When I look at the results, I see a direct correlation to the availability and quantity of games on each platform. Linux is a platform starved for games, so offering more to support the EFF and indie developers for games makes a lot of sense. I think you’re seeing something that just isn’t there.

Also well known is the fact that (@VagabondAstronomer) poor people share what they have more willingly and freely than richer people.

Of course, viewing this study alone, the questions from the first comments are valid. Its a science by itself to get a study without build-in flaws ^^

• Cory’s “we’re ensconced in a giving culture so we are more giving.” As LennStar pointed out, there is mountains of evidence on this. Undergrads do studies on this for Psych course projects because it’s so easy to confirm.
• The demographic for Linux skews heavily towards people with more money. This is probably true for a lot of reasons…
  • Linux tends to be used by developers, and believe me when I tell you–as a person who hires developers–you will be earning more on average if you come in with lots of Linux knowledge. And you’re far more likely to get hired in the first place.
  • Linux users are probably slightly more likely to be older. Any 12-year-old on dad’s computer could have grabbed this bundle for $0, and probably did. That computer’s probably already being used for games. Linux computers are pretty hard to use for gaming, so they’re probably being used for work, which suggests an older demo.
  • Linux users are more likely to be men. I don’t like it, but men do make more money than women.
• We value these games higher, because it’s harder to get people to make games for Linux. Yep.

As for Mac users being 40% more generous… I wonder how well that corresponds to the performance/$ mark-up that Mac users have accepted when they bought into the platform.

Choosing Windows as the only gaming operating system has lead PC gaming to almost disappear. There is so much software piracy on Windows (I’m not saying that Linux users don’t pirate software) that game developers are looking towards other OSs like Mac and Linux in order to keep alive. That’s why Steam might accelerate Linux adoption.

Linux users are on their OS intentionally, meaning that they are more than likely developers or open source enthusiasts.

Windows on the other had could be considered the ‘default’ setting for the vast majority of computer users.

If only we knew the age or profession of the people purchasing the bundle, then maybe we could draw other conclusions as well. It might be possible that the other developers or computer professionals are being more generous (regardless of which is their primary platform) due to their knowledge of the effort in development required and their knowledge of EFF and Child’s Play.

The windows stats are possibly being brought down by the general users on windows that simply see a way to buy five games for $0.01 and really have no interest in EFF, Child’s Play or the business struggles of indie game developers.

But of course, this doesn’t change the fact that ‘over all’ windows users are statistically less generous. (at least in this example)

Rather than simply measuring up donations against each other. So another possiblity is that perhaps the Windows users in this case were generally from a lower income group, and were actually being proportionally more generous than the Mac or Linux users. Without more data, I don’t think you can tell.

That aside, I find it in bad taste to speculate about this in a way which may leave some of donors feeling bad about themselves for donating anything in the first place. I happily donated money towards this, because I thought it’s a good cause, and I like games. If I’d known that my donating money towards this was going to be used for this kind of speculation, I wouldn’t have wanted to take part.

I guess I am questioning the generosity of what you are doing with this. You could, for instance, be saying instead that it’s wonderful that lots of people made the effort to donate something. But I guess that depends on your having a fund of goodwill towards donors which is greater than any other assumptions you might have about their flavour of OS. Maybe this is generous for you. I don’t know. It doesn’t feel good to me, and I am regreting I donated anything.

All of that skips the question of why, if the charities were worthy causes, donors have to be bribed into donating with a collection of games.

(I’m a Mac user. And yes, my appreciation for their support of my platform, and the fact that I don’t already have a lot of games to play on my iMac did figure into my purchase of the bundle.)

Twice as generous when donating to INDEPENDENT DEVELOPERS, yes. Big deal.

I’m guessing PETA would be more generous to a pet rescue center over a slaughterhouse, too!

Hahaha….

Yes. Calculating to the mean over time moves you into a descent.
So much for “value free” intellectualism.

It is just basic supply and demand. Supply of games are more scarce on OSX and even more so on Linux, hence users of these platforms are willing to pay more. It is interesting that even under a donation model such market factors are apparent.

Showing the price donated by platform is a clever method of trying to boost the donation price. it would be interesting to know the number of sales for each platform.

They are paying more because they appreciate a bit of honesty.

People who haven’t studied physics are pretty awful at it, too. Apparently being _able_ to assess economic interactions precisely makes one prone to do so.

Some people may be motivated to pay more, seeing that the amount they were thinking of is lower the average. But people who were going to pay considerably above the average may now decide to pay less, seeing that they were going to “overpay”.

fyi, I’m on a Mac (in case you want to do statistics on the comments ;-) )

Doug Henwood, Wall Street, 1997, p143

This being a blog comment thread, it would of course be sacrilegious to point out that the answer is likely “some combination of the above explanations in unequal proportions”.