World of Goo, Aquaria devs announce pay-anything charity game bundle

A gracious ConglomCo of indie developers have just kicked off the Humble Indie Bundle initiative, a pay-what-you-want campaign that gets you five award-winning games in exchange for a donation with proceeds to benefit both the Child's Play charity and the EFF. Your donation will get you a copy of five games (worth $80 purchased separately): 2D Boy's World of Goo, Frictional's horror-adventure Penumbra Overture, bit-Blot's Aquaria, Wolfire's rabbity-combat game Lugaru HD, and Cryptic Sea's physics-based platformer Gish. All five games are available for all PC platforms (PC, Linux, Mac), are proudly marked as DRM-free, and proceeds can be split in any amount of your choosing: all to the developers, all to the charity, or any mix in between. The campaign runs for one week, starting now -- visit the freshly launched Humble Indie Bundle site for more information and to make your donation. The Humble Indie Bundle [Wolfire]

• [Anonymous]

  there is an easter egg if you type in 0.00 as the donated amount

  • [Anonymous]

    Actually, the easter egg appears for any amount under $1. Negative amounts don’t work, though…

• [togi]

  “I guess they were dissapointed with the $0.12 average, I know I am.”

  That’s sad indeed, though the average is now up to $7.59, and they’ve already raised over $43,000, so something seems to be going right. Of course, that’s still a lot lower than $80 for the full set, but then that’s the weirdness of economics – this stuff is ‘worth’ more, but is currently earning $43,000+ more than it would have done with people buying well below its ‘worth’. And with 6 days to go, I dare say things will turn out pretty good for them.

  I wonder how stable this sales model is – it brought Radiohead etc quite a lot of money, but people seem reluctant to switch to it in the long-term. This deal is just a short-term offer. Does anybody have any good links to analysis of this model and why people choose against it for everyday sales of art?

• [zuvembi]

  It’s a fairly amazing sale, especially since it’s cross-platform. I already have a couple of these on Steam, but I bought it so I could get Linux and Mac copies.

• [thequickbrownfox]

  The Penumbra series of games are the most immersive, and scariest, experiences you will ever have in front of a computer screen.

• [Jake]

  Pretty cool. I paid $30 and have been waiting for instructions on download the games. What do I do?

  • [SamSam]

    @Jake: I got an email from Wolfire Games within seconds of placing my order with a download link. Are you certain the email didn’t get caught by your spam filter or something? I also paid with Google Checkout — don’t know if maybe that processes faster or something.

    I’m hoping that the line “Please save this email so that you can download the games again whenever you’d like in the future” is legit. I bought this now, but am waiting on a new computer that should arrive in a week before downloading. My poor lappy has only a few megabytes left as it is, so I don’t want to put anything else on it yet.

• [AceJohnny]

  I like how the amount box had a 29.95 ‘ghost’ amount in it before I clicked it. The suggestion worked for me :)

  I expect other people might find it annoying though

  • [cory]

    I gave 30.05. Bossy bitches trying to tell me how much to give, I’ll show them.

• [gabrielm]

  The total just flew past $100,000 with a top sale of $500… and BOOM goes the dynamite!

• [greytone]

  “step one: cut a hole in the box!”

  I’ll be buying these as soon as I get home. Thanks BB!

• [haz]

  I bought this last week and just saw an email that Samorost 2 has been added to the bundle .. fabulous work peoples :)

• [jacord]

  Thanks once again for the heads up on a good deal, BB!

• [kimnbri]

  these are games I have seen and been interested in but never gotten. Thanks guys; and my $$$ went to the developers.

• [Anonymous]

  oh yay! not since the days of ID passing first person shooters for naught but a passed hat have i seen such a beautiful wonderful idea! those lucky kids will bask in the glow of LCD karma and we get smiles on our faces and interesting whims to ponder on our pillows when day is done.. thanks devs…really! (yeah, i got mine!)

• [Von Haus]

  I see they’ve removed the “Current Average” from the form and replaced it with suggestions 10, 20.50 and 100.

  I guess they were dissapointed with the $0.12 average, I know I am.

• [invictus]

  That’s pretty damned cool!

• [Anonymous]

  Great idea, but any idea how and when they are delivered? Overseas?

• [jabberwocky42]

  I bought World of Goo last year through the Macheist bundle – it’s a good game for a lazy afternoon or two. This new bundle looks pretty awesome – I’ll probably split the cost evenly between the developers and the charity.

• [Anonymous]

  Marvel executive vice president Ira Rubenstein says that the comics company has been experimenting in-depth with Flash games (not to be confused with games about DC’s The Flash), and that it’s looking to bring some of its most popular online minigames to console download services. The comic book company’s strategy in terms of gaming was “like a TV pilot system,” he told an audience at kral oyun today’s LA Games Conference.

• [harpdevil]

  What a fantastic deal!
  I’m a big fan of Aquaria, and suggested it be ported to the Playstation Network under their indie developer scheme. The creator said he was happy for it to be ported but didn’t want to be the one to do the work – so any budding, Aquaria-loving developers would have my thanks!

  I think it would be pretty lucrative on there actually, a beautiful blend of Ecco the Dolphin and Soul Reaver 1.

• [cigarettes]

  I own 3 of 5 already, and played 4 of these already. However, this bundle is incredibly awesome and I shall partake in it. Doesn’t hurt that it is for charity. Depending on how long it runs I may make two purchases.

• [hinges]

  I preordered World of Goo way back when, but I guess they’ve just twisted my arm into buying it again. I kinda wish there was a way to choose how your payment is split between the developers, since Edmund McMillen’s Gish is probably 60% of the reason I’m buying this, and as I said, I’ve already paid 2D Boy $20.

• [Anonymous]

  PC is a misnomer here – A [P]ersonal [C]omputer is something that all three of the supported operating systems, Windows, Linux, and OSX, run on.

• [Anonymous]

  If you click to play the video, it says “This is a private video. If you have been sent this video, please make sure you accept the sender’s friend request.”

• [wylkyn]

  Great deal. I bought it. Gotta love the DRM-free cross-platform software, and the money going straight to those who deserve it!

• [13tales]

  Huh. Nearly 4am here. Memory is hazy, but I think I just played Lugaru for 4 hours straight. Damn that is some fun combat right there.

• [invictus]

  Interesting.
  “This video is private.”

  ?

  • [Brandon Boyer]

    The not-private-draft video should be up soon, sorry about the mixup!