The Humble Indie Bundle Raises $1 Million, Gets 4 Day Extension - News
by VGChartz Staff , posted on 12 May 2010 / 3,185 Views
The Humble Indie Bundle was scheduled to end yesterday. The last time I checked they had raised $872,606 from 98,586 contributors, with an average contribution of $8.85. That's when there was just about 11 hours left. I've been checking in on this magic Bundle all week, and every time I go back the average contribution has increased. I had my fingers crossed that they'd be able to raise a whole million bucks, so I went back to see if they'd compiled all the stats from the week. It turns out that not only have they raised more than $1,000,000, but that they're celebrating in two awesome ways.
First, the Humble Indie Bundle is getting an extension. The deal will now go on until Saturday, May 15th, at 1:00 PM PST (8:00 PM GMT). You have the rest of the week to get six classic games for any price you want. Or to gift them to your friends for any price you want.
As an extra bonus, the teams behind Aquaria, Gish, Lugaru HD, and Penumbra: Overture are making their games open source. This is their way of giving back to the community after we've helped them raise so much money for indie game development and for charity. Anybody can tweak the games in any way they'd like, and share them afterwards. So far the source code for Lugaru is already available at the Humble Bundle site, and the other three will be prepared and added very soon, hopefully during the week.
As of right now, here's the donation breakdown, rounded to the nearest cent:
Child's Play: $173,124.61
Electronic Frontier Foundation: $167,886.37
Aquaria: $152,397.12
Gish: $152,397.12
Lugaru HD: $152,397.12
Penumbra: Overture: $152,397.12
World of Goo: $152,397.12
Total contributed: $1,164,545
Contributions: 126,988
Average contribution: $9.17
Largest contribution: $3,333.33 by Anonymous
Coolest contribution: $1,337.00 by Anonymous
If you still haven't jumped on this amazing deal yet, this is your last chance. You get PC, Mac, and Linux versions of Aquaria by Bit Blot, Gish by Cryptic Sea, Lugaru HD by Wolfire Games, Penumbra: Overture by Frictional Games, Samorost 2 by Amanita Design, and World of Goo by 2D Boy, with no DRM whatsoever. They'd normally add up to $85, but you can pay $8.50, or $4.25, or $3,333.34. And there's always the Humble Indie Bundle rap video to talk you into it:
If that still doesn't convince you, you should know that one of the designers of Aquaria, Derek Yu, also worked on I'm OK - A Murder Simulator, the game inspired by Jack Thompson's 2005 open letter to the press titled "A Modest Video Game Proposal." And I know you're all fans of Jack Thompson's game narrative ideas! Go grab your Humble Indie Bundles by Saturday! (And then go download your free Portal!)
Source: The Humble Indie Bundle at wolfire.com
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Slimebeast
Don't blame piracy. If companies can't make money with game is because either they're games are bad or bad marketed. There is an article in portuguese about that. When Ubisoft says that piracy its 90% of the gaming market is because they count every single downloaded copy as a sale lost.
And remember that Valve and Blizzard are some of the companies that makes most money from PC plataform and they already said that it's because people think their games are good priced for what they offer.
@Slimebeast - Not at all because Valve has proven time and time again that if you are going to use DRM you have to give added incentive to purchase the products.
And lets not forget games like The Witcher which is a great example of a game with no DRM in the retail box game that has sold insanely well because developers cared about making a good game versus protecting their investment. If you have a quality product without useless security systems there will be less piracy of that product and more purchases.
Thanks for sharing them!
Coolest contribution: $1,337.00 by Anonymous
lol :D
It only sells because of the attention. Most people donate just in spite as a protest against Ubisoft and other publishers.
I am completely against these kind of campaigns and their cheap criticism of DRM.
And this is exactly what pirates want. That everyone can file-share everything and the revenue to developers totally depends on to the good will of rogues.
3 thousand bucks!?
wow...
Binary - only two of these are "C" games. This is an amazing package of great games.
I'd like to see this done for a full disc-based game, to see how it would go. And not a crappy C- game either. Hell I'd even buy an older CoD game if it was a pay what you want.
I s'pose retailers would want some minimum cut for every game, so give 'em $3.00 minimum cost then X% for every dollar over that.
lol @ 1337 contribution.
I would buy it however I don't own a credit card, and my dad is quite protective over it :/
purchased! had a few bucks in my account.
Holy crap. o_O'
so we may be able to get rid of combat in Penumbra, fantastic!!
This has been a good idea. It shows how providing games at a discount (or even bargain) prices can make your game not only outsell other titles, but produce more money than games trying to generate that little 'extra' profit by selling their games for a couple dollars more.
Companies like Steam and Nintendo, and the companies selling games under their label, are making millions by selling games for 5-10 bucks. While many other companies are trying to break even selling similar games at 20-50 bucks.
