Humble Bundle
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Humble Music Bundle shows charity disparity among Mac, Linux and Windows users
I bet that behavioral economists get rather excited when they see pay-what-you-want offers going viral. Assuming the seller is collecting some basic demographic detail, the resulting statistics might deliver some interesting insights into the relative altruism (or discretionary cash reserves) of different sorts of folks. The Humble Bundle team (responsible for the Humble Indie gaming bundles that we've covered before) is running a Humble Music bundle, accessible to all sorts of music fans. Featured artists include Jonathan Coulton, They Might Be Giants and MC Frontalot; a flexible portion of the purchase price goes toward not-for-profit cause groups like Child's Play Charity and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The bundle price is entirely up to the buyer, although suggested pricing goes from $100 down to $15. If you pay more than the rolling average price (currently around $8.28) you get a bonus album of remixes from viral-video darlings OK Go. You can also define the split between the artists and the charities, and contribute a "Humble Tip" for the bundle organizers. Given that buyers can pay what they want, what sort of variance do the Humble Bundlers see among their contributors/customers? It's not scientific, and there could be a whole horde of confounding factors, but take a look at the stats in the image above. Mac users (representing about 1/5 of the 45K total customer count) are paying an average of $9.84 for the bundle, more than $1.50 above the average price and $2.40 above the average Windows user. That might be skewed by a few "whales" who are contributing $100 or more from the Mac side, but even so the population is large enough that the differences would seem to be significant. Before you start forwarding this post to your penny-pinching Windows-using wealthy relatives, note that the Mac users aren't the most likely to empty their wallets for tunes. Linux users, with a slightly smaller share of the overall purchases, are coughing up a stunning $11.94 per transaction -- more than $3.50 higher than the average cost. This might be an artifact of the Humble Bundle's past service to Linux gamers, who may be feeling especially supportive of HB's efforts here, or maybe Linux users feel more strongly about the charities/artists involved. Or they just really are more generous by nature. With the recently finished Humble Indie Bundle 5, Linux users donated an average of $12.51 per transaction. It would be really interesting to do a deeper dive into the HB sales data, especially from the perspective of Dan Ariely or the Freakonomics guys. Most sellers aren't this transparent about their customers, and what they do with the behavioral data they collect -- and there's good PR reasons why they don't share more. In June, travel site Orbitz caught some flak for acknowledging that it showed different search results to Mac users (skewed towards the higher-end properties that they apparently prefer to book) than to PC users. While both sets of searchers would pay the same price for the same room, Mac users responded better to upscale hotels and slightly more expensive stays. The Humble Music Bundle is available until Thursday, August 9.
Play the latest Humble Bundle with headphones
The latest Humble Bundle, available through August 9, is composed of six musical albums and zero video games. Think of this bundle as a break from all the games you've been buying thanks to a certain recent sale, while still perfectly aligned with your latest paycheck.This bundle includes music from the Valkyria Chronicles series and Jonathan Coulton's Greatest Hit (Plus 13 Other Songs), which includes a live version of the iconic song "Still Alive" from Portal. Albums by Christopher Tin, They Might Be Giants, and MC Frontalot are also featured in the music package. The sixth album, OK Go's Twelve Remixes of Four Songs, is available to buyers that pay more than the average price.For those wary of picking up some new tunes, each piece of this Humble Bundle is compatible with any pair of headphones or speakers you want to use.
The Humble Bundle tries something different, lets you name your price for albums from They Might Be Giants, Jonathan Coulton, and more
The Humble Bundle may have gone mobile on Android earlier this year, but that's proven to be a relatively small jump compared to the organization's latest expansion. It's now rolled out its first Humble Music Bundle, a collection of six albums that, as always, you can name your price for. Those include an album of rarities from They Might Be Giants, Jonathan Coulton's Greatest Hit (Plus 13 Other Songs), an exclusive MC Frontalot collection, Christopher Tin's Calling All Dawns, and game composer Hitoshi Sakimoto's Best of the Valkyria Chronicles -- plus OK Go's Twelve Remixes of Four Songs if you pay above the current average price. Naturally, all of the albums are DRM-free and available in both MP3 and FLAC formats, and you're able to choose what percentage of your payment goes to the artists, charities (Child's Play and the Electronic Frontier Foundation) and the Humble Bundle organization itself. You can get a taste of what's in store in the video after the break, or get previews of each album before you buy at the link below.
Humble Indie Bundle 5 closes at over $5.1 million
The fifth Humble Indie Bundle has come to a close, raising a cumulative $5,105,169.91 over the course of two weeks. The bundle, which arguably contained the most compelling lineup of titles in the history of the program, shattered previous records set by Humble Bundles 2 and 3, which topped out at just over $2 million each.With titles like Amnesia: The Dark Descent, Bastion, Limbo, Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP, Psychonauts, Lone Survivor, Super Meat Boy, and Braid, it's not hard to guess why the fifth charity- and developer-driven bundle was such a success.According to the promotion's website, Humble Indie Bundle 5 was purchased by 598,794 individuals, with an average purchase price of $8.53. Broken down by platform, Linux users paid more than anyone else at an average of $12.51 per transaction, while Windows users paid the least, averaging $7.97 per bundle. Still, the majority of purchases were made by PC users, with Linux users contributing the minority.
Botanicula leads all-Amanita Humble Bundle
The latest Humble Bundle is your first opportunity to purchase Amanita Design's newest point-and-click game, Botanicula. The bundle, under the entirely appropriate name "Humble Botanicula Debut," allows you to pay whatever you want for the new game, and pick up Amanita's Machinarium and Samorost 2 while you're at it.As usual, bonuses abound for those willing to pay more than average. In this case, they include a movie! Kooky, a Czech film with art direction by Amanita founder Jakub Dvorsky, will be handed out to those who exceed the average, as will Windosill, an exploration game by Vectorpark that you'd probably enjoy if you like Amanita games.This bundle features an extra charity option, in honor of Botanicula's environmental theme. You can choose to funnel some of your Humble funds toward the World Land Trust, a group dedicated to saving threatened habitats.
Humble Bundle brings Canabalt and more to Android
January saw the release of the first ever Humble Bundle for Android, and now the organization is back with a first of another sort for the platform -- five of them, in fact. The second mobile-focused Humble Bundle sees five games making their Android debut, including iPhone favorite Canabalt (now with a two-player mode and Android-exclusive 3D option), plus Zen Bound 2, Cogs, Swords and Soldiers and Avadon: The Black Fortress HD (the latter specific to Android tablets). Along with those comes a beta version of Humble Bundle's own app (up from an alpha release before), which makes it a bit easier to download the games and check for updates since all of this is handled outside of Google Play. As with all Humble Bundles, you can set your own price for the bundle, with an amount of your choosing going to the Child's Play charity and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and you'll also get desktop versions of all five games for Windows, Mac and Linux. A Steam key is included with all purchases over $1 as well (although it doesn't yet include Canabalt), and they've even thrown in soundtracks for three of the games for good measure.
Oxeye Game Studio and Wolfire Games join Humble Bundle Mojam
As if the basic premise of Mojang's 60 hour Humble Bundle charity programming marathon weren't enough of an incentive for you to hand over as many of your hard earned dollars as you want, the Minecraft developer is now being joined by Oxeye Game Studio and Wolfire Games, who will be creating their own 60-hour indie experiences.Wolfire's game will be based off the same crowdsourced premise as Mojang's, which is an RTS shoot 'em up steeped in an ancient Egypt/steampunk setting. Oxeye Games, on the other hand, will be combining the second-place and second-to-last-place options from the genre poll by constructing "a dungeon crawler beat 'em up set in a post-apocalyptic World War II."All three teams are live streaming their progress at the official Humble Bundle site, and there's still about 20 hours left to go make your donation and claim your games before the event comes to a close.
Humble Bundle Mojam happens this weekend: vote on a game, see it made in 60 hours for charity
The Humble Bundle organization has done a fairly impressive job of raising money for charities with its name-your-price game bundles (also benefiting game developers, of course), but it's doing something a little different this weekend. It's enlisted the help of Minecraft creator Mojang for the Humble Bundle Mojam, a 60-hour coding jam (streamed live) that will see a game made from scratch and eventually sold, with all of the proceeds going to charity. They're also opening up the type of game to a vote, with folks able to choose from a number of different themes and genres, but the real kicker is that they're going to take the highest and lowest votes -- meaning you could see Real Time Strategy Beat 'em Up with a Steampunk / Ancient Egypt theme if the current voting holds up. Hit the source link below if you'd like to try to sway that in a different direction.Update: The voting is now closed and the stream is live at humblebundle.com (or after the break, if you prefer). The game they're tackling is a real-time strategy shoot 'em up with a steampunk ancient Egypt theme, and the donations are pouring in (totaling around $90,000 after eight hours).
Humble Bundle expands to Android with World of Goo, Anomaly and more
The choose-your-own-price Humble Bundle has proven to be a runaway success on desktop platforms -- helping fund indie developers and causes like Child's Play and the EFF alike -- and it's now finally taken the plunge onto mobile devices. That move was kicked off today with the Humble Bundle for Android, which includes the games Anomaly: Warzone Earth, Osmos, and EDGE. Those three are available for any price you choose, but you'll also get World of Goo thrown in if you pay more than the average price (just over $5 as of this writing). As always, you can also choose how you'd like your contribution split between developers and charity (and the Humble organization itself), and you'll even get access the Windows, Mac and Linux versions of the same games as an added bonus. Hit the source link below to get started, or head on past the break for a video if you need any more convincing. We should also note that the Android games are offered as direct downloads, not through the Android Market; installations instructions are provided following your purchase.Update: Toki Tori has now been added to the bundle as well, and an alpha release of Humble Bundle's own Android app has also been made available for those looking for an easier way to download and manage their apps.
Humble Bundle for Android includes mobile and home versions of Anomaly, World of Goo, more
No smartphone is safe from cheap indie games (unless it's a Blackberry). Just as the Steam mobile app goes out of beta, allowing unfortunate impulse purchases from iOS or Android devices, the Humble Indie Bundle has announced its first Android release, available now.Under the same "pay whatever, support charity" pricing scheme as previous Humble Bundles, the Humble Bundle for Android offers Android versions of Anomaly: Warzone Earth, Osmos, and Edge, with a bonus copy of World of Goo available to anyone who exceeds the average payment.All of these games are cross-platform, so you get them on your Android phone and Windows, OSX, and Linux. That's a pretty appealing deal for the price of however much you end up paying.
SpaceChem added to the Humble Bundle
Is there a point at which humility just becomes groveling? If so, The Humble Frozen Synapse Bundle may be approaching it rapidly. Now, when you pay whatever you want for the indie strategy hit, you'll not only get experimental puzzle adventure Trauma, but the brain-melting puzzler, SpaceChem. Three games? For us? C'mon guys, where's your dignity? If the video above makes the atomic pairing game look a little complicated, that's only because it fully is. But c'mon, can't your brain handle it? What are you, some kind of weiner? Don't be such a weiner, weiner.
Trauma added to Humble Frozen Synapse Bundle
Per tradition, a new title has been added to the ranks of the latest Humble Indie Bundle. Trauma, an abstract game by Krystian Majewski in which players manipulate photos -- and that's putting it as loosely as we possibly can -- has been added to the Humble Frozen Synapse Bundle today. Rest assured, if you've already purchased the bundle, you can download the bonus game at no extra cost. If you haven't purchased the bundle yet, may we ask why? You can set your own price and these are some quality games. Download them already, you monster!
New Humble bundle offers Frozenbyte games, pay what you want
The folks behind the extremely popular Humble Indie bundles are at it again -- this time, they've assembled a "Humble Frozenbyte Bundle," featuring a pack of games from Finnish game developer Frozenbyte. The real centerpiece here is Trine, an excellent physics-based puzzler/platformer that's done well both on PC and on the consoles, but the other titles (Shadowgrounds, sequel Shadowgrounds Survivor and a preview of a game called Splot) aren't bad either. There's a game prototype in the mix called Jack Claw -- that's a game that Frozenbyte eventually canceled without release, but buyers of this bundle will get to play it anyway (on Windows, that is). As with the other Humble bundles, all of these games are Mac-compatible and DRM-free, and the price is pay-what-you-will, with money going either to Frozenbyte or to the EFF or Child's Play. The suggested price cost of the games separately is $50 (which would still be a great deal for four games), but you can give whatever you want to whoever you want and still get the bundle for yourself. On a quick platform-specific note, too, Mac users aren't being quite as well represented this time around -- they're paying, on average, way less than Linux users, and taking the smallest piece of the pie out of the three platforms. If you do buy the bundle (and the games, with the exception of Jack Claw, are compatible on any and all platforms anyway), make sure to show a little Mac pride over there, and prove that among the three OSes, Mac users are the most willing to pony up for great software.
