Ever since i got a Mac i've noticed i've been buying a number "small" apps ($5 - $40, including now this humble bundle. In my previous win-centric life I would avoid paying for software at all cost (as ironic as that is).
This is in large part due to 1) getting lazier (not wanting to deal with finding alternative methods of procurement) 2) apps that cost less generally have most of the proceeds go to ppl actively involved in making the product 3) the sub $40 price range seems entirely reasonable for quality software 4) mac apps generally just look/feel so polished, and in small part 4) having more disposable income than in college/pre-college.
Couple of my recent faves have been Cinch and TotalFinder -- I can't wait to get a chance to play around w my new humble games! Many thanks to the humble team and the devs!
All of those points have made the Mac shareware market a viable one for decades. Something about he Mac OS seems to be less supportive of the types of system tray and popup scanning OS dominating spyware/freeware that pollutes the Windows market, too, so it all ends up "feeling safer" than the usual download.com fodder, as well.
I just love how silky smooth their fulfillment is. If BCC downloadable were still under active development, I'd be stealing bits of it. (Hmm, personalized bookmarkable page with direct download links, keys, and settings... Hmm, waiting for Paypal hourglass. Hmm, "as long as we've got you here, please hit our sharing buttons" under the hourglass")
They break out contributions by OS, which is kinda neat to see. Admittedly an outlier could move the needle if they really want to throw some money down.
On your download page you can specify what OSs you want to count towards. It defaults to the one you purchase from, but you can change it or select multiple.
Likely because Linux users are a: More grateful when games are made for their platform and b: attempting to demonstrate they are better than Windows and Max users.
As a Linux user, yes I am grateful! :)
It isn't about attempting to demonstrate that Linux is better than Windows or Mac, but supporting the developers and making others realize that Linux can be good for gaming too.
Two more - Linux users more likely to be developers who appreciate the value of software, and probably more likely to be wealthy/educated/sophisticated.
We can assume that every one of these was designated a Linux purchase, treat them as outliers, and remove them from the statistics. The adjusted statistics are:
outlier revenue: $5,566.79
adjusted total revenue: $295,685.39
adjusted linux revenue: ~$63,721.21
adjusted linux average: $12.61
So even removing the top 10, Linux users are still significantly more generous (on average) than users of the other two major platforms.
You could argue that a sufficient number of Linux users donating in the $100-$300 range could skew the results, but I believe such a high number of extremely generous users would prove my point anyway.
Good argument. I buy it, largely because it wouldn't surprise me in the least if Linux users are actually more generous. I just often dislike data summaries. If you want to show me the data, show it directly.
In the first Indie Bundle [http://www.wolfire.com/humble], they didn't show these results until the last days, and the stats were similar. Linux Users weren't trying to show off, it was something that just happened.
Means are still spectacularly unstable to small numbers of outliers. They're more stable with higher numbers of samples, but so is any given measure of centrality.
So, a few Linux users donating $500 could sway an identical distribution to the Mac or Windows users.
That's cool if true, given Jonathan Blow's many posts about his frustrations in porting to Linux, particularly the fine grained control you need over sound for that game (play backwards, play at varying time rates). See the long thread here: http://braid-game.com/news/?p=364
Edited: Bought the package and attempted to install the games. Of the five, on Ubuntu 10.10 x64:
Braid: Installer was a .bin which gave me some ELFCLASS64 errors, but the game runs. I just can't figure out how to get it windowed, so it's currently centered between my two monitors.
Cortex: Installer was a 64bit bin, installed OK, but the game gives me an error about a missing file when I run it. Tried to touch the file, no luck.
Machinarium: .tar.gz, installs and runs. Forces primary-monitor only.
Osmos: 64-bit deb, installed fine, plays awesome, forces itself to my left (primary) monitor, couldn't be happier.
Revenge of the Titans: Broken 64-bit deb. The Ubuntu GUI for debs threw up a useless error message. If you manually create /opt/revengeofthetitans/full_length_music/ and then install it with dpkg it works. Game runs, and has three different window size options if you don't want fullscreen.
speaking for myself:
1. Shows my friends what I'm playing. This leads often to impromptu multiplayer in a diverse social group that never did so before. Fire up world of goo then get a couple of messages from friends who were 'away' a minute ago to ask "lets kill zombies."
2. keeps everything mostly up to date. Patches usually roll out in hours of their release and are automatically applied.
3. Steam Cloud. Settings, cd keys, savegames - all stored between my laptop and desktop without any effort.
4. Goddamn easy to buy.
Harry pretty much answered this for me: also, the downsides of Steam (them being in control, the DRM, the possibility of losing the account without much chance recourse) are balanced by the plusses that Harry enumerated, as well as the smaller cognitive load I have to endure by having all my games in just one place (granted, I have a Battle.net account with a ton of games as well…). I really don't want to have to worry about more than one account, more than one set of receipts, more than one place to update and launch and sap my RAM: I just want to game, and not to worry.
I think it's a similar reason that Apple's App Store is doing so well: I pay for convenience.
It's come to the point that I just don't buy games unless they're on Steam. I own most of these games already (I got Machinarium on another sale), but I hate having to save their .zips because my games will be lost otherwise.
Machinarium, for example, has cluttered my desktop for months now because I have no way of getting it back if I delete it, and I have no "games" folder I can move it to. With Steam, I could just delete it and redownload whenever.
Hopefully there'll be a steam key.
Braid, Machinarium and Osmos I already have, but the bundle is worth it for Revenge of the Titans, that looks like so much fun
Am I the only geek who approximated his transaction fee and added it to his bundle price? Between naming my own price and them donating to charity, I felt bad that someone might need to eat the fee to run my card.
Since I assume "Humble Bundle Inc" is processing the transactions, I added it to the "Humble Tip" portion of my order.
Usually around $0.25 + 2-5% depending on how good of a deal they negotiated with their payment processor.
[update] Here's Amazon's fees for their SimplePay service:
For Transactions >= $10:
* 2.9% + $0.30 for all transactions
Volume Discounts
* 2.5% + $.30 for all transactions for monthly payment volume from $3k-$10k
* 2.2% + $.30 for all transactions for monthly payment volume from $10k - $100k
* 1.9% + $.30 for all transactions for monthly payment volume over $100k
I was really impressed how well this pay-what-you-want scheme worked last year. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like a viable payment option for smaller developers who have yet to acquire the status of these indie darlings.
As an aside: I always end up already owning the majority of games in these bundles, but I buy them anyway. Here's to hoping we can eventually register this one on Steam too.
I always find it curious how people see this as some sort of viable method for anyone. It's quite clear that this idea only works in very few situations, yet lots of people will see this and claim it to be a viable idea for anyone. I hope nobody actually tries this for their own games and they're an unknown developer.
I didn't mean specifically this deal, horrible explanation on my part. I meant people who see success like this and then instantly try and apply the idea to themselves when it's very unlikely to work. For example a small indie developer will never make much off a deal like this. Like people who try to replicate the million dollar homepage, things like that.
It's not a "viable" model for the /developers/ involved in the Humble Indie Bundle. Not in the sense of pricing for /new/ releases, at least.
However, each of these games have been out for sufficiently long that having people name their price now is mainly extra frosting on top of an already well-decorated cake. It's a tiny bit of extra market penetration /after/ the game's already made an impact - along with some goodwill towards deserving charities.
That's not completely correct; although Revenge of the Titans has been available for purchase & play whilst in beta, I think this is in fact its official release.
Why do people like Steam anyway? I went to try it out and it tried to install a bunch of spyware crap on my computer and get me to agree to a 50 page legal document full of terms only a madman would agree to.
I like it for the single point where all my games are, so I don't have to remember where I downloaded to, or where the keys are in my inbox, or even where I put install media. I just download the client, sign in, and all my games are right there.
It makes the DRM quite tolerable, and it supports indie developers, and it's ultimately the most convenient option for me.
Don't forget about Child's Play either. It's a wonderful charity which raises money to donate video games, books, and toys for sick kids in Children's hospitals.
Yeah, I already have a couple of these, but I went for it anyhow. Partly because they provided a Steam key for the last ones, which I thought was really great.
Nicely designed site, but did anybody notice that the background texture is exactly the same as the one that OhLife.com uses (clickable http://www.ohlife.com)?
Is this a common bg texture, or is there some "borrowing" going on here?
Day 2 and they've broke $600k... That is pretty awesome. I'm wondering where most of the money is going? Are people dropping the cash more for charity, because they understand that indie life is tough, or both?
This is great that they are doing it again. I have Braid on Steam but bought it for my Linux. Also awesome that they give away soundtrack for Machinarium and Revenge of Titans, mini album for Osmos.
Do I basically need a gamepad to play braid? Or will it work with the keyboard decently? What about the other platformer and the asteroids style game? Playing under linux if that matters.
Thanks for everyone's responses. It seems like I was worrying for no reason - Braid turns out to be very easy to play with a keyboard - and as far as I can tell that's all it supports anyway.
Does anyone know which of the three payment providers (Paypal, Google Checkout, Amazon) end up charging the least, so as to maximize my amount that goes to the devs/charities/etc?
I believe that Amazon's and Paypal's rates are exactly the same, but Amazon picks the cheapest rate automatically depending on if you pay more or less than $10 or so (it automatically considers it a micropayment and charges the appropriate rate), so I'd go with that.
PayPal charges a standard rate that you pick (micropayment or not), and if the guys thought most payments would be under $10, they might have optimised for that, so your purchase would be more expensive with PayPal.
To increase the value of ending up on a Top 10 or Top 100, they should provide purchasers with more opportunity for exposure, including logotypes, presentations and links to websites.
