Devin Coldewey is a Seattle-based writer and photographer. He has written for the TechCrunch network since 2007. Some posts he’d like you to read: The Dangers of Externalizing Knowledge | Generation i | Surveillant Society | Choose Two | Frame Wars | The User’s Manifesto | Our Great Sin His personal website is coldewey.cc. ? Learn More
If you’ve watched the gaming world at all over the last year or so, you’re probably aware of the Humble Bundle, a charity-orientated promotion where you pay what you want for a few standout indie titles. The few so far have had a great reception, raising millions for charity (EFF and Child’s Play). A new one has just launched with acclaimed strategy shooter Frozen Synapse as the main draw, but there’s a new wrinkle in the pricing scheme.
Instead of just having the whole bundle available for any price you want to pay, you receive either just Frozen Synapse or the game plus the whole previous bundle depending on how much you give. Give under the average and get the game, give over the average and get the bundle. It’s a little bit brilliant.
Paying over the average (around $4.40 as I write this) will almost certainly be the more popular choice, as it gets you quite a bit of extra content (the excellent Shadowgrounds and its sequel). And what happens when you pay over the average? You raise the average. It’s a nice, soft way of setting a price floor without preventing cash-strapped (or just cheap) people from paying a buck for a good game. The average price has gone up a couple pennies just as I’ve written this paragraph, and when you’re looking at sales in the hundreds of thousands, those pennies start to add up.
So far they’ve sold over 30,000 bundles and have raised above $130,000. The sale’s just beginning (it goes for two weeks), so those numbers should rise quite a bit. Head on over to the Humble Bundle site to buy or just check things out. And here’s a video of the games involved:
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