Humble Bundle

The Humble Bundles (previously known as Humble Indie Bundles) are a series of collections ("bundles") of video games, music albums or eBooks that are sold and distributed online at a price determined by the purchaser. The bundles are typically offered on a semi-regular basis during a two-week period; sales often include bonus games or media offered mid-week through the sale for those that have already purchased the bundle or otherwise pay more than the average.

Early bundles featured independently developed, multi-platform games (including Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux platforms) provided without digital rights management (DRM). Later bundles have included those geared towards games from established developers, games for Android-based devices, bundles promoting game jams, and in one case, a bundle consisting of mainstream titles from a major publisher. Sales of bundles are split between the developers/creators, the Humble Bundle operators, and one or more charities including Child's Play, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, charity: water, and the American Red Cross, with the buyer able to set the revenue split between these groups.

The first bundle was organized and managed by Wolfire Games. Beginning with the second bundle a separate company spun-off, Humble Bundle, Inc., was founded with financial investment with the sole purpose of organizing and managing the sale of these bundles. Several of the bundles have brought in over $1 million; the twenty-one completed bundles as of February 2013 have raised more than $33.2 million. The Humble Bundle approach has created a number of similar efforts to offer "pay what you want" bundles for smaller titles, including Indie Gala and Indie Royale.

Concept

The idea for the Bundle was from Jeff Rosen of Wolfire Games. Rosen describes the inspiration coming to him through similar sales of bundle packages on the Steam platform. Rosen had noted that such sales would have viral word-of-mouth spread across the Internet. Influence also came from a previous "pay-what-you-want" sale for World of Goo upon the title's first anniversary; over 57,000 copies of the game were purchased during this sale, generating over US$117,000 after considering PayPal handling fees. Rosen by this point was well connected with other independent developers, for example his brother David is listed as being a game tester for the Penumbra series, and Penumbra's composer Mikko Tarmia is now contributing to Wolfire Games' upcoming game project Overgrowth. Wolfire had also recently teamed with Unknown Worlds Entertainment to offer a bundle based on their Natural Selection 2 game. The porter of Lugaru to Linux was Ryan C. Gordon, who was also responsible for porting Aquaria to Linux. With his close ties to these independent developers, as well as Ron Carmel of 2D Boy, Rosen was able to assemble the package, taking advantage of merchant sales systems offered by PayPal, Amazon Payments, and Google Checkout to minimize the cost of transactions and distribution. The site later added the option to pay via Bitcoin.

Though achieving word of mouth was a key element of the potential success of the bundle, Rosen also recognized that the process to purchase the Bundles had to be simple; including elements like user account registration or the use of a secondary download client would have potentially driven away sales. Rosen also sought to include charities in the bundle, allowing the purchaser to choose how to distribute the funds between the developers and charities. Rosen believed Child's Play was a worthwhile cause that brought video games to hospitalized children and helped to fight the stigma of video games, while he selected the Electronic Frontier Foundation to support their anti-DRM stance. The means of "pay-what-you-want" would allow purchasers to simply give the money to the charities, but Rosen felt this was not an issue and would "consider that a success" of the sale. Rosen and Wolfire employee John Graham provided technical support during the sales, handling thousands of requests through a few all-night email and chat sessions.

In April 2011, it was announced that Sequoia Capital had provided venture capital of $4.7 million towards future Humble Indie Bundle development. A dedicated team of about ten employees created by this fund oversee the Humble Bundle; they work with developers to determine scheduling and availability of games, and make decisions about which games to include within the bundles, asking themselves "will this be exciting for gamers", according to Richard Esguerra, one of the current employees. The full arrangements with developers to create the bundle typically conclude a month before the bundle goes live. The Humble Bundle group earns about 15% of the total funds raised, which goes back towards paying for bandwidth costs and to develop new features for the site.

Humble Store

The Humble Store is an extension of the sales system developed for managing the Humble Bundles. It offers the capabilities of the payment and customer services that they had created for the various Bundles to independent developers as an alternate marketplace for these titles. According to Joshua Knoles of the Humble Bundle team, they "wanted to create something that would allow developers to easily sell their games through their own web site as well as provide a painless buying experience for purchasers". Once developers have signed on with the Humble Store, they are given a widget that they can include on their web site which allows users to purchase the game (the Humble Store is usually inaccessible unless one directly searches for the widget for a particular game). In some cases, such as with FTL: Faster Than Light and Sportsfriends, the developers used the Humble Store to provide tier rewards during their crowd funding phase using sites like Kickstarter. As with the Bundles, once purchased the buyer has access to all software titles from the store at any time. Ben Kuchera of "Penny Arcade Reports" compares the Humble Store as a potential competitor to virtual storefronts like Steam, offering a more personable level of service to developers and customers than these larger systems.

Humble Weekly Sales

Following the conclusion of the Humble Android Bundle 5 in March 2013, the site announced new Weekly sales that feature the same pay-what-you-want for a single title, starting with the game Bastion. As with the regular bundles, each weekly sale has several tiered payment options. Aside from only lasting one week instead of two and running consecutively, the sales work exactly like the bundles.

Bundles

Since its inception, the Humble Indie Bundle offerings are typically a two-week period where between three to five games are offered at a pay-what-you-want model. Most bundles have featured added bonuses that are announced mid-way through the period as added incentive for purchasing the games; previous purchases automatically receive these bonuses. More recent bundles have included a "beat-the-average" bonus should the purchaser contribute more than the current average price others have performed. Other bundles have featured game soundtracks as either part of the core bundle or as an extra reward. With the DRM-free nature of the offered games, the source code for several games has also been included as part of the bundle's offerings.

The purchaser is able to name any price for the bundle. The Humble Bundle website interface gives users the chance to determine how to distribute their contribution, defaulting to a specific split between the developers, the charities for that event and a "Humble tip" which is used to cover hosting and other costs of the bundle. The user, however, can choose to give all or none to any of these groups, or any combination of these. In later bundles, purchasers can also buy the bundle as a gift for others. Games are typically available as standalone clients for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux-based systems; in many cases, the bundles represent the debut of a game on the latter two platforms. The purchaser can also obtain redeemable codes for the games on services like Steam or Desura. To avoid abuse with these services, more recent bundles have required a minimum purchase price of $1.

Main bundles

Humble Indie Bundle

The first Humble Indie Bundle went on sale from May 4 through May 11, 2010. It included World of Goo by 2D Boy, Aquaria by Bit Blot, Gish by Cryptic Sea, Penumbra: Overture by Frictional Games, and Lugaru HD by Wolfire Games. Furthermore, three studios offered a further incentive for purchasers during the sale, in that if more than US$1 million was raised by the effort, the source code for Gish, Penumbra and Lugaru would then be offered. Midway through the sale period, Wolfire Games was approached by Amanita Design studios, who wanted to help contribute to the cause in their own way, by donating their game Samorost 2 to the bundle, allowing those who already had purchased the bundle to further download that title.

Sales breakdown across systems of the first Humble Indie Bundle by the number of donations (top) and dollar value of the donations (bottom)

The promotion was met with what the organizers described as a strong success, achieving more than US$1 million in sales within the week from approximately 116,000 donations. After the extension, the total amount of money raised by the effort was in excess of $1,270,000. Based on the distribution set by users, the two charities received about 31% of the total money raised, while each of the five developers saw an average of US$166,000 in sales. About half of the sales were to Microsoft Windows platforms, while the MacOS X and Linux sales roughly equally split the rest. By tracking pricing, Wolfire Games found that Linux users were the most generous, paying about US$14 per bundle, followed by MacOS X users (US$10) and Windows users (US$7–8). Rosen noted the presence of donations as large as $3333 and $1337 near the final hours of the sale, and believes social link-sharing sites like Reddit helped them to reach the $1 million milestone. As a result of reaching the US$1 million goal, the source code for the game engines for Gish, Penumbra, Lugaru, and, due to the overwhelming success, Aquaria, was made available under the GNU General Public License; art, music, and other creative assets for these games were not included. Wolfire also extended the offer on the sale for an additional four days.

While many of the included games were available on Valve's Steam platform, the bundle was not initially integrated with Steam. On December 9, 2010, seven months after the bundle's release, a Steam product key was emailed to purchasers of the bundle that allowed most of the bundle to be downloaded from Steam. This made downloading and playing the bundle more convenient for Steam users and also allowed Steam users to collect Steam achievements from the bundle games that implemented them. Samorost 2 was added to the Steam accounts of those who had redeemed their codes for the Humble Indie Bundle from June 1, 2011 and onwards.

Humble Indie Bundle 2

With the success of the first bundle, a second Humble Indie Bundle was launched on December 14, 2010. The bundle featured Braid by Jonathan Blow, Cortex Command by Data Realms, Machinarium by Amanita Design, Osmos by Hemisphere Games, and Revenge of the Titans by Puppy Games. Charitable donations continued to go towards Child's Play and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The new bundle included the launch of new Linux ports for Braid and Cortex Command, while another game Revenge of the Titans was first made available for all three platforms as part of the bundle. While Wolfire Studios is still hosting and managing the sale and post-sale downloads, they do not have any games in the bundle; instead, they have allowed for purchasers to tip Wolfire while paying for the games in the bundle.

The second Bundle was able to break $500,000 in sales within one day. Sales surpassed $1 million about 5 days into the sale, upon which purchasers were able to unlock the games on Steam and the Desura digital download service. As a promotion for the second bundle the first bundle was added to all bundles that were purchased at that point and to all later purchases that contributed more than the average chosen price. Since the sale exceeded $1.75M, Puppy Games has also released the source code for Revenge of the Titans under a BSD-like license while reserving all rights to almost all game assets. The sale cleared $1.8 million in sales after ten days of sales. Similar to the first bundle, around 50% of the total donations were from MacOS X and Linux users, which Rosen later identified as a strong market for indie game developers.

Humble Indie Bundle 3

VVVVVV featured in Humble Indie Bundle 3.

The fourth Humble Bundle, but the third carrying the Indie title, was launched on July 26, 2011. The bundle featured Crayon Physics Deluxe by Kloonigames, Cogs by Lazy 8 Studios, VVVVVV by Terry Cavanagh, Hammerfight by Kranx Productions, and And Yet It Moves by Broken Rules. Charitable donations continued to go towards Child's Play and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. In the case of VVVVVV, the game was not only updated to run on Linux machines, but featured a new completely rebuilt game engine in C++ instead of on the Adobe Flash platform, and included a level editor and several levels submitted by other indie developers. These changes were prompted by the opportunity for VVVVVV to be featured as part of the upcoming bundle. On August 1, 2011 the game Steel Storm was added as a "Bonus Game" for all who purchase the bundle. Midway through the sale, purchasers were given the opportunity to play Minecraft until August 14, 2011. On August 3, 2011, the Humble Indie Bundle 2 was given to those who had bought Bundle 3 before that date. To obtain it after that date, users must pay over the current Average, at the time they decide to purchase Bundle 3. On August 5, 2011, Atom Zombie Smasher was added as a bonus game to anyone who purchased the Humble Indie Bundle 3.

Within 17 hours, the Bundle had broken $500,000 in total sales with over 107,000 bundles purchased, a significant improvement relative to the Frozenbyte bundle. The sale broke $1 million less than a week from its onset. Sales hit $2 million on August 8, finishing up with more than $2.1M in revenue.

Humble Indie Bundle 4

On December 13, 2011, the fourth main Humble Indie Bundle was released. The bundle included five games, Jamestown by Final Form Games, Bit.Trip Runner by Gaijin Games, Super Meat Boy by Team Meat, Shank by Klei Entertainment and NightSky by Nicalis. Paying more than the current average price grants the buyer two additional games: Cave Story+ by Nicalis and Gratuitous Space Battles by Positech Games. This is also the first bundle to benefit the American Red Cross. A vote by the developers of games included in the Bundle preferred the American Red Cross to the Electronic Frontier Foundation for this bundle. Within a day, the Humble Indie Bundle 4 surpassed $1 million in revenue, faster than previous bundles. Later in the sale, soundtracks for all the games were added as a free bonus to anyone who purchased the Bundle.

A further addition to the sale was the inclusion of five original games from the 3rd Bundle along with their soundtracks; these were made available to anyone that had purchased the 4th Bundle before their addition and to anyone that purchases the Bundle at higher than the average price.

The sale concluded with more than $2.37 million in revenue and over 435,000 bundles sold. The sale also saw the largest donations of $16,005.27 and $8,542 to the project from the "Humble Brony Bundle", a group made up of "brony" fans for the show My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, and Markus "Notch" Persson, the developer of Minecraft, respectively, due to a friendly wager between the two.

Humble Indie Bundle V

File:Humble indie bundle v promo art.jpg

Promotional artwork created by Jen Zee of Supergiant Games for the Humble Indie Bundle V, showing the characters of (from top, clockwise) the Scythian from Sword & Sworcery, Raz from Psychonauts, the monster from Amnesia, the nameless boy and spider from Limbo and the Kid and a Squirt from Bastion

The Humble Indie Bundle V was launched on May 31, 2012. It included Amnesia: The Dark Descent by Frictional Games, Limbo by Playdead, Psychonauts by Double Fine Productions, Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP by Capybara Games, and their respective soundtracks. Paying more than the average also allowed purchase of Bastion by Supergiant Games and its soundtrack. Proceeds from the sales go to the EFF and Child's Play charities. The minimum price for Steam keys was reduced back from $5 to $1 with this bundle. While the bundle continued the tradition of having an associated video to announce the titles in the bundle, the video for the fifth bundled included the voicework of Logan Cunningham as the narrator from Bastion, and footage of Tim Schafer, the president of Double Fine Productions. Similarly, while the Humble Bundle team would normally create their own artwork to promote the sale, Jen Zee of Supergiant Games and artist for Bastion provided a promo image in Bastion's style representing all the games in the Bundle. This bundle also featured the first time that Linux users could download and manage the games and supporting software libraries as software packages through the Ubuntu Software Center instead of having to collect and download all the components themselves or use a separate client such as Desura; this process was set up by Canonical Ltd. to make it easier for Linux users to obtain the games and help promote the Ubuntu Linux operating system as a viable gaming platform.

This bundle was considered the best bundle to date by several outlets, noting that the respective games are generally considered as some of the best indie titles in the last few years. Amnesia, Bastion, Limbo, and Superbrothers have won several Independent Games Festival awards, with Bastion and Limbo having also been nominated and won various industry-wide commendations. Psychonauts itself was considered one of the top games during its release in 2005, and remains an industry favorite. Some journalists questioned the "indie" nature of the bundle, as Bastion, Limbo, and Psychonauts were originally distributed through large publishers, but Esguerra stated that all the developers for the games in this bundle fully control the intellectual property rights for the titles, giving them independent control over those releases. Over $1.8 million through more than 244,000 purchases were made within the first 15 hours of coming live, making it the fastest-selling bundle to date, and subsequently surpassed the total sales of the Humble Indie Bundle 4 within 3 days of launch.

On June 7, three more games were added to the bundle: Braid by Number None, Inc., Super Meat Boy by Team Meat and Lone Survivor by Superflat Games for those who had either previously purchased the bundle or bought it afterwards beating the current average price. Total sales broke $4 million a little over a week into the sale, after these additions. As with the previous main bundle, Markus Persson and the Humble Brony Bundle continued their spontaneous rivalry in one-upping each other in their donated amounts. The sale completed with more than $5.1M in total sales with nearly 600,000 bundles sold.

Humble Indie Bundle 6

Dustforce was included for those who beat the average in the sixth bundle.

The sixth main bundle was launched on September 18, 2012, and included Torchlight by Runic Games, Rochard by Recoil Games, Shatter by Sidhe Interactive, S.P.A.Z. (Space Pirates and Zombies) by Minmax Games, and Vessel by Strange Loop Games; those that paid more than the current average also received Dustforce by Hitbox Team. Purchases included the soundtracks for all games excluding Vessel, which lacks a soundtrack. EFF and Child's Play remained as charities for this bundle. On September 25, four additional games and their respective soundtracks were added to the package for those that had already purchased the bundle, or paid more than the current average: Bit.Trip Runner by Gaijin Games, Gratuitous Space Battles by Positech Games, Jamestown: Legend of the Lost Colony by Final Form Games, and Wizorb by Tribute Games. Upon conclusion, the bundle had brought in more than $2 million with more than 316,000 total bundles sold.

Humble Indie Bundle 7

Humble Indie Bundle 7 was launched on December 19, 2012, including The Binding of Isaac by Edmund McMillen and Florian Himsl, Closure by Eyebrow Interactive, Shank 2 by Klei Entertainment, Snapshot by Retro Affect and Indie Game: The Movie by BlinkWorks; those that paid more than the current average also received Legend of Grimrock by Almost Human and Dungeon Defenders by Trendy Entertainment (Including all DLC). Purchases included the soundtracks for all games excluding The Binding of Isaac. EFF and Child's Play remained as charities for this bundle. On December 27, 2012, three additional games were added to those that already paid for the bundle or those that beat the average: Edmund McMillen's The Basement Collection, Studio Pixel's Cave Story+, and KPULV's Offspring Fling, along with their associated soundtracks.

Humble Indie Bundle 8

Humble Indie Bundle 8 was launched on May 28 2013, including Little Inferno, Awesomenauts, Capsized, Thomas was Alone, and Dear Esther. Customers who paid above the average also received Proteus and Hotline Miami.

Game or developer-specific bundles

Several game- or developer-specific bundles have run through the Humble Indie Bundle, featuring games solely from one publisher. In some cases, one or more third-parties games were added to the Bundle to extend the offering. In the case of the Humble Botanicula Debut featuring games by Amanita Design, the bundle including a digital download of an animated featured film created by one of Amanita's developers.

The origin of these bundles came from Frozenbyte. Frozenbyte had been considering raising money for its continued game development through a pay-what-you-want sale for quite some time, but was unsure how to implement such a payment and distribution system and were worried that if they attempted to do such a sale on their own it would not generate enough interest. Impressed by the previous bundles, they contacted John Graham and Jeffrey Rosen who agreed to the idea of making a bundle entirely composed of Frozenbyte titles. Following the success of this bundle, other developers approached the Humble Bundle group to participate in a similar manner.

Humble Frozenbyte Bundle

Trine was part of the Humble Frozenbyte Bundle.

The third Humble Bundle sale started on April 12, 2011, and featured five games from the indie developer Frozenbyte, including Trine, Shadowgrounds, and Shadowgrounds Survivor, for Microsoft Windows, MacOS X, and Linux. It also contained an executable version along with source code for an unfinished game, Jack Claw, and a pre-order for their upcoming game, Splot. Within three days of the launch of the sale, it had raised more than $550,000. By April 22, 2011, the Bundle had surpassed $700,000, at which point Frozenbyte added the source code for both Shadowgrounds games, a level editor for Trine, Mac OS and Linux versions of Jack Claw (in addition to the Windows version), and a demo for Splot. The timeframe for purchasing this bundle ended at midnight on April 26, 2011. Most of the money generated by the sale for Frozenbyte went to finishing the development of Trine 2.

Humble Frozen Synapse Bundle

On September 28, 2011, the Humble Frozen Synapse Bundle was announced. Originally the bundle only included the game Frozen Synapse. On September 30, the game Trauma was added as a free bonus; the game SpaceChem was added in a similar manner on October 5. Paying more than the average price would also entitle the purchaser to the Humble Frozenbyte Bundle games. The bundle closed with more than $1.1 million in total revenue.

Humble Voxatron Debut

On October 31, 2011, the Humble Voxatron Debut was released. One game, Voxatron by Lexaloffle Games, was initially included. The bundle ran for 14 days. At the time of the bundle's release, the game was labeled as Voxatron Alpha. The Binding of Isaac and Blocks That Matter were added on the following day. On November 9, 2011, four more games were added to the bundle as a free bonus, three from the developers of Voxatron - Zen Puzzle Garden, Chocolate Castle and Jasper's Journeys, and one co-developed by one of The Binding of Isaac developers, Gish. At closing, the debut raised $902,453.

Humble Introversion Bundle

On November 22, 2011, the Humble Introversion Bundle was released. The bundle included four games by Introversion Software: Darwinia, Multiwinia, DEFCON and Uplink. If the average price was beaten, two more games were given to the buyer: Aquaria by Bit Blot and Crayon Physics Deluxe by Kloonigames. Two technology demos by Introversion were also included, only for Windows, one including destructible Voxel buildings, the other showing the procedural generation of a city. On November 29, 2011, an additional game was added, Dungeons of Dredmor by Gaslamp Games. The source code of all the released Introversion games (excluding the technology demos) was also made available to the buyers.

Humble Bundle Mojam

Mojang, the developers of the game Minecraft, announced the "Humble Bundle Mojam", an event starting on February 17, 2012, and lasting for 60 hours. During this time, Mojang crafted a brand-new game from scratch, called Catacomb Snatch. Using the results of a poll in which both the most and least voted for categories were mixed together, the game features a RTS-Shoot 'em up genre and Steampunk Ancient Egypt theme. The Humble Indie Bundle website featured live-stream footage of the development, and took donations; those who donated received access to the game not only once it was completed, but when the developers released stable builds during the event. The bundle also featured Fists of Resistance from Oxeye Game Studio and The Broadside Express from Wolfire Games. Oxeye Game Studio's game used the secondary options from the poll, creating a Dungeon crawler-Beat 'em up with a Post apocalyptic World War II theme, while Wolfire Games created a game with the same genre and theme as Mojang's Catacomb Snatch.

The 60 hours ended with a total of over $440,000 sales, and over 79,000 bundles sold. However, the sale was temporarily extended, allowing for "last chance" purchases. The sale officially ended with 81,581 bundles distributed for a total of $458,329.98. All funds were distributed to four charities: Child's Play, Electronic Frontier Foundation, charity: water and the American Red Cross.

Humble Botanicula Debut

The Humble Botanicula Debut launched on April 19, 2012, featuring titles from Amanita Design: Botanicula, Machinarium and Samorost 2, as well as their respective soundtracks. As named, the Bundle was coincident with the release of Botanicula. Those paying more than the average also received Windosill and a digital copy of the film Kooky, of which Amanita Design founder Jakub Dvorský provided art direction for. Proceeds from the sales go to the charity World Land Trust. On April 26, 2012, the interactive music project Osada from Amanita Design was added to all purchases, as well as two albums from musicians that work with Amanita Design and behind-the-scenes bonuses for Botanicula and Kooky.

The Amnesia Fortnight

The Amnesia Fortnight Bundle was based on previous Amnesia Fortnights that Tim Schafer, president of Double Fine Productions, employed semi-annually since 2007.

The Amnesia Fortnight bundle was launched on November 19, 2012, running alongside the Humble Bundle for Android 4, and was done differently from other bundles. The bundle was based on a yearly practice from Double Fine since 2007, where all the developers take a two-week sabbatical and split into groups to make games. These games, made in only that two-week period, are used to test new ideas and to determine new project managers. Several of Double Fine's games, such as Iron Brigade and Stacking, came from the Amnesia Fortnight. After Double Fine's highly successful Kickstarter "Adventure" project in early 2012, Schafer saw the benefits of having a more open approach with game development, releasing information and media about games in development to get players more excited about the games early on instead of waiting for a large media push near the end of the development cycle. This led to the idea of the Amnesia Fortnight bundle, where Schafer allowed any of his employees to pitch an idea and allowing the public to narrow down the selection to a number that they could reasonably pursue. A total of 23 game concepts were available for voting by the public. Schafer opted to use the Humble Bundle approach as he considered the concept both profitable and charitable for all involved.

The basic bundle consists of the prototypes of Costume Quest and Happy Song, both products of previous prototyping periods (Costume Quest inspired the game of the same name, while elements of Happy Song were used to develop Sesame Street: Once Upon a Monster). Included as a beat-the-average incentive is Brazen, a prototype that combines aspects of Monster Hunter games with the atmosphere of Ray Harryhausen's fantasy movies. By donating a minimum of US$1.00, consumers not only obtain the Steam keys for said games, but also get to view and vote between the 23 possible prototype ideas of 2012. The Top 5 voted ideas will be made into prototypes which would be added to the bundle, with Double Fine streaming the entire game-making process and being documented by 2 Player Productions.

On November 26, the voting for the Amnesia Fortnight ended. The five ideas that were made into prototypes are Hack n' Slash, a Zelda-esque adventure game where the protagonist uses legitimate hacking exploits to progress through the game; Spacebase DF-9, a simulation game akin to Dwarf Fortress and Startopia where the player builds a space colony; The White Birch, where a girl climbs an ominous tower to find a lone birch tree in the style of Ico or Journey; Autonomous, a game where the player builds self-directing robots to survive in a futuristic, 80s-inspired junkyard wasteland; and Black Lake, a game where a hunter's daughter travels through a fairly-tale forest, tracking animals and purging evil from their dreams.

Humble THQ Bundle

On November 29, 2012, the Humble THQ Bundle was released. It featured the following games published by THQ: Darksiders, Metro 2033, Red Faction: Armageddon, Company of Heroes, Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts, and Company of Heroes: Tales of Valor. Users that paid more than the average price also received Saints Row: The Third. The American Red Cross and Child's Play were selected as charities for the bundle. On December 6 Titan Quest and Path to War DLC for Red Faction: Armageddon were added to the bundle for those that already purchased or otherwise paid more than the average; Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War - Game of the Year Edition was similarly added on December 10.

This bundle was notable because it was the first Humble Bundle primarily featuring games by a major publisher, as opposed to games by independent developers that were often self-published. In contrast to past Humble Bundles, the games in this bundle were only available as Steam keys for Windows users, instead of DRM-free multi-platform releases. The THQ Bundle brought in over $2.4 million in contributions within the first 24 hours of it going live. In the end, the bundle resulted in over 885,000 bundles sold with total revenues just exceeding $5 million.

THQ games would again be featured on the Humble Bundle site on March 26, 2013, as part of a Humble Weekly Sale.

Humble Bundle Mojam 2

On February 20, 2013, Mojang, the developers of the game Minecraft, announced the "Humble Bundle Mojam 2". Much like the first Mojam, Mojang would take suggestions for potential game ideas and develop a game from them in 78 hours. During this Mojam, other developers including Oxeye Game Studio, Wolfire Games, Vlambeer, Grapefrukt Games, and Ludosity also are making games for the event. All Proceeds are donated to charities consisting of the The Electronic Frontier Foundation and Block By Block. Donations included a $100,000 donation by an anonymous donor.

Humble Double Fine Bundle

The Humble Double Fine Bundle was launched on May 7, 2013, featuring Double Fine Productions titles for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux systems. The core bundle included Psychonauts (including two soundtracks), Costume Quest, and Stacking. Those paying more than the average would also receive Brütal Legend and its original soundtrack, along with the previously released "Amnesia Fortnight" bundle. The Bundle also added two flat price options that would include the above titles. At one level, the purchaser would become a "Slacker Backer" of Broken Age, the game being developed from the highly successful Kickstarter that occurred the year before, giving them the game and other early-access features. At a higher tier, the purchaser would also get a pair of t-shirts.

Android-based bundles

Like the above bundles, the Android-based bundles feature games that are available on both personal computer systems and Android-based mobile devices. The purchase of these bundles include the standalone clients for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux, redeemable codes for Steam and other services, and similar codes to access the games through Android application stores.

Humble Bundle for Android

The Humble Bundle for Android sale started on January 31, 2012, featuring games that had both Android and Windows, Mac OS X, and GNU/Linux versions. Three games, Edge, Osmos, and Anomaly: Warzone Earth were part of the core bundle, with World of Goo given if the buyer paid over the average price. Charity funds would go towards to Child's Play and the EFF. On February 9, Toki Tori was added to the bundle.[1] The bundle closed with over 150,000 sales and more than $920,000 in revenue.

Humble Bundle for Android 2

On March 19, 2012 the second Humble Bundle for Android was introduced. It contained the games Canabalt, Zen Bound 2, Cogs and Avadon: The Black Fortress as well as Swords & Soldiers for customers, who paid more than the average. On March 26 another game was added to the bundle; "Snuggle Truck" made its first android appearance. Soundtracks were included with all the Games, except Avadon: The Black Fortress. As with the previous Android Bundle, purchasers would receive copies of the games for both Android devices as well as Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, and GNU/Linux operating systems.

Humble Bundle for Android 3

The third Bundle based on Android games launched on August 15, 2012, and included Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, and Android-based versions of Fieldrunners (debuting on Linux), Bit.Trip Beat (debuting on Linux and Android), SpaceChem, and Uplink (debuting on Android), and their respective soundtracks. Those who paid more than the current average received Spirits (debuting on Windows, Linux, and Android) and its soundtrack for free. On August 22, games from the original Humble Bundle for Android (Anomaly: Warzone Earth, Edge, Osmos, and World of Goo) were also added to the Bundle. Charitable funds went to the EFF and Child's Play foundations.

Humble Bundle for Android 4

A fourth Android bundle began on November 8, 2012. At launch it included Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP, Eufloria, Crayon Physics Deluxe, Splice, and Waking Mars, with Machinarium being available if the customer chooses to pay above the average bundle price. On November 15, all the original games from the Humble Bundle for Android 2 (Avadon: The Black Fortress, Canabalt, Cogs, Zen Bound 2, and Swords and Soldiers) were included to those who bought the bundle before they were included or who paid above the average.

Humble Bundle with Android 5

The fifth Android bundle began on March 5, 2013. Initially, the bundle included Beat Hazard Ultra, Dynamite Jack, Solar 2, and Nightsky HD, along with the Humble Bundle 7 version of Dungeon Defenders (that is, with all the DLC) and Super Hexagon for buyers who purchased above the average price. On March 12, 2013, Splice, Crayon Physics Deluxe, and Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP were added to the bundle for purchasers who beat the average or bought the bundle before the addition of those three games.

Humble Mobile Bundle

The sixth Android bundle began on March 26, 2013. This bundle was named the Humble Mobile Bundle because it only featured Android versions of the games (Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X versions of the games were not included). The bundle initially included Anomaly Korea, Bladeslinger, Contre Jour, and Plants vs. Zombies, with Metal Slug 3 and The Room included for buyers that exceeded the average price. On April 2, 2013, Another World, Funky Smugglers, and Raiden Legacy were added to the bundle.

Humble Music Bundle

The first Humble Music Bundle was launched on July 26, 2012. Similar to the game bundles above, the Humble Music Bundle offered DRM-free versions, in either MP3 or FLAC formats, of five albums, Favoritism by MC Frontalot, Album Raises New and Troubling Questions by They Might Be Giants, Calling All Dawns by Christopher Tin, Best of the Valkyria Chronicles by Hitoshi Sakimoto, and Greatest Hit (Plus 13 Other Songs) by Jonathan Coulton. Paying more than the average also enabled users to obtain Twelve Remixes of Four Songs by OK Go. Selections from God of Love by Stereo Alchemy, the EP Front's Humble Remix Addendum by MC Frontalot, extras singles by OK Go and Jonathan Coulton, and the Valkyria 2 main theme music score for piano were added halfway before the bundle ended for those who pay more than the average, or already bought. Donations went to Child's Play and the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Humble eBook Bundle

On October 9, 2012, the Humble eBook Bundle was introduced. Six books (eight if the buyer paid more than the average) were available in PDF, MOBI, and EPUB formats, DRM-free: Signal to Noise, Old Man's War, Pirate Cinema, Pump Six, Zoo City, Invasion, Stranger Things Happen, and Magic for Beginners. The payment could be sent to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Child's Play, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, or the authors, as well as to the site itself. On October 16, five additional books were added to those that had previously bought the bundle or paid more than the average, the Penny Arcade anthologies Attack of the Bacon Robots and Epic Legends of the Magic Sword Kings; the Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal anthologies Save Yourself, Mammal! and The Most Dangerous Game, and xkcd: volume 0.

Analysis

Success

The first promotion was considered to be very successful. Rosen noted that they considered the million-dollar goal as a best-case scenario, but once the sale actually started, "it was immediately clear that we were on to something". Rosen would later attribute part of the success to Ars Technica writer Mike Thomspon, stating that he "immediately saw the potential" of the Bundle in an article written for the website just prior to the Bundle's sale period. Brandon Boyer of Boing Boing believed that it provided a model that "seems it could and should be repeated". The move to offer games in a price and manner that consumers were willing to buy was contrasted to larger software publishers that place artificial limitations on their content; Mike Masnick of Techdirt believed the Humble Bundle promotion worked as it "focus[ed] on giving people real reasons to buy, rather than just feeling entitled to define the terms under which they buy and looking for ways to limit those who want to interact with you in a different manner". The source for the promotion's website has been requested of Wolfire by several other groups, according to Rosen; Rosen continues to believe that many similar charitable sales can be seen in the future from the Humble Bundle's success. For future Bundles, Rosen desires to include lesser-known titles in contrast to World of Goo and Braid, but has had to already reject some developers' requests to be included in a Bundle, claiming the games' quality may tarnish the Humble Indie Bundle branding. Instead, he believes smaller games with no wide profile and are "legitimately good" would be ideal for inclusion in future Bundles.

As a result of the success of the bundle, other groups have started similar pay-what-you-want plans for other indie games, including "Indie Gala", "Indie Royale" and "Little Big Bunch".

PC Gamer named the Wolfire team as founders of the Humble Indie Bundle as their 2011 community heroes for their support of the indie game development market.

After the end of the Humble eBook Bundle, John Scalzi noted that various factors, such as brand name recognition, a lack of DRM, a focus on charity, the uniqueness of the bundle and its format, and the variety of included authors, all made the Humble eBook Bundle a success. Scalzi notes that while people who participate in Humble Bundles will get less in net profit than they would have without the bundle (due to the variable percentages patrons can donate and publishers taking their cut of proceeds), but in return receive greater volume (the Humble Bundle sold 42,000 copies of eBooks in two weeks, almost as much as the average monthly bestseller). In conclusion, Scalzi lauds the idea of the Humble Bundle, and notes to future contributors that while the bundle is low-margin, it's also low-risk.

Terrence Lee of Hitbox Team also mentions that the Humble Bundle was a success for their game Dustforce, even after the bundle ended. When Humble Bundle first called the team and asked if they could port the game to Linux and bundle it, the game sold about ten copies on Steam daily. The day the Humble Indie Bundle 6 came out with Dustforce in it, sales through the Humble Bundle skyrocketed to over 50,000 copies per day. While Hitbox Team only received $178,000 out of the $2 million Humble Bundle made, the increased number of players caused daily sales of the game to jump from less than a dozen to around 50–60 copies per day.

Piracy

Despite the ability to get the games at nearly zero cost, Wolfire Games estimate that 25% of the traceable downloads for the first Bundle have come from software piracy by links provided in some forums that bypass the payment screen to access the games; Wolfire further surmises additional piracy occurred through BitTorrent-type peer-to-peer sharing services. Rosen noted they purposely removed much of the DRM associated with games to appeal to those who would otherwise engage in software piracy, through both having the games ship without DRM and by having only limited copy protection on their website. Rosen also stated that for about ten users that emailed Wolfire about being unable to pay for the software, he personally donated on their behalf. Rosen comments that there may be legitimate reasons for those who appear to be pirating the game, including the inability to use the payment methods provided or that they had made a single large donation for multiple copies. However, he also considered that there are players that would simply forward the download links to "take pleasure in spreading the pirated links to their friends or anonymous buddies for fun". Wolfire Games did take action to stop predatory sites, such as the closely named "wollfire.com", from selling illegal copies of the bundle.

While aware of the presumed software piracy, Rosen says that Wolfire will take no steps to limit it, believing that "making the download experience worse for generous contributors in the name of punishing pirates doesn't really fit with the spirit of the bundle". Rosen noted that by offering the source code of the games as an incentive, they would hope that "the community will help build them up with the same vigor that crackers tear DRM down".

In preparing for the second Humble Indie Bundle sale, John Graham acknowledged that some may still download the game through illegal means, but also said that the organizers of the bundle gave their best effort to make the process of purchasing the games simple, and they also wished to create a social impact with the sales by including contributions to Child's Play and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. An anonymous survey conducted by Wolfire for those who felt it necessary to acquire the second Bundle from other illegitimate sources showed that some preferred the option of using peer-to-peer sharing services like BitTorrent to improve the speed and reliability of the download; as a result, Wolfire added the option to download the games through BitTorrent, hoping to entice more people to acquire the game legitimately.

Software "counterfeits"

Several games in the Humble Indie Bundles have been released as open-source software as a result of the Bundles reaching certain sales levels. One such game was Wolfire's own Lugaru HD, where they released the engine under the GNU General Public License, and also included the various art assets, level designs, and other creative elements under a freely redistributable license for personal use. Their intent was to allow programmers to experiment and improve the game's engine using the associated assets. Wolfire later began selling the title Lugaru HD on the Mac App Store for $9.99. However, some time afterwards, another company, iCoder, used the open-source resources to recreate the same game for the App Store, charging only $0.99 for their version of Lugaru. iCoder claims they have the right to recreate and charge for the game under the GNU license, but Jeffery Rosen notes that this did not apply to the art assets. Also, the GPL license is not compatible with Apple's AppStore. The iCoder version was taken down from the App Store after about a week since Wolfire notified Apple of the issue, though so far no explanation has been given by Apple. As the iCoder version of the application was popular, being the 60th most downloaded game application prior to its removal, Wolfire offered those who purchased the iCoder version a free copy of their version and codes to unlock the game from within Steam.

Rosen notes that the incident may discourage developers from releasing their source in the future.

Abuse

The Humble Indie Bundle 4 overlapped with a large holiday sale on the Steam software service, which offered numerous prizes by completing some achievements associated with the offered games in Steam, including entries into a raffle to win every game on the Steam service. During this overlap, Humble Bundle found that some users were abusing the system, paying the minimum amount ($0.01) for the Bundle, registering new Steam accounts, and using the newly purchased games to improve their chances for the Steam raffle. Humble Bundle considered this "unfair to legitimate entrants" in the Steam contest, and to stop it, the company altered the sale so that only those who paid more than $1.00 would receive Steam keys for the games.

Criticism

Alexander Zubov of Kot-in-Action Creative Artel who developed the Steel Storm games complained in an interview about the trouble he had getting his games accepted into the Bundles, originally trying to push their game's first episode as a free bonus for the second Bundle, and then trying to get their full game into the third. Zubov recalls that he had heard "nothing back" until they made a "last minute decision" to include Steel Storm: Burning Retribution in the Humble Indie Bundle 3. Even then, Zubov further described his dissatisfaction with how payment was handled, saying that they were "offered a tiny-tiny fraction of what HIB3 made, a very small (compare to the profits of HIB3) fixed amount of money" even though, according to Zubov, "when Steel Storm was released as a bonus, their sales jumped up significantly." He also mentioned that despite claims by the organizers that their sales would "sky rocket just because [they] were in the HIB3", their actual amount of sales remained relatively constant.

Zubov did however note that their inclusion in the third bundle "did get a lot of users who redeemed their copy of Steel Storm on Steam and Desura" and that they hoped this would help keep their "current user base, which we gained with HIB3, interested in our upcoming games". He concluded his comments about his experiences by saying that "only time will tell if HIB3 was [an] awesome deal or not. Maybe, maybe not. If it works out as a long term investment, it will be awesome indeed. If not, I will never ever participate in such capacity (as a bonus item for a small fixed payout) in the future HIB bundles. We all do have bills to pay and families to feed, don't we?"

The technology website Phoronix has also reported that there has also been some detractors of the Humble Frozen Synapse Bundle, with editor Michael Larabel claiming that the Bundle does not seem to be "as popular as some of the past bundles" and that "the pace of sales isn't as fast as some of the other bundles." More importantly, he also explains that the "bundle has actually resulted in some complaints among gamers", with most of the complaints centred around that fact that originally there was "just one game being officially part of this bundle". Larabel does note that they did later add more games to the bundle as bonuses and that "adding more value to the bundle may generate some additional sales", but does conclude that the initially small offer has caused there to be less "interest among gamers this time around."

In the Humble Indie Bundle V, the game LIMBO was not provided in a native Linux version, but in a wrapper of the Windows version, built with CrossOver. At the time, this was the only game in any Bundle not to have a native Linux version. Its inclusion was criticized by some members of the Linux community, and a petition was started to protest the inclusion of non-native games in the Bundles.

In the Humble Bundle for Android 3, the game Uplink was delivered with DRM copy-protection measures, both in the android and the PC versions. A representative for Introversion stated on the forums that it was due to some leftover DRM code on the android version. Some save games were locked down, forcing the players to restart over. An update was later released that fixed this problem.

The Humble Botanicula Debut received some criticism, as Botanicula was previously offered for pre-order through other websites but at full price, while the Bundle offered a way to purchase it much cheaper. Amanita Design apologized for the mistake, and made up for the confusion by providing the game's soundtrack, art book, and a copy of Machinarium for all those who had pre-ordered the game.

The Humble THQ Bundle created more controversy around the Humble Bundle project. Some reporters such as Ben Kuchera for Penny Arcade Reports and Kyle Orland of Ars Technica were critical of the Humble Bundle platform for offering titles that were limited to Windows with DRM as part of the Humble THQ Bundle, which was counter to the spirit that the Humble Bundle project began as. The timing of the sale was also brought into question, as at the time, THQ had issued public statements of internal financial difficulties; Kuchera noted that several of the developers that were once within THQ's company have since been let go and would not see any money from the Humble Bundle sale. Humble Bundle co-founder John Graham replied to these complaints, stating that the THQ bundle is one of several other experiments for the Humble Bundle project in 2012, and that they are still committed to future bundles featuring smaller and indie games that run on multiple platforms without DRM. For THQ, the high interest in the bundle was considered to show that THQ games are still desired by the gaming audience, and was attributed as a reason for a 40% gain in their stock price on the bundles' announcement, and eventually settled to a net 30% gain after completion of the sale, though the company still remained in financial difficulty, and would avoid bankruptcy a few weeks later and delisting from NASDAQ a few weeks later. Twitter messages from THQ members further suggests that the requests for Linux versions of the games in the Bundle has prompted the company to consider the Linux platform as a viable market in the future.

List of games offered

Bundle	Period Offered	Title	Developer	Initial Release Year	Total Raised	Total purchases	Average price
Humble Indie Bundle	May 4–10*, 2010	World of Goo	2D Boy	2008	US$1.27+ M	138,813	$9.18
		Aquaria	Bit Blot	2007
		Gish	Cryptic Sea	2004
		Penumbra: Overture	Frictional Games	2007
		Lugaru HD	Wolfire Games	2005
		Samorost 2	Amanita Design	2007
	Samorost 2 added for free to the bundle on May 9, 2010. Aquaria, Gish, Lugaru HD and Penumbra were open-sourced as a result of the success of the sale. Steam redemption keys for the games, except Samorost 2, were distributed to the bundle customers on December 9, 2010. Samorost 2 included a separate soundtrack from the game Samorost 2 was, on June 1, 2011, made available on Steam, which makes the complete bundle redeemable on Steam. A discount for the other games in the Penumbra series was also offered.
Humble Indie Bundle 2	December 14–24, 2010	Braid	Jonathan Blow Number None Studios	2008	US$1.8+ M	232,855	$7.85
		Cortex Command	Data Realms LLC	2012
		Machinarium	Amanita Design	2009
		Osmos	Hemisphere Games	2009
		Revenge of the Titans	Puppy Games	2011
	Purchases before Dec 22, 2010 and those after which paid more than the average price also received the contents of the first Bundle, along with Steam keys for those. Cortex Command and Revenge of the Titans were still undergoing active development during the bundle sale; final versions would be made available to purchasers. The engine for Revenge of the Titans will be open-sourced as a result of success of the sale. Machinarium, Osmos, and Revenge of the Titans included a separate soundtrack from each game Steam and Desura redemption keys for all games, except Cortex Command and Revenge of the Titans, were distributed to the bundle customers. The Desura keys also included all the games from the first Bundle for the purchasers that paid above the average, excluding Gish and Aquaria, which are not available on Desura. Revenge of the Titans was released and automatically unlocked for people who activated the Bundle through Steam and Desura on March 17, 2011. Cortex Command Steam key was added on September 28, 2012 due to its release on Steam the same day.
Humble Frozenbyte Bundle	April 12–26, 2011	Trine	Frozenbyte	2009	US$0.9+ M	183,219	$4.97
		Shadowgrounds	Frozenbyte	2005
		Shadowgrounds Survivor	Frozenbyte	2007
		Splot	Frozenbyte	Unreleased Pre-Order
		Jack Claw	Frozenbyte	Unreleased Prototype Bonus
	Steam and Desura redemption keys for all games, except Splot and Jack Claw, as well as an OnLive key for Trine, were distributed to the bundle customers. Source code for Shadowgrounds and Shadowgrounds Survivor (after reaching $700k) Level editor for Trine Demo for Splot
Humble Indie Bundle 3	July 26 – August 9, 2011	Crayon Physics Deluxe	Kloonigames	2009	US$2.16+ M	372,399	$5.83
		Cogs	Lazy 8 Studios	2009
		VVVVVV	Terry Cavanagh	2010
		Hammerfight	Kranx Productions	2009
		And Yet It Moves	Broken Rules	2009
		Steel Storm	Kot-in-Action Creative Artel	2010
		Atom Zombie Smasher	Blendo Games	2011
	Purchasers before August 3 as well as purchasers paying more than the average price after that date received the contents of the second Bundle. Steam and Desura redemption keys for all games, except some were not immediately available on Steam for Mac. Purchasers were also entitled to play Minecraft until August 14, 2011. Steel Storm by Kot-in-Action Creative Artel was added for free to the bundle on August 1, 2011. Atom Zombie Smasher by Blendo Games was added for free to the bundle on August 5, 2011. The soundtracks for all the games, excluding Steel Storm and Atom Zombie Smasher were added on December 20, 2011.
Humble Frozen Synapse Bundle	September 28 – October 12, 2011	Frozen Synapse	Mode 7 Games	2011	US$1.11+ M	231,810	$4.81
		TRAUMA	Krystian Majewski	2010
		SpaceChem	Zachtronics Industries	2011
	Purchasers paying more than the average price received the contents of the Frozenbyte Bundle. Steam, Direct2Drive, and Desura redemption keys for all games, except Splot and Jack Claw, as well as an OnLive key for Trine. Frozen Synapse included a separate soundtrack. TRAUMA by Krystian Majewski was added as a free bonus to the bundle on September 30, 2011. SpaceChem by Zachtronics Industries was added to the bundle on October 5, 2011; a separate soundtrack followed October 7, 2011.
Humble Voxatron Debut	October 31 – November 14, 2011	Voxatron	Lexaloffle	Alpha release	US$0.9+ M	172,270	$5.24
		Blocks That Matter	Swing Swing Submarine	2011
		The Binding of Isaac	Edmund McMillen and Florian Himsl	2011
		Gish	Cryptic Sea	2004
		Chocolate Castle	Lexaloffle	2007
		Jasper's Journeys	Lexaloffle	2008
		Zen Puzzle Garden	Lexaloffle	2003
	Blocks That Matter and The Binding of Isaac were added on November 1, 2011 for those having already purchased the bundle and those that pay more than the average bundle price. Gish, Chocolate Castle, Jasper's Journeys, and Zen Puzzle Garden were added as developer bonuses on November 9, 2011. Steam redemption keys were made available for The Binding of Isaac, Blocks That Matter, and Gish.
Humble Introversion Bundle	November 22 – December 6, 2011	Darwinia	Introversion Software	2005	US$0.77+ M	190,261	$4.09
		Uplink	Introversion Software	2001
		Multiwinia	Introversion Software	2008
		DEFCON	Introversion Software	2006
		Voxel Tech Demo	Introversion Software	Tech Demo
		City Generator Tech Demo	Introversion Software	Tech Demo
		Aquaria	Bit Blot	2007
		Crayon Physics Deluxe	Kloonigames	2009
		Dungeons of Dredmor	Gaslamp Games	2011
	Steam redemption keys were available for all the games, except the tech demos. Voxel Tech Demo and City Generator Tech Demo were available only for Windows. Aquaria and Crayon Physics Deluxe were available for those who paid more than the average bundle price. The source code for all the released Introversion games was made available to the Bundle buyers on November 29, 2011. Dungeons of Dredmor was added to the Bundle on November 29, 2011 and was available for those that paid more than the average bundle price. Desura redemption keys for Introversion games were made available to all customers on December 2, 2011. Desura redemption keys for Dungeons of Dredmor were made available to all customers on December 6, 2011.
Humble Indie Bundle 4	December 13–27, 2011	Jamestown	Final Form Games	2011	US$2.37+ M	435,250	$5.45
		Bit.Trip Runner	Gaijin Games	2011
		Super Meat Boy	Team Meat	2010
		Shank	Klei Entertainment	2010
		NightSky HD	Nicalis	2011
		Cave Story+	Studio Pixel	2011
		Gratuitous Space Battles	Positech Games	2009
	Cave Story+ and Gratuitous Space Battles were available to those who paid more than the average bundle price. Steam redemption keys were available for all the games, as of December 20 only those who pay over one dollar receive Steam redemption keys. On December 16, 2011, soundtracks for all the games were made available to all buyers. Purchasers before December 20 as well as those who paid more than the average after that date received the contents of the third Humble Indie Bundle, as well as Steam keys for those games. Steel Storm and Atom Zombie Smasher were not included.
Humble Bundle for Android	January 31 – February 14, 2012	Edge	Mobigame	2008	US$0.93+ M	150,591	$6.18
		Osmos	Hemisphere Games	2009
		Anomaly: Warzone Earth	11 bit studios	2011
		World of Goo	2D Boy	2008
		Toki Tori	Two Tribes B.V.	2010
	World of Goo was included for those that paid more than the current average price. Toki Tori was added to the Bundle on February 9, 2012. Soundtracks for all games was included in the bundle. Steam redemption keys were available for all games in addition to Android APK downloads. An Android updater app will be made available by Humble Bundle, Inc. in the future.
Humble Bundle Mojam	February 17–19, 2012	Catacomb Snatch	Mojang	2012	US$0.45+ M	81,583	$5.62
		Fists of Resistance	Oxeye Game Studios	2012
		The Broadside Express	Wolfire Games	2012
	All 3 of the games were created over the course of the event. The soundtracks for Catacomb Snatch and The Broadside Express were included in the bundle.
Humble Bundle for Android 2	March 19 – April 2, 2012	Swords & Soldiers	Ronimo Games and Two Tribes B.V.	2009	US$0.68+ M	106,597	$6.40
		Canabalt	Semi Secret Software	2009
		Zen Bound 2	Secret Exit	2010
		Cogs	Lazy 8 Studios	2009
		Avadon: The Black Fortress	Spiderweb Software	2011
		Snuggle Truck	Owlchemy Labs	2011
	The soundtracks for all games except Avadon were included in the bundle. Swords & Soldiers was included for those that paid more than the current average price. Steam redemption keys were available for all games (with the exception of Canabalt) in addition to Android APK downloads. Snuggle Truck was added to the Bundle on March 26, 2012.
Humble Botanicula Debut	April 19 – May 3, 2012	Botanicula	Amanita Design	2012	US$0.82+ M	92,553	$8.89
		Machinarium	Amanita Design	2009
		Samorost 2	Amanita Design	2005
		Kooky	Jan Svěrák	2010
		Windosill	Vectorpark	2009
		Osada	Amanita Design	2011
	Kooky is a Czech action comedy film The soundtracks for Botanicula, Machinarium and Samorost 2 were included in the bundle. Kooky and Windosill were included for those who paid more than the current average price. Steam redemption keys for all games, except Kooky & Osada, were available for those who paid more than $5. On April 26, 2012, all purchasers received Osada, behind-the-scenes bonuses for Kooky and Botanicula and the albums Zorya and HU from artists Floex and DVA respectively.
Humble Indie Bundle V	May 31 – June 13, 2012	Bastion	Supergiant Games	2011	US$5.10+ M	599,003	$8.53
		Amnesia: The Dark Descent	Frictional Games	2010
		Limbo	Playdead	2010
		Psychonauts	Double Fine Productions	2005
		Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP	Capybara Games	2012
		Braid	Number None, Inc.	2008
		Super Meat Boy	Team Meat	2010
		Lone Survivor	Superflat Games	2012
	The soundtracks for Amnesia: The Dark Descent, Limbo, Psychonauts and Sword & Sworcery EP are included in the bundle. Both Bastion & its soundtrack are included for those who paid more than the current average price. Steam redemption keys are available for those who paid at least $1. Braid, Super Meat Boy and Lone Survivor were added to the bundle on June 7 and were included for those who paid more than the current average price. The games were made available to all those who had purchased the bundle before their inclusion. All the games could be redeemed in the Ubuntu Software Center.
Humble Music Bundle	July 26 – August 9, 2012	Twelve Mixes of Four Songs	OK Go	2010	US$0.40+ M	48,685	$8.37
		Favoritism	MC Frontalot	2012
		Album Raises New and Troubling Questions	They Might Be Giants	2011
		Calling All Dawns	Christopher Tin	2009
		Best of the Valkyria Chronicles	Hitoshi Sakimoto	2012
		Jonathan Coulton's Greatest Hit (Plus 13 Other Songs)	Jonathan Coulton	2012
	Twelve Mixes of Four Songs was included for those who paid more than the current average price. Included with the bundle was bonus content: sheet music for a Valkyria Chronicles theme, assorted extra songs from Coulton, Frontalot, and OK Go, and selections from Studio Alchemy's God of Love.
Humble Bundle for Android 3	August 15–29, 2012	Fieldrunners	Subatomic Studios / Hands-On Mobile	2008	US$0.82+ M	122,323	$6.78
		Bit.Trip Beat	Gaijin Games	2009
		SpaceChem	Zachtronics Industries	2011
		Uplink	Introversion Software	2001
		Spirits	Spaces of Play	2010
		World of Goo	2D Boy	2008
		Osmos	Hemisphere Games	2009
		Anomaly: Warzone Earth	11 bit studios	2011
		Edge	Mobigame & Two Tribes	2011
	Soundtracks for Fieldrunners, Bit.trip Beat, SpaceChem, and Uplink were free for all buyers. Spirits and its soundtrack were free to those that purchased more than the average price. Android versions of SpaceChem and Uplink are designed for larger, tablet-based systems. World of Goo, Osmos, Anomaly: Warzone Earth and Edge were added to the bundle on August 22 and were included for those who paid more than the current average price. The games were made available to all those who had purchased the bundle before their inclusion. All the games could be redeemed in the Ubuntu Software Center.
Humble Indie Bundle 6	September 18 – October 2, 2012	Torchlight	Runic Games	2009	US$2.05+ M	316,272	$6.48
		Rochard	Recoil Games	2011
		Shatter	Sidhe Interactive	2009
		S.P.A.Z. (Space Pirates and Zombies)	MinMax Games	2011
		Vessel	Strange Loop Games	2012
		Dustforce	Hitbox Team	2012
		Bit.Trip Runner	Gaijin Games	2010
		Gratuitous Space Battles	Positech Games	2009
		Jamestown: Legend of the Lost Colony	Final Form Games	2011
		Wizorb	Tribute Games	2012
	Dustforce was included to those that paid more than the current bundle average. Soundtracks for all games excluding Vessel (which lacks a soundtrack) were included in bundle. Vessel's Mac and Linux ports were not available at the time of the bundle release, but Humble Bundle promised they would be ready in around 72 hours. As of November 2012, the ports are still unavailable. Vessel's primary Mac/Linux developer Ethan Lee wrote a blog about rendering problems before the Humble Bundle release, and that the Linux port would be completed before the Mac port. Bit.Trip Runner, Gratuitous Space Battles, Jamestown, and Wizorb and their respective soundtracks were added on September 25, 2012, for all those that had already purchased the bundle, or to those that beat the current average. All the games could be redeemed in the Ubuntu Software Center.
Humble eBook Bundle	October 9–22, 2012	Signal to Noise	Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean	1989-1992	US$1.20+ M	84,220	$14.28
		Old Man's War	John Scalzi	2005
		Pirate Cinema	Cory Doctorow	2012
		Pump Six and Other Stories	Paolo Bacigalupi	2008
		Zoo City	Lauren Beukes	2010
		Invasion	Mercedes Lackey	2006
		Stranger Things Happen	Kelly Link	2000
		Magic for Beginners	Kelly Link	2005
		Penny Arcade Volume 1 – Attack of the Bacon Robots	Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik	2006
		Penny Arcade Volume 2 – Epic Legends of the Magic Sword Kings	Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik	2006
		Save Yourself, Mammal!: A Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal Collection	Zach Weinersmith	2011
		The Most Dangerous Game: A Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal Collection	Zach Weinersmith	2011
		xkcd: Volume 0	Randall Munroe	2010
	Signal to Noise and Old Man's War were included to those that paid more than the current bundle average. The Penny Arcade, Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, and xkcd collections were added on October 16, 2012, for those that had already paid for the bundle, or for those that paid more than the average afterward. Unlike the other books, which were in PDF, MOBI, or EPUB files, these five books and Signal to Noise only came in PDF and HD PDF formats.
Humble Bundle for Android 4	November 8–22, 2012	Waking Mars	Tiger Style Games	2012	US$1.12+ M	167,148	$6.71
		Splice	Cipher Prime Studios	2012
		Eufloria	Omni Systems	2009
		Crayon Physics Deluxe	Kloonigames	2009
		Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP	Capybara Games	2012
		Machinarium	Amanita Design	2009
		Swords & Soldiers	Ronimo Games and Two Tribes B.V.	2009
		Canabalt	Semi Secret Software	2009
		Zen Bound 2	Secret Exit	2010
		Cogs	Lazy 8 Studios	2009
		Avadon: The Black Fortress	Spiderweb Software	2011
	Machinarium was included to those that paid more than the current bundle average. Soundtracks for all games were included in the bundle. The Android version of Superbrothers is currently in beta. Avadon: The Black Fortress, Canabalt, Cogs, Swords and Soldiers, and Zen Bound 2 were added on November 15 for those that had already paid for the bundle, or for those that paid more than the average afterward. As with the Humble Bundle for Android 2, all soundtracks were included in the bundle except for Avadon.
Amnesia Fortnight	November 19 – December 21, 2012	Costume Quest	Double Fine	2009	$0.24M	35,269	$7.08
		Happy Song	Double Fine	2007
		Brazen	Double Fine	2011
		Hack n' Slash	Double Fine	2012
		Spacebase DF-9	Double Fine	2012
		The White Birch	Double Fine	2012
		Autonomous	Double Fine	2012
		Black Lake	Double Fine	2012
	Costume Quest and Happy Song were the prototypes for Costume Quest and Sesame Street: Once Upon a Monster, respectively. Brazen was added on November 21 for people who bought the bundle prior and people who bought the bundle for an above-average price. Due to the four-player cooperative play aspects of Brazen, the bundle includes four Steam keys. Included with the bundle is a soundtrack featuring the composed music of all the 2012 prototypes. The week of November 19–26 was the only one where people can vote. The other two weeks, from November 26 – December 10, were for streaming the creation of the prototypes. The prototypes were released on December 14, and the bundle continued a week afterwards. All the Double Fine prototypes are only available on Windows and Steam. A total of 75,065 votes were submitted.
Humble THQ Bundle	November 29 – December 13, 2012	Darksiders	Vigil Games	2010	US$5.09+ M	885,370	$5.76
		Metro 2033	4A Games	2010
		Red Faction: Armageddon	Volition, Inc.	2011
		Company of Heroes	Relic Entertainment	2006
		Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts	Relic Entertainment	2007
		Company of Heroes: Tales of Valor	Relic Entertainment	2009
		Saints Row: The Third	Volition, Inc.	2011
		Titan Quest	Iron Lore Entertainment	2006
		Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War	Relic Entertainment	2004
	Saints Row: The Third was included for all people who paid above the average price. All of the games were published by THQ. All of the games were only available as Steam keys for Windows; due to the nature of this bundle, one must pay at least US$1.00 to buy any of the games from the bundle. Any purchases less than $1 only receive the game soundtracks. The soundtracks for all the games except Metro 2033 and Tales of Valor (the other two Company of Heroes games were combined into two soundtracks) were included for the bundle. Titan Quest and "Path to War" DLC for Red Faction: Armageddon was added on December 6 for people who bought the bundle prior and people who bought the bundle for an above-average price. Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War: Game of the Year Edition was added on December 10 for people who bought the bundle prior and people who bought the bundle for an above-average price.
Humble Indie Bundle 7	December 19, 2012 – January 2, 2013	The Binding of Isaac (plus Wrath of the Lamb DLC)	Edmund McMillen and Florian Himsl	2011	US$2.65+ M	395,953	$6.70
		Closure	Eyebrow Interactive	2012
		Shank 2	Klei Entertainment	2012
		Snapshot	Retro Affect	2012
		Indie Game: The Movie	BlinkWorks	2012
		Legend of Grimrock	Almost Human	2012
		Dungeon Defenders (plus DLC)	Trendy Entertainment	2011
		The Basement Collection	Edmund McMillen	2012
		Cave Story+	Studio Pixel	2011
		Offspring Fling	KPULV	2012
	Soundtracks for Closure, Shank 2, Indie Game: The Movie and Snapshot were free for all buyers. Legend of Grimrock and Dungeon Defenders (and all DLC) and their soundtracks were available for those that paid more than the average price. The Basement Collection, Cave Story+, and Offspring Fling and their soundtracks were added on December 27, 2012, available to those that already paid for a bundle or subsequently paid more than the average price.
Humble Bundle Mojam 2	February 20–23, 2013	Battle Frogs (theme: French Nuclear Starship)	Mojang	2013	US$0.51+ M	86, 577	$5.98
		Endless Nuclear Kittens (theme: Endless Nuclear Kittens)	Mojang	2013
		Nuclear Pizza War (theme: Nuclear Pizza War)	Mojang	2013
		Nuke the Dinosaurs (theme: Unknown)	Mojang	2013
		Daisy Moon (3918)	Oxeye Game Studio	2013
		Low-light (theme: Nuclear Endless War)	Wolfire Games	2013
		Wasteland Kings (theme: Wasteland Kings)	Vlambeer	2013
		Tektonik	grapefrukt games	2013
		Space Hunk (theme: Interplanetary Void)	Ludosity	2013
	All 8 of the games were created over the course of the event.
Humble Bundle with Android 5	March 5–19, 2013	Beat Hazard Ultra	Cold Beam Games	2010	US$1.46+ M	210,678	$6.95
		Dynamite Jack	Hassey Enterprises, Inc.	2012
		Solar 2	Murudai	2011
		NightSky HD	Nicalis	2011
		Super Hexagon	Terry Cavanagh	2012
		Dungeon Defenders (plus DLC)	Trendy Entertainment	2011
		Splice	Cipher Prime Studios	2012
		Crayon Physics Deluxe	Kloonigames	2009
		Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP	Capybara Games	2012
	Soundtracks for Beat Hazard Ultra, Solar 2, and NightSky were available for all buyers, while the soundtracks for Dungeon Defenders and Super Hexagon were only accessible for those who paid above average. Splice, Crayon Physics Deluxe, and Superbrothers: Sword & Sorcery EP were added on March 12, 2013, available to those that already paid for a bundle or subsequently paid more than the average price.
Humble Weekly Sale: Bastion	March 19–26, 2013	Bastion	Supergiant Games	2011	US$0.21+ M	79,668	$2.70
	Those who paid above average received the soundtrack for Bastion, a digital art pack, sheet music for several songs in the soundtrack, and a pack of ringtones from the game. Those who paid over $25 for the bundle received a Bastion bandana, a CD of the soundtrack, and postcards for Bastion and Transistor, Supergiant Games' next project.
Humble Weekly Sale: THQ Games	March 26 – April 2, 2013	Darksiders	Vigil Games	2010	US$0.44+ M	68,290	$6.57
		Red Faction: Armageddon	Volition, Inc.	2011
		Darksiders 2	Vigil Games	2012
		Red Faction: Guerrilla	Volition, Inc.	2009
	Darksiders 2, its soundtrack, and Red Faction: Guerrilla were included for all people who paid above the average price. All of the games were published by THQ. All of the games were only available as Steam keys for Windows; due to the nature of this bundle, one must pay at least US$1.00 to buy any of the games from the bundle. Any purchases less than $1 only received the game soundtracks. All bundles also included the soundtracks to Darksiders, Red Faction: Armageddon, and the "Path to War" DLC for Armageddon.
Humble Mobile Bundle	March 26 – April 9, 2013	Contre Jour	Mokus	2011	US$0.68+ M	120,545	$5.66
		Anomaly Korea	11Bit Studios	2013
		Plants vs. Zombies	PopCap Games	2011
		Bladeslinger	Kerosene Games	2013
		The Room	Fireproof Games	2013
		Metal Slug 3	SNK	2012
		Funky Smugglers	11 Bit Studios	2012
		Raiden Legacy	DotEmu	2012
		Another World	DotEmu	2012
	All of the games in the bundle are only playable on Android, and not on PC, Mac, or Linux. This is the first time in any Android bundle that the games are exclusive for mobile devices. The soundtracks for all the games except for Contre Jour were included in the bundle. The Room, Metal Slug 3, and their soundtracks were available for anyone who paid above the average. Funky Smugglers, Raiden Legacy, and Another World were included during the second week of the bundle for anyone who bought it prior or paid above average.
Humble Weekly Sale: Tripwire Games	April 2–9, 2013	Red Orchestra: Ostfront 41-45	Tripwire Interactive	2006	US$0.36+ M	127,119	$2.85
		Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad: Game of the Year Edition	Tripwire Interactive	2011
		Killing Floor	Tripwire Interactive	2009
	Killing Floor, its soundtrack, and all available DLC were included for those who paid above the average price. All of the games were only available as Steam keys; due to the nature of this bundle, one must pay at least US$1.00 to buy any of the games from the bundle. Any purchases less than $1 only receive the game soundtracks. Along with the soundtracks for all three games, the bundle also includes several three-day and 10-day Steam guest passes.
Humble Weekly Sale: Blendo Games	April 9–16, 2013	Flotilla	Blendo Games	2010	US$0.37+M	37,576	$3.65
		Atom Zombie Smasher	Blendo Games	2011
		Air Forte	Blendo Games	2010
		Thirty Flights of Loving	Blendo Games	2012
	The soundtracks for Atom Zombie Smasher and Air Forte were included in the bundle. Thirty Flights of Loving and its soundtrack were included for all who paid above average.
The Humble Double Fine Bundle	May 7–21, 2013	Psychonauts	Double Fine Productions	2006	US$1.27+M	150,632	$8.46
		Costume Quest	Double Fine Productions	2010
		Stacking	Double Fine Productions	2011
		Brütal Legend	Double Fine Productions	2009
		Broken Age	Double Fine Productions	upcoming
		Humble Double Fine Bundle T-Shirt	Double Fine Productions	2013
	Brütal Legend included if buyer paid more than average; Broken Age if paid $35 or more; the t-shirt if paid $70 or more. After the first week of the bundle, the entire Amnesia Fortnight 2012 bundle was included for anyone who purchased a bundle prior or paid above average. The soundtracks for all games were included in the bundle, including both the soundtrack and score for Psychonauts. This was the first Humble Bundles that, in addition to PayPal, Amazon Payments and Google Wallet, allowed payment with Bitcoin.
Humble Weekly Sale: Alan Wake	May 22 – 29, 2013	Alan Wake	Remedy Entertainment	2010	N/A	N/A	N/A
		Alan Wake's American Nightmare	Remedy Entertainment	2012
	Both Alan Wake games were available in direct download and Steam for Windows only. Various bonuses were included in the bundle for all buyers, ranging from soundtracks and making-of videos to wallpapers, sheet music, screenplays, comic books, and a video play-through of Alan Wake. This was the first Humble Bundle with no above-average rewards, aside from the $1 minimum for Steam keys.
Humble Indie Bundle 8	May 28 – June 11, 2013	Thomas Was Alone	Mike Bithell	2012	N/A	N/A	N/A
		Capsized	Alientrap	2011
		Dear Esther	thechineseroom	2012
		Awesomenauts	Ronimo Games	2012
		Little Inferno	Tomorrow Corporation	2012
		Hotline Miami	Dennaton Games	2012
		Proteus	Ed Key and David Kanaga	2012
	Soundtracks for Dear Esther, Thomas Was Alone, Capsized, Awesomenauts, and Little Inferno were included with the sale. Hotline Miami and Proteus and its soundtrack were included for all people who paid above the average price.

See also

• Pay what you want
• Indie Royale
• Indie Gala

External links

• Official Humble Bundle website