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The Humble Indie Bundle
News posted 5th May, 2010 by Rob Rule
Wolfire Games has released the The Humble Indie Bundle, a charity-led bundle of indie games where you decide how much you pay and where the money goes, between the chosen charities Child's Play and the Electronic Frontier Foundation to the game developers themselves. Some of you may recall indie titan World Of Goo trialing a similar pay-what-you-want system last year, and indeed here it is again, alongside klik veteran Derek Yu's Aquaria, the well-received Gish, Lugaru HD and Penumbra Overture. From Wolfire.com: The nicest thing about this bundle is that you can customize how your payment is split between the developers and charities. If you'd rather it all went to charity, you can select that. If you love World of Goo so much that you feel it all deserves to go to 2D Boy, that's possible. Click here to check out the bundle page Tweet

Posted by UrbanMonk

5th May, 2010

Cute video on that page.
I might just do it!

Bought em!
I've only played world of Goo, so the rest are new to me. And I only paid $10! ha ha!!!
Comment edited by UrbanMonk on 5/5/2010

Posted by Fanotherpg

5th May, 2010

Still you paid 10... BTW Rob at to the News that people should type 0, to educate themselves. I would be grateful for that one.

Posted by UrbanMonk

5th May, 2010

$10 Isnt much for me.
I'm not poor or anything.

And besides, half of it goes to charity.

Posted by Fanotherpg

5th May, 2010

Still try to type 0, believe me it's worth it.

Posted by Hempuli

5th May, 2010

10$ is probably more than 98% of the buyers will pay.

Posted by Rob Rule

5th May, 2010

Rather wonderfully the average donation rounds up to (at time of writing) $7.88. I'm surprised it's that high.

And yes, typing in $0 as the amount you want to pay will give you a fun little easter egg.

Posted by UrbanMonk

5th May, 2010

They can't be doing too bad if they've already made over $200,000 in two days!

Posted by Marko

5th May, 2010

Sounds like a great idea that, i'll have to go check it our myself.

BTW - how's it hanging Rob?

Posted by Rob Rule

5th May, 2010

Such is my feverish excitement at returning to TDC, it's not hanging at all...

Posted by Matt Boothman

6th May, 2010

I'm going to pay nothing for it and then give my £10 to a charity that deserves it.

Posted by OMC

6th May, 2010

Yea, the proceeds definitely should have gone to world hunger or something.

Posted by Pixelthief

6th May, 2010

I think those rhymes will sell more games than all the gameplay video combined.

Posted by s-m-r

11th May, 2010

To the folks who dislike the charities involved with the benefit: At the VERY very least, you could direct your contribution to the software developers (an easy option available on the website)...But I suppose it's asking a lot for any donation to come from people/gamers who have grown accustomed to receiving games for free.

Indie developers have to pay the bills too, folks. Supporting this effort encourages them to keep making games (probably the most important part about financial support), and keep supporting causes they believe in. Keep the sour grapes at home, for crying out loud...! These are worthwhile causes, and it's always important to financially support indie developers!

Posted by OMC

17th May, 2010

Sour grapes? Sure I'll support the developers, nobody said not to. Nobody said not to support the charities either. Just seems the money not going to the developers would have been better suited to buying food or something than video games.

Posted by s-m-r

17th May, 2010

Different people support different charity initiatives; that's the point of having a variety of choices. If you want to support one of the charities, then designate your money to go to it. If you want to support the developers, then designate your money accordingly. But my point is that people ought to realize the games didn't materialize out of thin air. Effort went into the production, however little one recognizes it.

@OMC: My comment was a response to both those who expect every worthwhile game to be played to be available free of charge if it happens to be released on the Internet, and to those who think they know the "best" or "most worthy" charity out there. There is not one charity that can "do it all" and please everyone.

And I do take issue with your statement that "nobody said not to support the charities either." Your previous comment and the one before it left me with the impression that we're supposed to believe the aforementioned charities are not worth the donations people may give. What if someone feels more strongly about their own privacy rights than any other cause? What if they have had one or more family members who have been hospitalized at a young age with a terminal illness? Both situations do happen, and it's possible the nebulous concept of "world hunger" isn't on the top of their list of concerns.

Does that mean their causes are "unworthy" or their donations "wasted"? Only personal values can answer that question. There's no single, equal scale to weigh all charitable causes "against" one another. It's unwise to consider such a scale in many things, but particularly here with charitable giving.

Posted by OMC

23rd May, 2010

You are right, not everyone has the same concerns. It was not my intention to debase these efforts, but indirectly it seems that I have.

I apologize.

Posted by s-m-r

24th May, 2010

Hey, don't feel bad about it; pretty much everyone has a different view of charitable giving, what's right and wrong, etc. Here's another recent blog where a similar discussion emerged in the comments:

http://www.thesimpledollar.com/2010/05/21/guilt-and-charitable-giving/

Incidentally, the webmaster of that site lamented the piracy of the Humble Indie Bundle in an earlier post. Interesting read, for certain.

Author Info

Rob Rule
Rusten Crating

Registered
22/12/2007
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