Humble Indie Bundle 3: new installment of terrific name-your-price DRM-free indie game bundle

The Humble Indie Bundle folks have just launched Humble Indie Bundle 3 (confusingly, this is the fourth Humble Indie Bundle, but the third was called Humble Frozenbyte, leaving the 3 designator free). For those of you who've missed the previous installments, the HIB packages a collection of five great DRM-free indie games and invites you to name your price for them, and to divert some of the money to one of a list of charities. I recently hung out with the Executive Director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (one of the HIB charities -- the other is Child's Play) and she was ecstatic about the enormous contribution HIB players had made to EFF. Without naming any figures, I can at least say that last year's HIB was enough to have funded my whole salary at EFF, over all the years I was there, twice over. In addition previous HIBs have raised enough for the game creators involved that they released their games as free/open source software by way of thanks.

I love the way HIB does its thing, especially the metrics they provide on how different operating system users give (all HIB games run on Mac, Windows, and GNU/Linux) and the running totals. This really seems to capture the giving and competitive spirits of gamers to amazing effect (I'm thinking hard about how to apply this to ebooks!).

This round's games are Crayon Physics Deluxe, Cogs, VVVVVV, Hammerfight and And Yet It Moves. I've just bought in (can't wait to play Crayon Physics with the kid!). Look for my donation buoying up GNU/Linux side of the financials.

Humble Indie Bundle 3 (via /.)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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The thing I really like, as a casual gamer, is the name-your-own-price aspect. I can try out a couple of games for just a few bucks, and even if I wind up playing any of the games very much, I’ve gotten my money’s worth. I haven’t bought a desktop game in 10 years, but I’ve bought the Humble Indie Bundle the last couple of times, and will probably keep buying them every year. I also really support the charities, so that helps, too.
Michael Curran

All great games, but Notch deserves a punch in the gut for his addition to VVVVVV, the controls are so loose that his addition is more frustrating than fun :
http://www.facebook.com/scaredsacred Kevin Ɍ. Smith

I donated last year around Christmas. Worth every penny. All 200 of them I had left in my Paypal.
Garnett Schuyler

Wolfire killin’ it yet again. They do good work.
SuperGauntlet

new ‘instalment’?

derp.

Also, YAY CHEAP GOOD GAMES. :>
MashTheStampede

The games included with the last three bundles were some of the most original and innovative games I’ve ever played. ”Machinarium” had incredible art and music. ”Braid” was stunningly gorgeous and difficult. ”World of Goo” was really, really fun. I’d rather play those cleverly stylized games than the latest FPS or RPG that cost upward of $50 and require the latest equipment to run.