Humble Bundle: greatest sale of indie games ever?

[Ric_NYC]

"Pay what you want".


Cross-platform, DRM-free.

http://img20.imageshack.us/img20/5834/humblebundlethumb640xau.jpg


A group of indie developers are selling a package of their games which includes some of the biggest independent games on the market. Gamers can name their own price—from 1¢ to $1,000—for a pack of games that would go for around $80 if sold separately. Anyone who buys the package can feel better about themselves as well; customers can send any amount of their purchases to two major nonprofit groups.

The sale, nicknamed the "Humble Bundle" by the studios involved, is certainly epic. The games included in the package are World of Goo, Gish, Lugaru, Aquaria, and Penumbra Overture. Each of these titles has proven to be a solid hit, and the fact that five separate studios are working together to make them available to gamers for however much they wish to spend is unusual. As Jeff Rosen of Wolfire explained to Ars in a recent interview, the close-knit sense of community among indie developers is largely responsible for the sale's existence. http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2010/05/the-greatest-indie-game-sale-ever-and-how-it-came-to-be.ars



http://www.wolfire.com/humble

[gnomeuser]

I thought about this for about 5 seconds than gave these nice people 30$.

5 games, support for any platform one could reasonably desire, DRM free, they share revenue with charities and I get to name my own price. That is the best deal I have gotten in ages, I haven't bought a game since Yo! Frankie but today I got 5.

[Ric_NYC]

Tue May 4, 7:08 PM:

http://img69.imageshack.us/img69/4474/89351721.png

[gnomeuser]

For some reason the World of Goo deb doesn't install using gdebi (on Lucid 64bit) but invoking sudo dpkg -i WorldOfGooSetup.1.41.deb worked around the issue.

That game is a world of fun, I played the demo ages ago and I meant to buy the full game. The perfect little puzzler for me, a bit cartoony, fun, challenging. Well suited for killing half an hour.

[handy]

I too bought World of Goo some time back. I hardly ever play it these days, but I really thought those guys deserved our (my) support.

[antenna]

I have a couple of these already, I also don't play them much but it was good to support the developers. Penumbra is too scary to play. :shock:

Recently I bought Osmos (http://www.hemispheregames.com/osmos/) which I recommend though, great game.

[earthpigg]

i can't decide how to split the money!

aaaaaaaaaaah!!

edit: decided to split the $30: $15 to the devs, $7.50 to each of the non-profits. the 'greater good' is served by encouraging more developers to do stuff like this.

[Lightstar]

Recently I bought Osmos (http://www.hemispheregames.com/osmos/) which I recommend though, great game.


I agree, Osmos is awesome.

Ooooh I went and paid for the pack!
I gave them a decent price money, still a very nice deal and a very nice reason to buy games. Wow I think it's been years since I bought a game.

[TommyBrunn]

I bought the pack too. Decided to split the money evenly between the developers and the EFF. Penumbra is way too scary for me to play (:oops:), but the other games are all good. I already had World of Goo, but I figured it couldn't hurt to buy it again. I could just give it to my girlfriend.

[gnomeuser]

I was really looking forward to Penumbra, I am a huge Lovecraft fan and when I watched the intro it felt like it got all the scary bits exactly right. Sadly the hardware demands bogged my machine down quite a bit and the controls turned out to be entirely impossible to use with my trackball.

It feels quite like the old, but excellent, Prisoner of Ice game but in 3D. As the controls made everything frustratingly hard to do though I didn't play the game for very long.

With tweaks to the controls I am sure this would be great, so far I am a bit disappointed with the actual game but the mood is worth every penny.

[MarcusW]

Tue May 4, 7:08 PM:

http://img69.imageshack.us/img69/4474/89351721.png

And now it reads approx 195,000$. :)

[ELD]

You realise there was already a thread for this right? It is even stickied in the gaming forum...

[antenna]

I don't see any harm in having a thread in the cafe also though.. there are so many subforums here (too many imo) that I doubt most people even bother looking in them.

[ELD]

I didn't mean it in a harsh way i was just checking, i know how people love to ignore stickies, but the thread in that forum has some useful info. :)

I got stuck on Gish near the very start trying to make him jump higher...fail

[murderslastcrow]

D: NO WAY! I can't believe it! That's awesome. I already own World of Goo, but this is just an amazing concept. Why would they do that? WOOT.

[zipperback]

I don't do much in the way of gaming, overall I have very little free time currently, but this was SUCH A DEAL I went ahead and sent some money in and got the games.

It really is an awesome deal.

- zipperback
:popcorn:

[forrestcupp]

As the controls made everything frustratingly hard to do though I didn't play the game for very long.
Well, it was created with Half Life 2's Source engine, so it's really set up like a first person shooter. That probably would be hard to control with a trackball. The game looks so cool to me that it might be worth it for you to acquire a cheap USB mouse to use just for that.

If you still find it hard to control with a mouse, that's just something you'll have to get used to. That's pretty much the standard for FPS style controls on a PC. Personally, I like that setup better than gamepads.

Edit: I guess you could have been talking about the game's unique controls for doing things like opening and using items. :)

[PriceChild]

Silly question that I didn't find on the site.... How is the delivery of these games made?

For example, when I bought darwinia, defcon etc. you get a little account on their site that gives you 3 'one use' urls for each game. Is it something similar here? Or do you just download all 15 copies and then that's it, you maintain your own backups? Can you download for both/all 3 platforms even?

[thegreenblob]

Silly question that I didn't find on the site.... How is the delivery of these games made?

For example, when I bought darwinia, defcon etc. you get a little account on their site that gives you 3 'one use' urls for each game. Is it something similar here? Or do you just download all 15 copies and then that's it, you maintain your own backups? Can you download for both/all 3 platforms even?

Once you buy them they email you a link that takes you to a page where you can download for all 3 platforms. And as far as I know, as long as you save the link you can download as many times as you want for every platform.

http://i.imgur.com/GLZ8T.png

[Elfy]

Silly question that I didn't find on the site.... How is the delivery of these games made?

For example, when I bought darwinia, defcon etc. you get a little account on their site that gives you 3 'one use' urls for each game. Is it something similar here? Or do you just download all 15 copies and then that's it, you maintain your own backups? Can you download for both/all 3 platforms even?


Once you buy them they email you a link that takes you to a page where you can download for all 3 platforms. And as far as I know, as long as you save the link you can download as many times as you want for every platform.

http://i.imgur.com/GLZ8T.png

e-mail implies that


Thanks for purchasing the Humble Bundle! To access your DRM-free copies of all of the games on any platform, just follow this link:

Please save this email so that you can download the games again whenever you'd like in the future. Feel free to make local backups though, to save bandwidth.

If you have any problems, please contact us and we will get it sorted out, ASAP!

Thanks again!
Wolfire Games

[gnomeuser]

Well, it was created with Half Life 2's Source engine, so it's really set up like a first person shooter. That probably would be hard to control with a trackball. The game looks so cool to me that it might be worth it for you to acquire a cheap USB mouse to use just for that.

If you still find it hard to control with a mouse, that's just something you'll have to get used to. That's pretty much the standard for FPS style controls on a PC. Personally, I like that setup better than gamepads.

Edit: I guess you could have been talking about the game's unique controls for doing things like opening and using items. :)

I've played FPS games using a trackball for years, some as part of a Strike Force clan. It's actually a superb device for such games, very steady yet quick to adapt.

Switching to a mouse isn't an option for me due to prior wrist damage.

The problem with Penumbra is that a lot of actions require sweeping the cursor from side to side, and it doesn't fit well with a trackball as it now requires one to twirl the ball in a very unnatural and ineffective manner. Such things as opening the iced over door or swinging the hammer works very poorly.

I suspect one can tweak this to be better, but right now it's basically unplayable. I'll try playing with it at a later date.

It is the first time I have ever experienced a game by default being this poorly adjusted for trackball gaming.

The game itself, while not blazing fast on my ION based machine, which is somewhat expected, is really good. The mood is perfect and being a Lovecraft fan it appeals greatly to me. I think I will take advantage of the additional deal which would buy me all 3 episodes for 5$.

It's definitely not a kids game and I love that it isn't.

Of the games I have tried in the bundle, so far World of Goo is my favorite. Suitably frustratingly challenging and yet fun loving enough to keep coming back to it.

For the 30$ I paid, I got a great deal which I am very happy with.

[Queue29]

I bought the bundle for $8, about half going to charity. I'm glad I didn't pay more. World of Goo is the only that bothered to make a .deb installer, and _none_ of them run on my machine. I'm using the nVidia binary drivers with two monitors of different resolutions, and none of the games are able to deal with it. WoG works fine under Windows, though.

[Ric_NYC]

Update:

Wed May 5, 4:28 PM

http://img153.imageshack.us/img153/3166/screenshotcu.png

[forrestcupp]

The problem with Penumbra is that a lot of actions require sweeping the cursor from side to side, and it doesn't fit well with a trackball as it now requires one to twirl the ball in a very unnatural and ineffective manner. Such things as opening the iced over door or swinging the hammer works very poorly.


That's kind of what I suspected when I wrote my edit. It's too bad it's like that because it looks like a great game.

[gnomeuser]

I'm hoping they will release some statistics when the deadline has passed. I'm already very impressed that they managed to bring in nearly 300k and it would be interesting to see how it breaks down.

[earthpigg]

I bought the bundle for $8, about half going to charity. I'm glad I didn't pay more. World of Goo is the only that bothered to make a .deb installer, and _none_ of them run on my machine. I'm using the nVidia binary drivers with two monitors of different resolutions, and none of the games are able to deal with it. WoG works fine under Windows, though.


nvidia-settings

disable one of the screens

re-enable when done playing. yup, its a bit of a pain.

as long as you don't run sudo nvidia-settings, though, you don't risk borking your video config... none of the changes will be saved. sudo killall Xorg will restore them (or just leave nvidia-settings open as you play, and re-enable the 2nd monitor when done, as i do).

[PriceChild]

Once you buy them they email you a link that takes you to a page where you can download for all 3 platforms. And as far as I know, as long as you save the link you can download as many times as you want for every platform.

http://i.imgur.com/GLZ8T.png
Wow great thanks for that.

[madjr]

really awesome thanks guys


Update:

Wed May 5, 4:28 PM

http://img153.imageshack.us/img153/3166/screenshotcu.png

wow there really is a market for linux gaming after all :)

how is this measured by download after donating ??

[Merk42]

Update:

Wed May 5, 4:28 PM

http://img153.imageshack.us/img153/3166/screenshotcu.png

I wonder, is that chart per user or per $?

Meaning are ~25% of the people Linux users or is ~25% of the money from Linux users?

[ELD]

I wonder, is that chart per user or per $?

Meaning are ~25% of the people Linux users or is ~25% of the money from Linux users?

Someone should contact them to clarify that, a lot of people seem to want to know.

[Lightstar]

I wonder, is that chart per user or per $?

Meaning are ~25% of the people Linux users or is ~25% of the money from Linux users?

Based on downloads

so ~25% downloaded the linux versions.

As for me, I downloaded both the linux and the windows version.
(I use linux, but my sister has windows)

[Ric_NYC]

really awesome thanks guys



wow there really is a market for linux gaming after all :)

how is this measured by download after donating ??


From last year:

Pay-What-You-Want Birthday Sale Wrap-up
(World of Goo (2009))

"Breakdown By Platform

We were expecting the average price paid to be highest for Linux users and lowest for Windows users, but the gap was larger than we thought it would be… :popcorn:

http://img97.imageshack.us/img97/6790/dailyavg1.png

Also, the per-platform download breakdown was pretty surprising, with Windows accounting for 65%, and Mac and Linux pretty much splitting the remainder evenly:"

http://img685.imageshack.us/img685/4949/dlbyplatform1.png


More info:
http://2dboy.com/2009/10/26/pay-what-you-want-birthday-sale-wrap-up/

[madjr]

From last year:

Pay-What-You-Want Birthday Sale Wrap-up
(World of Goo (2009))

"Breakdown By Platform

We were expecting the average price paid to be highest for Linux users and lowest for Windows users, but the gap was larger than we thought it would be… :popcorn:

http://img97.imageshack.us/img97/6790/dailyavg1.png

Also, the per-platform download breakdown was pretty surprising, with Windows accounting for 65%, and Mac and Linux pretty much splitting the remainder evenly:"

http://img685.imageshack.us/img685/4949/dlbyplatform1.png


More info:
http://2dboy.com/2009/10/26/pay-what-you-want-birthday-sale-wrap-up/

wow awesome

i have purchased some linux games already, but i didn't know linux gaming market was at least as big of that of mac (even if mac base is supposed to be bigger)

Jobs always said that mac users spent more money, but i guess thats more on hardware than software and you would expect they support mac gaming more but seems not so much as they could.

[earthpigg]

i have purchased some linux games already, but i didn't know linux gaming market was at least as big of that of mac (even if mac base is supposed to be bigger)

i doubt the linux gaming market is anywhere near as big as the mac market.

say this to 10,000 linux users: "hey, an indie developer is letting you name your own price on a great native linux game!!"

5,000 Linux users say "woot! time to show my support!"

say the same thing to 100,000 (note the extra zero) mac users: "hey, an indie developer is letting you name your own price on a great native mac game!!"

95,000 mac users say: "really? it must be crap, then, like so many of the dirt cheap apps in the app store. ill pass."

...and only 5,000 show interest.


yup, i am stereotyping.


the linux game market isn't as big as the mac game market, but the linux indie supporter market is as big as the mac indie supporter market.

if EA Games was selling World of Goo for $40 (with none going to charity), and no one knew anything about any indie startup... i would bet my life savings that there would suddenly be many many many more Mac customers compared to Linux customers.

[Bölvaður]

if EA Games was selling World of Goo for $40 (with none going to charity), and no one knew anything about any indie startup... i would bet my life savings that there would suddenly be many many many more Mac customers compared to Linux customers.
most definitely

every linux user knows to avoid ea as the plague they are

[madjr]

hey more good news guys

anyone who already donated can get the remaining penumbra collection for just $5 from their site

http://www.penumbragame.com/

so if you want more penumbra go grab it

http://www.frictionalgames.com/forum/thread-3277.html


http://www.frictionalgames.com/forum/thread-3059-page-1.html

[JDShu]

What is genius about this marketing scheme (and not scheme in a bad way :P) is that it makes you feel good about spending the money. Not only do you buy the games, but you buy the satisfaction of helping our indie gamers/charities/the linux and indie gaming scene.

[gnomeuser]

The counter has now been updated to break down average donation by platform.

- Total raised $436,385
- Number of contributions 54534
- Average contribution $8.00

$6.81 - Windows
$9.61 - Mac
$13.66 - Linux

An a new high scoring donation.
1. Anonymous $1000.0

I am extremely excited to see that my prediction that Linux users would be the most generous turned out to be right so far. It warms my heart to see how passionate people are about supporting independent developers and showing that Linux is a viable gaming platform.

Provided the default settings, this also means roughly 200.000 USD to charity, making this a highly successful collection drive. Perhaps in the future this would be a way for certain charities to collect money, the EFF e.g. might be in a good position to partner with some independent developers to do a yearly event like this and collect some money for both parties.

[JDShu]

I am extremely excited to see that my prediction that Linux users would be the most generous turned out to be right so far. It warms my heart to see how passionate people are about supporting independent developers and showing that Linux is a viable gaming platform.

Provided the default settings, this also means roughly 200.000 USD to charity, making this a highly successful collection drive. Perhaps in the future this would be a way for certain charities to collect money, the EFF e.g. might be in a good position to partner with some independent developers to do a yearly event like this and collect some money for both parties.

Just a correction, I think the default setting splits money evenly between seven parties. Meaning that each charity and each developer receives around 63,000 USD (as of this post) if everybody chose the default setting.

[NovaAesa]

I bought the games, probably won't play them 'til my exams in 2 months are over though :P

[gnomeuser]

Just a correction, I think the default setting splits money evenly between seven parties. Meaning that each charity and each developer receives around 63,000 USD (as of this post) if everybody chose the default setting.

when I checked it did seem to split down the middle, half to charity, half to the developers but you might be right. Still 63k for charity in 2 days isn't bad at all. I still think it could be a viable fundraising method for some charities such as the EFF.

[JDShu]

when I checked it did seem to split down the middle, half to charity, half to the developers but you might be right. Still 63k for charity in 2 days isn't bad at all. I still think it could be a viable fundraising method for some charities such as the EFF.

Agreed, I think it is a very successful marketing/fundraising strategy.

[madjr]

The counter has now been updated to break down average donation by platform.

- Total raised $436,385
- Number of contributions 54534
- Average contribution $8.00

$6.81 - Windows
$9.61 - Mac
$13.66 - Linux

An a new high scoring donation.
1. Anonymous $1000.0

I am extremely excited to see that my prediction that Linux users would be the most generous turned out to be right so far. It warms my heart to see how passionate people are about supporting independent developers and showing that Linux is a viable gaming platform.

Provided the default settings, this also means roughly 200.000 USD to charity, making this a highly successful collection drive. Perhaps in the future this would be a way for certain charities to collect money, the EFF e.g. might be in a good position to partner with some independent developers to do a yearly event like this and collect some money for both parties.

hey that is awesome

wolfire themselves have posted about this

http://www.wolfire.com/

Linux users contribute twice as much as Windows users (http://blog.wolfire.com/2010/05/Linux-users-contribute-twice-as-much-as-Windows-users)



ps. remember guys to grab the linux penumbra collection for $5 bucks if you've already donated

http://www.penumbragame.com/

it would really help the guy who ported it to linux :)

http://www.frictionalgames.com/forum/thread-3277.html

http://www.frictionalgames.com/forum...59-page-1.html

[earthpigg]

when I checked it did seem to split down the middle, half to charity, half to the developers but you might be right. Still 63k for charity in 2 days isn't bad at all. I still think it could be a viable fundraising method for some charities such as the EFF.

pretty sure it's 1/3 split between all the developers, 1/3 to the children's hospitals, and 1/3 to the EFF. if you click on 'customize', that is how the sliders appear by default... i'm inclined to assume that is simply a more detailed view of the overall default if you don't click on anything.

put $30 in the field, and click customize... it defaults to $10 to developers, $10 to EFF, and $10 to children's hospitals.

[djm227]

Not sure if this is a dupe, but I just ran into this info and got excited so I thought I'd post.

A company is giving away World of Goo, Aquaria, Gish, Lugaru, and Penumbra for any amount that you see fit. These are all very well made, and Linux compatible indie games. All they ask is for a donation of any size, starting at $.01, which goes to one of two charities. The offer ends in 3 days, so jump on it http://www.wolfire.com/humble.

Sorry again if its a dupe.

[Frak]

Besides World of Goo, and arguably Penumbra, all the other games in the pack are crap. Aquaria gets boring quickly, Gish has potential but fails on a few control aspects, and Lugaru is nothing like the fighting game it claims to be. Just press shift constantly and you'll win. Any fighting on your part will be countered 90% of the time and rarely will you land a hit.

I paid a $1 for the pack, and it seems justified.

[djm227]

World of Goo alone costs $20...so no matter what you donate it will be worth the cash

[Ric_NYC]

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1472944

[JDShu]

pretty sure it's 1/3 split between all the developers, 1/3 to the children's hospitals, and 1/3 to the EFF. if you click on 'customize', that is how the sliders appear by default... i'm inclined to assume that is simply a more detailed view of the overall default if you don't click on anything.

put $30 in the field, and click customize... it defaults to $10 to developers, $10 to EFF, and $10 to children's hospitals.

That is what I thought at first too but...


Your contribution supports the amazing Child's Play charity (http://www.childsplaycharity.org/) and Electronic Frontier Foundation (http://www.eff.org/). By default, the amount is split equally between the seven participants (including Child's Play and EFF), but you can tweak the split any way you'd like.Still it doesn't really matter how they split it by default tbh hahaha.

[handy]

pretty sure it's 1/3 split between all the developers, 1/3 to the children's hospitals, and 1/3 to the EFF. if you click on 'customize', that is how the sliders appear by default... i'm inclined to assume that is simply a more detailed view of the overall default if you don't click on anything.

put $30 in the field, and click customize... it defaults to $10 to developers, $10 to EFF, and $10 to children's hospitals.

When I bought it the default option was 50% to the dev's & 50% to charity, which is the way I left it.

[Frak]

Honestly, it was a letdown. I had World of Goo already, as well as Penumbra, so the other games that I got were new to me. As I played them, it felt as if I just wasted money on three below par games.

Meh

[cariboo]

Merged two threads on the same subject.

[handy]

Honestly, it was a letdown. I had World of Goo already, as well as Penumbra, so the other games that I got were new to me. As I played them, it felt as if I just wasted money on three below par games.

Meh

You would have been better off buying the bundle for a $1-, evaluating it & then buying it again if you thought it was worthwhile & paying more, or of course not.

[Frak]

You would have been better off buying the bundle for a $1-, evaluating it & then buying it again if you thought it was worthwhile & paying more, or of course not.
That's exactly what I did. Also, if I feel the need to donate to the EFF, I'll do it directly.

[JDShu]

Hmmm... Aquaria is actually my favorite game of the bunch.

[madjr]

Besides World of Goo, and arguably Penumbra, all the other games in the pack are crap. Aquaria gets boring quickly, Gish has potential but fails on a few control aspects, and Lugaru is nothing like the fighting game it claims to be. Just press shift constantly and you'll win. Any fighting on your part will be countered 90% of the time and rarely will you land a hit.

I paid a $1 for the pack, and it seems justified.

lugaru is my favorite from way back

you should watch the videos to see how is a real fight :)

the shift thing mainly works in the easiest modes, but am gonna check with the devs on this

also the sequel overgrowth is open for suggestions (thats the best thing about indie games ^^)




That's exactly what I did. Also, if I feel the need to donate to the EFF, I'll do it directly.

apart from yourself not many do know about the EFF, in fact 99% of donators didn't know about those charities

you should not assume that everyone is same as yourself. this is bigger than oneself and i applaud them.

i see 3 winners here: charities, the indies and linux (which received some promotion and will be taken more seriously for casual gaming / development)

also i love to see more promos like these in the future (probably max twice a year)

[Frak]

apart from yourself not many do know about the EFF, in fact 99% of donators didn't know about those charities

Did I say that they shouldn't even offer donations to the EFF? That's right, I didn't. I said I would donate to the EFF if I wanted to. I didn't mention anybody else.

[Ric_NYC]

Update:

Total raised $587,807
- Number of contributions 70342
- Average contribution $8.36

Windows $7.16
Mac $9.74
Linux $13.94


http://img35.imageshack.us/img35/1430/chartchtpchs170x78chco3.png

[JDShu]

Doesn't look like it will reach a million. Whether they really intended to release the source code for luigaru, gish, and penumbra, will forever be a mystery :P

[madjr]

Doesn't look like it will reach a million. Whether they really intended to release the source code for luigaru, gish, and penumbra, will forever be a mystery :P

the wolfire (lugaru) guys already said this exceeded their expectations

they're not releasing the source code, at least not for now, but will consider it once they're better established, as they're very supportive of linux (they were one of the first indies to do it).

they're awesome

[ssj6akshat]

I made my mind at last and paid $10(OMG! I went insane I paid INR 500 when I could just download from torrent sites and they won't find out) from dad's account(he wouldn't find out,will he?).I feel Great.

[JDShu]

More good things. Another indie developer donated a game, so now the bundle has 6 games including Samorost 2, by Amanita Design. Gonna try it now.

[EarthMind]

I didn't notice the new game. Seems like fun :)

[Lightstar]

Is it just me, or we can't alt-tab out of these games?
I can't bring my mouse pointer outside of the window border either (for those games with windowed mode)

[earthpigg]

Is it just me, or we can't alt-tab out of these games?
I can't bring my mouse pointer outside of the window border either (for those games with windowed mode)

it's all up to the guys writing the game to allow or disallow alt+tab from working.

and i can understand why they would disallow DE keybindings from working within the game on their GNU/Linux version -- far to many of us have custom keybindings. without being able to predict what DE keybindings we have set up, they risk their game not working OOB, which folks will likely blame on the game maker.

example: in Penumbra, ctrl is crouch, and left click is use whatever is in your hand. if DE keybindings were allowed, who is to say i haven't set some compiz action to occur with ctrl+leftclick?

the developers could set the game to ignore all DE keybindings, but create ingame keybindings that follow the 'standard' conventions... but then the game's authors would have to assume the user is using gnome or kde or openbox or compiz or whatever, because i suspect that not all handle alt+tab exactly the same way. the result would potentially be a gnome-only game, or a kde-only game, or even an ubuntu-only game. screw that noise.

if developers want their games to "just work" on a variety of Linux-based platforms, they need to assume as little about the user's computer as possible. assume X is installed and being used, assume the .desktop conventions are being adhered to, assume the GNU core utils are on the system, assume one of the three most popular audio systems is in use, assume the filesystem has the 'standard' things like /opt and /home, and assume the user has already taken care of video card drivers. aside from one trivial additional dependency one of the games had me install, that (and probably some other things i left out) is all any of those games depend on. no where in there is any mention of gnome or kde or anything else that would infer any alt+tab functionality (though some of the games may use qt or gtk, but that isn't the same as using gnome or kde).

[ edit ] World of Goo's depends list (from the .deb): libc6, libstdc++6, libgl1, libglu1, libx11-6. i don't see any mention of gnome or kde, so why should the developers assume the user is using gnome or kde? [ /edit ]


i am not the smartest person around, so i could be off on some of that. if i am, i look forward to the additional knowledge that will come with someone correcting me.



world of goo, btw, allows the mouse outside the window border while in windowed mode.



TLDR Version: alt+tab doesn't work because the developers want their game to work for system tweakers, arch users, Awesome WM users, ubuntu-derivative users, puppy linux users, etc. alt+tab is not am automatic universal GNU/Linux convention. this is also why only one of the games was distributed in .deb format, and the others via more universal methods. lack of alt+tab is the price we pay for the choices and freedom we have, but ill pay that minor price gladly and not complain.

[madjr]

last day guys !

also
anyone having problems with penumbra and Ati open drivers can check here:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1479237

[Ric_NYC]

Update:

http://img85.imageshack.us/img85/9621/snapshot4l.png

http://img695.imageshack.us/img695/9181/snapshot1dq.png

http://img686.imageshack.us/img686/7638/snapshot3y.png


http://www.wolfire.com/humble

[bruno9779]

I have bought the bundle, and I am very happy with it.

I played the demo of all of them except gish (that is quite cool) and I relly liked this offer.

I wouldn't mind getting offers like these through the Ubuntu Software Center...

[earthpigg]

this (http://blog.wolfire.com/2010/05/Saving-a-penny----pirating-the-Humble-Indie-Bundle) is sad, but not surprising:


Assuming these numbers are reasonable, we get 79,000 / 105,497 = 0.749 are estimated to be legitimate or about 25% have pirated the bundle -- directly from us. There are a lot of assumptions here, but I tried to be as conservative and simple as possible.

and just so we all know how freaking awesome and truly humble these folks are:


I do have one humble request though --

If you are deadset on pirating the bundle, please consider downloading it from BitTorrent instead of using up our bandwidth! Also, even though you are pirating our games, please tell some of your friends about the Humble Indie Bundle. Posting to Facebook, telling your Twitter followers, (or simply talking to someone) sure doesn't require a credit card.

not only humble, but smart -- regarding copyright infringement as free advertising!

also, for those of us that like open source gaming... pause the youtube video embedded in the website at 1:17 and read.

[betrunkenaffe]

170K to go before they break that magic 1M.. 15 hours to go.

I don't think it's going to happen sadly.

I tossed in 30 bucks, Samarost 2 was a nice bonus after the fact.. Kinda wanted to give more to the developpers but 5$ to each charity sucked a little.

[madjr]

- Total raised $866,154
- Number of contributions 97,926
- Average contribution $8.84



OMG they might reach a million! :O

12 hours to go

the crowd is jumping !

thousands will donate in the last hour for sure !

[earthpigg]

OMG they might reach a million! :O


and if they do, three of those games will be open sourced!:guitar:

(pause the vid at 1:17 and read)

[bruno9779]

edit:

I have found the video...

[blueturtl]

Maybe it's already been noted in a post prior to mine but the average payment by OS user is somewhat surprising to me:

Linux users will pay roughly double what Windows users are willing to pay. Apple users will shell up about two thirds.

Considering how we're often made out to be cheapskates I think this is most fortunate. Then again, not having to pay for Windows or Office, I do have more money at my disposal. ;)

[bruno9779]

922.755 $ collected an 5 hours to go!!

it looks like they'll make it!!!

[captainron042]

I donated and downloaded the linux versions. Too bad I don't know how to install them, especially since they are all in different formats.

[blueturtl]

I donated and downloaded the linux versions. Too bad I don't know how to install them, especially since they are all in different formats.

The files that end in .run or .bin are binary installers. You can run the installer like this:

./someInstaller.run
./someOtherInstaller.bin

or like:

sh theOddOneThatEndsIn.sh

The deb you double click to install.

The ones that are archives (.tar.gz or .zip) instead of installers you just need to extract. Most probably you can then run the game by using the same logic you use to run the installers.

[Confuzius]

I bought it twice at $10 each time. %50 for devs %25 for each charity.
Feel like I should have gone higher... maybe next time. I played a bit of goo on my lunch break, fun stuff.

[Merk42]

Got the very end of the second level of Samorost2 where I guess Flash decided to take a crap and lock up.

Went to solve the puzzle the exact way again and now for some reason the solution doesn't work ](*,)

[bruno9779]

1 Miliooooooooooooonnnn

:popcorn::popcorn::popcorn:

:guitar::guitar::guitar:

[madjr]

1 Miliooooooooooooonnnn

:popcorn::popcorn::popcorn:

:guitar::guitar::guitar:

yay!!!:guitar:

and 45 mins remaining !

[bruno9779]

Now that the million has been reached, is time i make a question...

Video apart, I couldn't find any written statement from wolfire games that they would release the source if 1 Million was reached.

The video shows a statement on the payment page, but the actual page does not have it.

[Ric_NYC]

Unbelievable!



:popcorn::popcorn::popcorn:
:guitar::guitar::guitar:

[pwnst*r]

$30 from me.

[Ric_NYC]

Update:

Real-time Statistics
- Total contributed $1,014,600
- Number of contributions 112,112
- Average contribution $9.05


http://img215.imageshack.us/img215/1430/chartchtpchs170x78chco3.png

Total Revenue by Platform
Windows $7.94
Mac $10.18
Linux $14.55



Top

1. Anonymous.......$3333.33
2. Anonymous...... $1337.0
3. Anonymous.......$1000.0
4. Anonymous.......$500.0
5. Muhammad Haggag.$500.0
6. Anonymous.......$400.0
7. Anonymous.......$327.67
8. Phil B..........$313.37
9. Manuel Calavera.$281.0
10. unsigned char...$255.0

http://www.wolfire.com/humble

[EarthMind]

Awesome, it has reached a million $$$$ :D. I hope that all the payments are legit though because some of them look suspicious: $1337, $3333.33.

It's also great that many Linux users have donated high amounts :).

[Matthewthegreat]

Now that the million has been reached, is time i make a question...

Video apart, I couldn't find any written statement from wolfire games that they would release the source if 1 Million was reached.

The video shows a statement on the payment page, but the actual page does not have it.

http://blog.wolfire.com/2010/05/Lugaru-goes-open-source

[Ric_NYC]

Update:


Humble update: open source extension (5/11/10)

The Humble Indie Bundle experiment has been a massive success beyond our craziest expectations :guitar: . So far, in just over 6 days, 113,242 generous contributors have put down an incredible $1,024,976. Of this, contributors chose to allocate 31.03% to charity: $318,100 for the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Child's Play Charity. I have made a page for the full breakdown including credit card fees in a JSON format here (json).

Now it's our turn to give back. As of 5/11/10, Aquaria, Gish, Lugaru HD, and Penumbra Overture pledge to go open source. We are preparing the sources right now and will be releasing them ASAP. We spent last night preparing Lugaru and it is almost available now. The code is still a little rough (no Visual Studio project yet, for instance) but hopefully with the help of the community we can rapidly make it more accessible to everyone.


http://www.wolfire.com/humble

[madjr]

OMG 4 of the games are goings open source !!!

i was doubting it from aquaria and penumbra , but wow


and ryzom online (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1476186) also went open source yay

[EarthMind]

Wow, Linux users have paid more than Mac users and have way less contributions, over 8000 less at the time of writing.

That's great :)

[madjr]

Wow, Linux users have paid more than Mac users and have way less contributions, over 8000 less at the time of writing.

That's great :)

thats why they open source the games

they know that only linux users will appreciate it and is a big thing to us :)

[Frak]

Wow, Linux users have paid more than Mac users and have way less contributions, over 8000 less at the time of writing.

That's great :)
There are also big, quality titles on Mac. Linux doesn't have this luxury.

[JDShu]

There are also big, quality titles on Mac. Linux doesn't have this luxury.

Indeed, simple supply and demand for the most part. The way the whole thing was set up would give a behavioral economist a field day though.

Btw, each developer made about 140k USD. For some idea about what this means for them, check out this intriguing post by Frictional Games:

http://frictionalgames.blogspot.com/2010/01/perception-of-000.html

[gnomeuser]

I'm so excited, I feel that indie gaming is on an interesting rise. The quality is now very good and the ideas always more innovative.

Since finding the Humble Indie Bundle I went on buy the remain 2 Penumbra episodes for the additional 5$ and I found a really interesting concept RTS called Achron where you can travel in time. It's still in an early stage but it has oh so much potential. Especially now that it seems the SunAge port to Linux isn't going anywhere despite it's promise.

[phrostbyte]

thats why they open source the games

they know that only linux users will appreciate it and is a big thing to us :)

This might be a great way to encourage open source development while at the same time allowing developers to get paid. I really enjoy seeing software developers experiment with new business models like this.

This was a successful experiment as well. If they went with the typical, DRM-laden, Windows-only, pay us full price you thief, garbage salad business model everyone else uses, I'm almost positive they would have failed and failed hard. They'd be looking for another way to support themselves. This is a case where being more open actually seems to make more business sense, and that is an amazing thing in my opinion.

[xir_]

this has been quite a interesting story. i've refreshed every couple of hours today to see if it went over the line.

this must be quite a boon for the developers. Id like to know if the 100k or so they made each was more or less than they were expecting to take otherwise.

[Crunchy the Headcrab]

I'm so excited, I feel that indie gaming is on an interesting rise. The quality is now very good and the ideas always more innovative.

Since finding the Humble Indie Bundle I went on buy the remain 2 Penumbra episodes for the additional 5$ .
Yeah, I think this sale was a really cool thing. I also bought the Penumbra Collection for the extra $5.

[Miguel]

I bought it for 40 dollars. This is 32 euros with the paypal scam conversion, but it could have been worse. Anyway, this is less than what I spend in two dinners out here in London, and World of Goo is certainly worth at least one third of this. I've also heard Penumbra Oberture is quite good. Gish looked fun, while it's unlikely that Lugaru will be my cup of tea.

Anyway, I felt good (I knew that World of Goo was easily downloadable), I hope they will feel good and the linux community gets good vibes. But when I read they were opensourcing a few games I was just chuffed to bits. Here goes a big THANK YOU.

[madjr]

remember
the penumbra collection discount is for a limited time guys (till the bundle ends, so few days left)

http://frictionalgames.blogspot.com/

so grab the collection for $5 bucks

oh and the linux guy who ported it only gets credited when you buy the linux version

[madjr]

last day of extension and opp to grab the penumbra collection (part 2 and 3) for $5 bucks


oh and penumbra 1 goes Open source !!!
http://frictionalgames.blogspot.com/2010/05/penumbra-overture-goes-open-source.html

[mamamia88]

i bought it and don't really like the games so i can't say it's that good of a deal

[themusicalduck]

i bought it and don't really like the games so i can't say it's that good of a deal

That's fair enough, but I'm not sure if being able to pay whatever you want could be considered a bad deal in any case.

[Viva]

I just purchased it, but I can't download it for a week. Is there a download time limit?

[LeifAndersen]

Supposedly not. But Wolfire (or however it's spelled), can't promise that, as they're not 100% sure one of their 'partners' won't demand they take their game down.

[Viva]

Wow, the games are awesome. Couldn't install some of them into outside of my home directory though.

[rottentree]

Damn it I completely missed this.
Still the idea is very cool and the statistics are also interesting.

[Ric_NYC]

Update

Final Numbers:

http://img35.imageshack.us/img35/1654/finalnumbers.jpg


"The Humble Indie Bundle event is over!" (5/15/10)

http://www.wolfire.com/humble