Pay-what-you-want offer supports charities
The Humble Bundle team are making another stab at promoting Android gaming alongside independent-developer desktop gaming with their latest offer, the Humble Bundle for Android 2, which offers four DRM-free games that are available for Mac, Linux and PC as well as all debuting on the Android platform. Buyers choose their own price and most of the games are also available on Steam, a cross-platform gaming service.
A portion of the price users pick can be donated to Child’s Play Charity, which provides gaming boxes and game software for sick children in hospitals, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a watchdog group for free speech and other issues online. The bundle offer is available for the next two weeks, and buyers who contribute more than the average price will receive a bonus game called Swords & Soldiers, making its debut on Android and Linux.
The bundle includes Zen Bound 2, also making its Android and Linux debut, in which players weave rope around a 3D sculpture. All the levels of the original Zen Bound are included in the sequel. Also included is Avadon: The Black Fortress, a traditional RPG adventure game (debuting on Android and Linux, though the Android version is tablet-only); Canabalt, a high-speed side-scrolling parkour run, now with a two-player option and for Android a 3D graphics mode; and Cogs, a game that has been offered before, but now making its Android debut. Swords & Soldiers, the bonus game, is also now available for Android and Linux.
Soundtracks are also included separately for iPod enjoyment for Zen Bound 2, Canabalt and Swords and Soldiers. Canabalt is the only game in the bundle not available on Steam for Mac or PC players, and all of the games were already available on iOS, but iOS versions are not included in the bundles due to Apple’s copying restrictions. After just a few hours of availability, the offer has sold more than 43,000 bundles at an average purchase price of $6.18, a fraction of the normal price of the games.
In total the Humble Bundle has raised over $468,785 for this particular offer so far, with (as traditional in Humble Bundle offers) Linux users paying the most on average ($9.73), Mac users the second-most ($6.96), and Windows users the least ($5.77). Buyers have complete control over how much of their purchase price goes to any of the four options: the two charities, the developers or a “tip” to the Humble Bundle team.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apnN-H4G1Vg&w=480&h=274]