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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)."
All of the games work great on Mac, Windows, and Linux. We didn't want to leave anyone out.
No *BSD, but still kinda neat!
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.
I went in for $40. I've got World of Goo already, but I thought it would be nice to have Linux versions of these games. I figure that if even the indy devs don't get financial support for publishing Linux versions of software, the market will stay slow and dry forever.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
Obligatory
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.
World of Goo: .deb .run .tar.gz .bin .sh
Aquaria:
Gish
Lugaru HD:
Penumbra
Now that's just silly :D
Freedom allows us to fulfill our desires, not just our basic needs. Food and shelter alone are not enough for happiness.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
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.
It's a Metroid-like game set underwater with you playing as a sort of a mermaid. The world is fairly large - maybe a bit too large, even. Good mix of puzzle solving and action. The control style takes some getting used to, but that helps to add to the sense that you're not playing the same old platforming game. Some of the boss fights will make you want to throw a controller. The art design is seriously beautiful - it's 2D sprites for everything, but the overall direction of the graphics is really lovely, as well as the excellent music. I recommend it (though I haven't finished it yet - it really is a bit long.)
Libertarians somehow believe that private businesses should be stronger than governments but weaker than individuals.
The Dwarf Fortress guy made $16k last month. And his game is donation-only. And the donations aren't required.
Fellowship 9/11
Any sufficiently advanced selfishness is indistinguishable from altruism?
You can pay through paypal without an account there, they just process the order. All you do is select the paypal option then click the radio button that says "pay by credit card".
For some of us, programming is about recreation. Slashdot likes car analogies, so how about this: I know people who make money working on cars, and I have friends who do the same thing for themselves on the weekend because they enjoy it.
You know, there are lots of individuals and businesses whose business plan includes giving something away for free. It absolutely does help pay the bills.
If only they get that kind of money month after month...
2010
April Donations: $16,104.49
March Donations: $4,387.99
February Donations: $1,452.57
January Donations: $2,291.50
2009
December Donations: $4,762.98
November Donations: $5,122.29
October Donations: $1,759.27
September Donations: $2,138.21
August Donations: $2,510.86
July Donations: $2,202.37
June Donations: $2,723.83
May Donations: $2,221.92
April Donations: $2,549.15
March Donations: $2,997.46
February Donations: $1,428.62
January Donations: $2,099.48
2008
December Donations: $5,279.49
November Donations: $1,305.10
October Donations: $1,868.30
September Donations: $1,695.48
source
Except that the totals currently show otherwise...
- Total raised $55,481
- Average contribution $7.74
- Number of contributions 7169
Maybe. Does the free release of my work gain me notoriety that helps me to make future sales? We're not all short term minimalist thinkers.
And besides, both food and housing are guaranteed to all US citizens.*
* Some restrictions may apply, see county jail for details.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
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
Because you don't own Apple-approved hardware to run it on, but you want (legal) BSD anyway?
Touch everywhere, even when inappropriate.
Except that I wasn't planning on buying it at all. Now I'll buy it and pay something for it. Something > Nothing.
I'd imagine that most people who wanted it would have already bought it by now. They're squeezing money out of people who wouldn't have bought it at the higher price.
Although, I have a feeling that sales will plummet after this week.
Mac OS X *is* BSD, and it is the best designed, most secure, most reliable, most usable BSD ever made. Why would you use anything else?
I use shell expansion of the * character -- so *BSD expands to NetBSD, OpenBSD, FreeBSD, etc. It doesn't expand to Mac OS X.
Except that the totals currently show otherwise...
- Total raised $55,481
- Average contribution $7.74
- Number of contributions 7169
I only donate in geeky amounts. Here are some recommendations
$1.87 (on a motherfucking cop) - rap geek
$11.11 - binary geek
$10.66 - european history geek
$14.92 - american history geek
$13.37 - computer geek
$31.41 - math geek
We don't use DRM. When you buy these games, they are yours. Feel free to play them without an internet connection, back them up, and install them on all of your Macs and PCs freely.
Now, from the EULA:
1.1 License Grant. 2D BOY hereby grants to you a non-exclusive license to use a single copy of the object code version of the Game for your personal, non-commercial home entertainment use on one personal computer or other compatible electronic device. You may sell or transfer your copy of the Game to another person along with, and subject to, your rights under this EULA, only if you do not retain any copies.
Emphasis is mine. It looks like Marketing might want to talk to Legal here...
I just don't get... eh, ugh... never mind. This post wasn't worth the research I put into it.
If your PC was built during the last 7 years, it shouldn't any trouble running Gish or World of Goo, or even Penumbra for that matter.
But not for long.
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.
-1 Troll. No /.er ever uses a car analogy that fits perfectly with their point. Nice try.
That's a somewhat different kind of selfishness, though. Rand, being somewhat Nietzschean in orientation (especially early on), isn't a pure hedonist (do what makes you feel good), but feels that some kinds of instincts and desires are "better" than other kinds, and (like Nietzsche) classifies some of the things traditionally thought of as "altruism" as bad ones.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Altruism is always a disguised form of selfishness.
That's some pretty bizarre bullshit. That's right up there with concluding that every human behavior is logical and can always be explained. In aggregate, maybe there is a small tendency for altruism to improve the status of the altruistic. But for individual actions, you could never make that claim that an altruistic person always expects a benefit.
Not to mention that Rand felt that altruism was ethically unsupportable. That claim has led her followers to propose some really zany ideas.
Support SETI@home
... and keeping hunting for the link on each successive page that will let you continue without creating a PayPal account. PayPal go to great lengths to coerce people into signing up for an account by making it seem compulsory and making these buttons the obvious ones.
Patent litigation: A doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction... in which everyone seems willing to push the button
Seems the experiment runs very well. The slashvertisment surely helped to spread the word.
Biggest problem for such Indie-Developers is imho not the intentional lack of DRM and the resulting unlicensed copying of the games, but the lack of media coverage. As the numbers show, there are enough people out there who are willing to pay for games, even if they could get them for free. And I was one of them.
btw. while I typed this, the counter went over 84.000 $. I wonder how much they'll collect over the remaining 6 days.
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.
To their credit, I, a potential customer, am a criminal (though less in terms of pirating and more in terms of public urination) and I hate carrots.
I am here to ask you a question. Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow?
'No,' says the man in Washington, 'it belongs to the poor.'
'No,' says the man in the Vatican, 'it belongs to God.'
'No,' says the man in Moscow, 'it belongs to everyone.'
I rejected those answers. Instead, I chose something different. I chose the impossible. I chose...
Rapture.
# (/.);;
- : float -> float -> float =
Mod me -1 nitpick, but you mean globbing, not "shell expansion".
If you pay $100 or more (split any way you like), you get a complimentary EFF Pioneer Level Membership.
Source.
"Our country is not nearly so overrun with the bigoted as it is overrun with the broadminded." -Archbishop Fulton Sheen