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The Humble Indie Bundle
supersloshy writes "Last year, 2D Boy, the developers of the popular independent game World of Goo, had a pay-what-you-want birthday sale with curious results. For the next seven days, Wolfire Games is attempting the same kind of sale, but with some new twists. Wolfire Games' Humble Indie Bundle contains five independent games (World of Goo, Aquaria, Gish, Lugaru HD, and Penumbra) with no DRM and they are all cross-platform. In addition to directly supporting the developers of these five games, part of the money also goes to the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Child's Play Charity. No matter how much you spend, you also get to choose who your money goes to (charity only, developers only, evenly, or custom)."
Aha!
If I pay a lot for it, that will make it fast and good
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
Not true. Ayn Rand-types won't necessarily pay zero for this. You're assuming they give no thoughts to future desires and only think of immediate costs and instant gratification, and that just isn't true.
The developers get advertising, which they would otherwise have to pay for -- hence a measurable, monetary cost and a selfish desire on their par. Their similar stunt with World of Goo led me to purchase other games they developed because WoG showed me they were delivering quality, entertaining games. I no longer purchase games for any system without trying them out first. I've been burned too many times with over-hyped commercial games that turn out to be shit and a waste of money.
Because *I* want these developers to continue what they are doing -- a selfish desire on my part -- I will pay cash towards that end. Consider it an opportunity to invest in future products by these developers. Speculation in the market, or an investment in future return if you will.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Which they shouldn't.
I'm sorry, what? There is no "should" or "shouldn't", there's merely what is. And clearly these people are eating just fine. So anything or anyone that says they shouldn't is plainly wrong. What you fail to grasp is that people are willing to pay something more than they necessarily have to for the knowledge that they are contributing and therefore encouraging future work - both from those particular individuals and others who can see from that example that talent and hard work can be enough to make a living.
In other words, there are plenty of consumers who need only the carrot (the prospect that their payment will be rewarded by production of future works) to pay fairly. Unfortunately most established industries are managed by people who like you who continue to deny what's actually happening with the belief that their philosophy will prove true in the end, and therefore always fall back to the stick method of threatening, DRM-encumbering, and generally treating their (potential) customers like criminals.
Spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, and stupid comments are intentional.
Any sufficiently advanced selfishness is indistinguishable from altruism?
Altruism is always a disguised form of selfishness. Even anonymous donors donate because it makes them feel good.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
I abstain from buying because I don't think I can pay enough for so many games in good conscience. The games are decent, and the 20 USD I can afford now wouldn't do the games justice.
The whole "experiment" is useless without this option, in my opinion. They're going to see a bunch of people paying 1 cent going to EFF and conclude "what a bunch of cheapskates", when there is a good amount of people who either could buy later (after the offer limit), or refuse to buy that many games hands-down, because they actually *value* those games at 70-80 USD and think it's too much money to spend.
These kind of people won't show up in the statistics.
True. Even after taxes, it is likely comparable to the salary he would have earned if he had stayed on at the math department.
And he earned it working on his life goal, crafting video games. Whereas, I spend each and every day having my soul sucked out in a monotonous grind of code reviews and ever shifting and contradicting requirements.