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Humble Bundle 2 Is Live
Dayofswords writes "The first Humble Bundle was a monster success, with over 100,000 people donating over $1 million in total to support the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Child's Play, and of course the developers behind the games. The second bundle is now live (bundle site), containing five great games: Braid, Cortex Command, Machinarium, Osmos, and Revenge of the Titans. Each game is DRM-free, the games work on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux, and you pay what you want and decide where your money goes."
And, as with the first Humble Indie Bundle, Linux buyers are more generous than Windows buyers. :)
The games are fun, they work on Windows, Mac, and Linux, and the charities are good causes.
This is pretty much just win-win for everyone, a great way to not only *get* some nice games on Linux but *support* games on Linux, and to support a bunch of good causes as well. I'm less familiar with these games than the last bundle but I'll check them out and likely donate if I like even one of them.
Considering that you can pay what you like, I don't see how it can be a bad deal.
Cortex Command is alpha software (unplayable for me, weird cursor bug), Osmos isn't as good as dozens of free Flash games, Machinarium won't download (for me and others--maybe it's working for some), Revenge of the Titans won't launch at all (no error, nothing pops up, just a brief busy cursor), and I just discovered that Braid, the whole reason I bought the bundle, doesn't let you re-map its controls to a gamepad, so I'm stuck dicking around with Joy2Key to get the game to work as well as goddamn Commander Keen.
If not for the charity aspect I'd be seeking a refund. Really, really wish I'd cranked up the charity sliders and left nothing for the devs.
The average prices paid are comparable to those offered on Steam when they do discounted game bundles (in fact, I already have Machinarium and Osmos for precisely that reason, although I threw in some cash to a good cause and grabbed a copy of this bundle anyway). If Valve (and the developers) are willing to take those kind of prices on a commercial basis, it seems reasonable to call this a success.
Games already made + money to fantastic charity + money to fantastic rights foundation = monster success
I live in constant fear of the Coming of the Red Spiders.
Nobody disputes big box stuff (like Fallout 3) isn't going anywhere, and the indie stuff like this is doing great, but whatever happened to the middle tier stuff? You know, Stuff like No One Lives Forever & Blood, or Independence War or even Fallout Tactics? Is it just me or did they get squeezed out this generation?
:(
Indie games are fun in spurts, but I'm starting to miss the days of a steady stream of B grade titles with the budgets to do something a bit more meaty, but without the baggage of a big budget release. Anyone see gamespy's PC release list this month? They're listing stuff like 4 packs of girls games and emulated Sega Genesis games released on Steam for Pete's sake...
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I was a big fan of the original Humble Bundle. I paid a fair price for the collection, but this time around I'm just not impressed. The only name in that collection that really sounds bells with me is Braid, and I'd be surprised if anyone didn't have a copy already. Osmos wasn't all that fun. I played the demo on steam a while back and felt like it was trailing behind free flash games. Two games aren't even finished yet and one of them is really early in development, and no idea when they'll be in a finished state (they can't all be Minecraft in terms of releasing early).
To be honest, I'd feel bad making the offer I think this bundle is worth.
I guess Linux users are desperate for games...the platform sucks for gaming...deal with it.
I use Linux as my single OS, and while I will admit we rarely (if ever) see a big-name release, I'm in no way desperate for games. Here's a list of the commercial games I have installed on my computer right now:
UT 2004
Prey
Machinarium
Osmos
Gish
Aquaria
World of Goo
Minecraft
And yet it moves
Braid
Cortex Command
Penumbra Overture
Penumbra Black Plague
Penumbra Requiem
Amnesia: the Dark Descent
Titan attacks
Revenge of the titans
Droid assault
Ultratron
Lugaru
Caster
Color Cube
Sun Blast
Brukkon
Samorost 2
In addition you have all the ID games, The Clockwork man, Heroes of Newerth, Anchron, Overgrowth(soon) and What makes you tick. That's just off the top of my head. Not to say that I'd be opposed to a big famous studio like Valve or Blizzard bringing games to Linux -- I've said many times that I'll buy every Linux game I hear about if only to support the platform -- but don't make it out like it's worse than it is.
As to your statement that the platform sucks for gaming...I can see that being true if you're using the open-source video drivers, but the binary drivers are exponentially more powerful. I've got an nVidia GTX 465. If I was going to use the open-source driver I could've saved myself $150 or so, but I enjoy gaming, so I beefed it up. Sure, in comparison to the selection for Windows the amount of Linux games is much smaller, but it was the same (to a lesser extent) for Mac before Steam. It's a Chicken/Egg problem; big studios don't port games to Linux because it doesn't seem a viable platform, and Linux is thought of as a non-viable platform because of its lack of AAA titles. Maybe the guys behind the Humble Bundle can upset the paradox a little.
I didn't say Gish was unfinished, now did I? The reasoning given with the Gish update (that is, that they didn't have access to the bundle data, not that you only got that one version with the bundle) was what gave me cause for concern here, AC cleared that up though, this time it's handled.
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
Ah, the Humble Indie Bundle... the event that provided conclusive proof that many, many people who claim to pirate because "I can't afford", or "DRM sucks", or some other principle are completely full of shit. I hesitate to say most, but it was a significant enough number to really leave a bad taste in one's mouth
Here's hoping this one doesn't have a bunch of asshats essentially ripping off charity, but I rather don't think that'll be the case.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
I think the Braid and Cortex Command Linux ports were written specifically for the bundle. I tried out Braid for an hour earlier and didn't run into any issues, although what he said is true, you're stuck with arrow keys and space for the controls. Cortex Command seems to run pretty well and seems well polished for an alpha game. Cortex Command is one of those permanent alpha games (similar to Minecraft, but much older), and so I'd hope we get some way to redeem our bundle keys with its creator. Machinarium is a flash game, so it will run as well as you can run flash (fully maxing out one core in my case). Osmos is pretty fun, especially the gravity based levels, but I didn't play very far so I don't know if it gets stale. Revenge of the Titans is tower defense. It appears to be good, but this bundle hasn't been out long and I have more pressing matters to attend to than reviewing games. Oh, Machinarium, Osmos, and Revenge of the Titans all come with soundtracks as well.
The games that promised to go open source from the previous Humble Bundle did follow through. From the humble site:
Announcements and source code links:
Aquaria goes open source.
Lugara goes open source.
Gish goes open source.
Penumbra goes open source.
Uh... which ones? Have you gotten to the levels where you have to deal with orbital mechanics at all? I can play those levels for hours on end. And then there's levels with actually intelligent AIs who either try to eat you or run away, puzzle levels where you have to use a mixture of blob ju-jitsu and Newtonian physics in order to actually get to something smaller than yourself... the game is remarkably deep, once you get past the first few tutorial levels.
I mean yes, the basic concept is expressed in a shitload of free Flash games - eat stuff that's smaller than you, run away from stuff that's bigger than you - but the polish and scenarios and music all come together to make Osmos worthwhile.
Gee, 4 or 5 articles ago Amazon EC2 gets massive free advertising on slashdot, and now I can't buy anything because of this:
http://ec2-50-16-43-113.compute-1.amazonaws.com/#temporary-url-for-traffic-reasons
I would say, Humble Bundle is succeeding just fine where Anonymous failed. So much for using Amazon to help coping with webload! I hope the indie authors didn't pay too much for using the "most invincible website" service.
Actually, that sounds awesome in a way I hadn't previously considered - a form of advertising that is fully transparent, and where transparency is considered a feature. I think that because of this transparency, it doesn't matter that they're not being altruistic - they aren't pretending to be. Honest (which we all expect) is more important than altruism (which we expect a little, but never too much). They don't need to pretend that they're being purely altruistic. Having an altruistic net effect is fine, even if it's a small one.
I mean, really, it's advertising dollars well spent. The kinds of people who buy your services are exactly the ones who see your advertisements. It's targeted, without needing expensive/invasive profiling.
So at this point, it's win/win/win. They win (their message reaches you); a third party (that you both give a damn about) wins (it supports charities); and you win (you get advertising without being insulted or profiled).
Your reaction sounds like a very cynical - but reasonable! - knee-jerk reaction that has naturally developed from an environment with terrible advertising practices. But if you stop and think about it, this is as close as you can get to good advertising as I've considered yet - and I'm one of those Smithian economics types who think that advertising is not inherently immoral.
Well it seems I am wrong and have judged a game by its tutorial, or whatever the expression is in this situation.
... is actually finished. We released the game on the Bundle instead of our own site (www.puppygames.net) (though it's still there, but I doubt anyone is interested right now ;))
I hope a few slashdotters give it a play - it's taken us 3 years to make. The devil is in the details. We're working on some Linux .deb installer problems at the moment.
Cas :)
59,174 people (and counting) have so far paid a total of $419,914.75 (and growing), even though they didn't have to.
Maybe we aren't all pirates after all.
Much of which came from people who would not otherwise have even heard of their games, let alone considered buying them at any price at all.
This is called "pure profit". It's generally considered a good thing regardless of quantity.
Just like the Humble Bundle, you can also get a copy of The Witcher 2 without DRM. Pre-order it on GOG.com
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A good place to look for them in Impulse. It is a service like Steam, and they do have AAA titles too, but they also seem to have more low end publishers signed on. People like Paradox Interactive, 1C, and Meridian4. These aren't indy games, they aren't self published games from one person. The companies listed are game publishers, however they work on lower budget titles. So you don't go to sell them a $50 million game, they won't, can't, fund it. However you might go to sell them a $2 million game.
As such you get games in between indy and big titles. They do not have the polish a AAA game does, but they are generally larger and more in depth than an indy.
If you are looking for recommendations in particular, look at the King's Bounty series. Some interesting and very well done RPGs, different style than you normally see. Not AAA fully voiced amazing story Bioware RPGS, but pretty damn good.
For the most part you need to look online for those kind of games, the publishers can't get them in to the retail market. Sometimes you'll find them on the shelves, but not usually. As I said, Impulse is a good place to look. Steam has some as well, but Impulse just seems to have more of the small publishers signed on (and less of the big ones unfortunately).
Also as for releases this month, WTF did you expect? It is too late to release for Christmas, you had to be in stores and magazines last month to have a realistic chance. No point in releasing now, you'll miss big money. Releases go in cycles and this is an absolute dead time because of so many releases in the couple months preceding it. Come January/February of next year, it'll pick up again.
Besides, I know you haven't played every good game released in the lat couple years. Hit up Impulse and Steam and looks for older titles you missed, or hell even go check Best Buy. My problem isn't games to play it is time to play them. I have games I haven't even installed off Impulse and Steam.
Two of my great weaknesses! I may have to give it a try.
Any timeline for when it goes on sale on your site? I just already own the other games in the bundle that I would wish to own, so I'd rather simply purchase it directly if I decide to after trying the demo.
Not to detract from your overall point, but Minecraft enters Beta in 5 days:
http://notch.tumblr.com/post/2175441966/minecraft-beta-december-20-2010
Carry on
Why do you think people will pay anything if they don't have to?
The fact that 138,813 people coughed up $1,273,613 last time makes it clear that people will. That and the additional fact that even more are doing it this time. Of course, that is just 200,000 pieces of anecdotal evidence.