The Humble Bundle has previously let gamers buy bundles of indie games using the “Pay what you can” philosophy, but their latest incarnation doesn’t have any games at all. Rather if offers nerdy music and video game soundtracks.
There are five albums available: The nerdcore hip hop album Favoritism by MC Frontalot, Album Raises New and Troubling Questions by classic nerd band They Might Be Giants, the soundtrack Best of Valkyria Chronicles by Hitoshi Sakimoto, Calling All Dawns by Christopher Tin who holds the distinction of being the only person to win a grammy for composing a video game song, and Jonathan Coulton’s Greatest Hit (Plus 13 Other Songs). Yes, that one has Still Alive from the soundtrack to Portal, but this is a new recording live in concert in Toronto.
As always with the Humble Bundle, anyone who donates more than the average amount will receive a bonus and this time it’s Twelve remixes of Four Songs by OK Go. This deceptively-titled album actually has sixteen tracks. The current “Average Donation” is $8.26 and that can be expected to slowly climb as the bundle continues.
Since the offer began, nine bonus songs have been added to the bundle in addition to the above. These include songs by Jonathan Coulton, OK Go, MC Frontalot, and Stereo Alchemy (The duo of Christopher Tin and Shoji Kameda), plus downloadable sheet music of the Valkyria Chronicles Main Theme.
Just like the games sold through the Humble Bundle, this is for downloadable versions of the music, not physical copies. The songs are all available in MP3 and FLAC format and are DRM free.
In addition to supporting the artists, the bundle also sends part of the donations to two charitable organizations. One is Child’s Play which was created by “Gabe” and “Tycho” of Penny Arcade. This charity donates toys and games to children’s hospitals during the holidays. The other charity is the Electronic Frontier Foundation which represents the rights of digital consumers in a variety of ways.
Donors can choose how their donation is divided between the artists, the charities and the organization behind the Humble Bundles. The highest donors are credited on the Humble Bundle website (At the moment the top ten donors are at $108 or more).
The Humble Bundle has had a couple of non-gaming items up for grabs in previous versions, most recently offering the complete soundtracks of the games in the last bundle as a bonus. Once they even had a indie film as part of the Amanita bundle, but this is the first time that they’ve done an entire event of non-games.
Does a liking for indie games translate to a love for indie music and movies too? So far this does not seem to be the case as they have earned less than $350,000 in the week since this bundle launched while the last gaming bundle pulled in over two million in less than 24 hours.
This incarnation of the bundle is on sale through August 9th. It is available through www.HumbleBundle.com.
