/gamedeals subreddit, the keys are bundled per tier. Tier 1 at $1 will give you all those games under 1 key, same for tier 2 etc. So keep that in mind if you want some of the games for yourself and some for someone else. I was considering picking up Civ cheap to see if it interested me and give the copies of XCOM to my brother, but I guess i'll pass and stick to family sharing and not bother with civ.

Annoying when they do this. Although I guess its to stop people making a profit from them on fleebay or G2A. I've done it once before on a game I already had that no one wanted. They tempt me a lot less when there is only 1 game that I really want and don't have and the others go to waste. They should at least do it so that those already in the library are stored as a gift so you can give them to others.

Thanks for posting this. Great deal for 1$! Always wanted to try XCOM but never would have payed more, just to see if I even like it.

Saracen
So, out of sheer curiosity as I'm not buying anyway … is this genuinely “worth” $211, or is it another bit of hype, like that tablet deal? What do you lot that actually buy these bundles think?

It's hype, of course it is. Whenever you see ‘worth’ it's going to be RRP.

As for whether it's really worth it, it boils down to whether you think you're going to get $211 worth of entertainment from the bundle. That's about 15 movies at the cinema or 25-30 paperback books. If you value stuff solely based on the amount of time you spend ‘enjoying it’, then you could use that as a metric.

For the same reason, I would happily pay £2 at the beach to play on the penny coin-push machines. You get enough ‘plays’ that it can easily last half an hour to an hour and when you lose everything, so what? It was fun and you paid for it.

If you like games like Civ, then Civ IV is fairly timeless and you can sink tens of hours into that alone. Regardless of whether it was released this year or ten years ago, the gameplay doesn't change and the depth is still there. It's not fair to compare it to a tablet that is going to be outdated the minute it leaves the production line.

Of course market value wins so would I pay $211 for the games individually? No of course not.

The problem with buying the minimum $1 xcom experience is that you wont be able to use the Long War mod. Long War makes xcom sooo much better! As I write this you have to pay above $9.92 to get Xcom Enemy Within (required for Long War). According to IsThereAnyDeal, the cheapest Enemy Within has been is $6. This $1 offer is obviously timed to draw in more potential customers for Xcom 2.

Whiternoise
…. It's not fair to compare it to a tablet that is going to be outdated the minute it leaves the production line.

….

For the point I was making, that a tablet is outdated when it leaves the production line is beside that point. At any given point in time, what a new item is “worth”, in monetary terms, is going to be pretty close to what you can commonly buy it for from numerous sources. If just about everybody else is selling “it”, whatever “it” is, whether tablet or not, for £99, then it's pretty fake to describe it as “worth” £130.

It's hype, of course it is. Whenever you see ‘worth’ it's going to be RRP.

Generally, that's been my experience, but the initial price, which didn't last long, was quite a bit higher than that £130. But I wasn't asking about that, or hours of gameplay. My point was really simply whether when these bundles are advertised as “worth £x” are really worth £x in that that's what they'd cost if bought other than bundled, or if it's the usual marketing hype that can be utterly ignored. The latter, it seems, is ths case.

Wozza365
Annoying when they do this. Although I guess its to stop people making a profit from them on fleebay or G2A. I've done it once before on a game I already had that no one wanted. They tempt me a lot less when there is only 1 game that I really want and don't have and the others go to waste. They should at least do it so that those already in the library are stored as a gift so you can give them to others.

Ye most likely. It's a shame because it seriously diminshes the value of the bundle to the customer. If youre buying it for one game and everything else is going to waste, you might as well wait until it goes on sale cheaper. in my case I'm interested in trying Civ but I wouldn't pay the equivalent of $10 just to try a game I've never really paid attention to in the first place.

If it was $10 to give my brother XCOM and Enemy Within, and I could use the Civ5 key for myself as a bonus I would. As it stands, may as well just wait for the xcoms to go cheap as they have before.

Should be worth a shot at $1 even if just for xcom!