The-Source.com

I’ve been following the saga of the Humble Indie Games Bundle. It’s quite eye-opening.

The recipie

Start off with a bundle of 5 indie games.

All the games are cross-platform. Real cross-platform (Linux, not just Mac and Windows).

No DRM.

No middle-man.

Let the user pay what they want. $1? $5? $10? more? less?

Allow the user to decided how the money is divided, including portion to charity (Child’s Play or EFF).

Add another game in later.

Show sales numbers.

Open source the games.

Extend the promotion.

The response

Now, that’s just about as “transparent” as you can get, especially for a commercial project.

And here’s what’s nifty: the response has been overwhelming. Over $1 Million in sales overwhelming.

Here’s the best part to me: Linux users paid more. On average: Linux users paid $14.53, Mac users paid $10.23, and Windows users paid $8.06.

Now I know this won’t silence the “freetard” cries of the unenlightened, but nothing will stop the ignorant.

I love that Wolfire Games (and friends) were willing to put an idea to the test – and not just assume the answer.

Yours Truly

I bought in when they announced they would be Open Sourcing the games – I haven’t gotten around to actually playing any of them yet!

With programs like this, and Valve bringing Steam/TF2/HL2 to Linux, the future is looking bright.