Latest Humble Bundle Hits $1 Million

dylan_- writes "The Humble Frozen Synapse Bundle — where you pay whatever you want for a collection of games — has just hit the $1 million mark with 1 day and 9 hours left to buy. The games are DRM free, available for Windows, Mac and Linux, and include a donation to the EFF and Child's Play charity. As with previous bundles, Linux users are the most generous, paying an average $9.18, Mac users come in second paying $6.58 leaving Windows users lagging behind, paying $4.11 on average." These stats are presented right on the page dynamically, so you might see slightly different figures — the dollar figure should only be moving one direction, though.

Re:How long will this continue to work?

[ledow]

Humble Bundle Games are bad? World of Goo, Gish, Braid, Osmos, Crayon Physics Deluxe, Frozen Synapse, SpaceChem, Trine? Have you ever played them?

I had bought all of those listed above BEFORE seeing the bundle (in the case of Trine, 8 copies for friends, etc.). They're not top-of-the-range, graphics-card-pushing FPS from a top-name publishers, sure, but they're top-selling, professionally-produced games that were selling enough units on their own without the bundles.

Even this one's main game - Frozen Synapse - was on my computer and my brother's before it got close to the Humble Bundles. Sure, there's some crap in there too, but the majority of the games are extremely good, and already selling well in their own right via Steam normally. That's how they can afford to just let them be sold off, or open-sourced if HB makes enough money (in the case of Gish, etc.). Hell, I bought Gish god-knows-how-long ago - it must have made its costs back before the HB even existed.

The reason these things are popular is because it's a damn good deal - even if you assume the normal prices are way over-inflated (which they aren't), getting those games for even $10 is a bargain - there's HOURS of decent playtime in there for less than a 6th the price of a single full-price game. Redeemable on Steam, too, so no downloading and installing (just automatic double-click-and-wait).

I never mind supporting indie games anyway (hell, I paid way over what the bundle costs for the games inside it before it even existed), and the idea is novel but not unique (honesty boxes - they're even used in car parks in some places in the UK). People are buying it because the perceived value for money is enormous.

I just wish they would stop adding things in after - save that for the next bundle!

Re:Most generous?

[North Korea]

Because if it would be more widespread practice, they wouldn't get that. It's mostly just one time thing where elitist Linux geeks (those using on desktops, I actually use on servers too) want to show off when they once have the change. Also, the games being indie helps as it kind of good target audience. With more mainstream games, not so much.

On top of that, Linux is a support nightmare. The drivers are horrible, the system underneath is a moving target that changes A LOT between different Linux distros and with multiplayer games Linux users would cry aloud about some anti-cheat software like PunkBuster, VAC or Blizzard's one scanning their system while playing.

There's also no good distribution platform for Linux, like Steam. And no, apt-get or yum won't work. Considering all these, it's just not worth the effort.