70,000 sales in just a few days is not to be sniffed at, especially considering that Cthulhu Saves The World’s success of 100,000 sales happened over the course of four months. But it’s still a drop in the ocean compared to the enormous success of the Humble Indie Bundles. As of today, Indie Royale are stepping up their game by offering mystery preorders on their upcoming bundles. Those who want to cut ahead of the server-crashing crowds can pay now, and get the at-least-4 games immediately as bundle goes live, for as little as $4. The gamble? You don’t know what the games are.

As covered in part in this official open letter, there seem to be two core reasons behind this unusual decision. Firstly, to increase the amount of time available to prospective buyers to bring in business, and secondly to bypass the technical issues that struck with the launch of the Difficult 2nd Bundle, where their servers collapsed repeatedly under the strain thousands virtually trampling over everything in search of a bargain. There’s also perhaps an element here of seeking for a notable ‘gimmick’ to catch the attention of prospective buyers on the fence, like the Humble Bundle and it’s charity angle.

The Really Big 3rd Bundle should be on sale in approximately a week from now, although the exact countdowns have been removed as part of this business model shift. Perhaps the element of surprise will spread out the initial wave of internet traffic, too? Either way, I wish them the best of luck. If the previous two bundles were anything to go by, this is going to be yet another pack of excellent games. And in the worst case scenario, where you preorder and either don’t like the look of (or already own) the games included? Well, you can always give it away to a friend.

[Indie Royale]