How much would you pay for Five great Linux games?

By , Published May 6, 2010

How much would you pay for five really great Linux-compatible games? It really is up to you with 'The Humble Indie Bundle'.

It's an exciting experiment in online retail & distribution €“ these games would normally set you back around $80 but in this promotion you can literally pay pennies (but don't you think these games €“ and the fact they're Linux friendly €“ at least deserves a bit more than that?). So far the ‘average' price people have paid for the bundle is a relatively bargainous $7.88.

As of writing this offer is only open for 5 more days.

Where does the money go? With no middle man to pay it goes 100% to the developers themselves (and, in this case, optionally, charity) so being stingy with your cash isn't the best way to reward the hard work and dedication involved. The games are also DRM free so no hidden catch or cripple-ware deadline is going kick in at a later date.

The Humble Indie Bundle comprises the following five games €“ all available for Linux, Windows & Mac: -

  • World of Goo
  • Aquaria
  • Gish
  • Lugaru HD
  • Penumbra overture

If you're not a gamer why not show your support for Linux game developers anyway and give the games to someone you know?

Contribute/Support/Find out more @ http://www.wolfire.com/humble

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  • Anonymous

    world of goo alone is worth the whole bundle! And if you’re not a gamer, get that bundle anyway, I know a lot of non-gamers who went completely crazy over world of goo! It’s just so much fun to play!

    • Anonymous

      I know a few myself, and completed it both on the Wii and windoze. Might just get the bundle to be able to complete it in yet another system :P

    • Anonymous

      I know a few myself, and completed it both on the Wii and windoze. Might just get the bundle to be able to complete it in yet another system :P

    • Seventh Reign

      I’ve only ever played World of Goo, from that list, but it alone is worth 10 bucks or more.

    • Seventh Reign

      I’ve only ever played World of Goo, from that list, but it alone is worth 10 bucks or more.

  • Will

    I can’t believe this. I just bought World of Goo (mac) a week ago for my brother’s birthday – 12 quid!!!! I hate bargains :(

    That’s the last time I ever buy an indie game. Stupid indie developers and their stupid deals…

    • http://omgubuntu.co.uk/ d0od

      Then pay 1p to for the rest of the games in this bundle and think of it as £12.01 for 5 games :P – which is way above the average contribution so you can feel all smug, too!

      • Will

        ‘Course then nothing would go to charity (stupid charities and their stupid good causes…) :P I’ll think about it.

        Maybe as a reward for voting or something.

        • DoR

          I gave all of the $10 I spent to the developers, does that make me a bad person? ;-P

          • Anonymous

            is ok
            some gave it all to the charities, but i mix it, you could had probably go $8 devs, 1 and 1 charities :) thats better than nothing lol

    • Peter

      Come on, take it easy, that can happen with any product in any industry.

    • http://openid-provider.appspot.com/mark_c@markecurtis.com Merk

      Do what I’m going to do since I already bought World of Goo. Pretend the bundle doesn’t include it, how much are those 4 games worth to you?

  • Igor Belchior

    Really nice idea.

  • Anonymous

    I’ve never heard of the others besides world of goo but that second one looks the best. I think I’ll chip in a humble 20 dollars and pick em up. Thanks for the info.

  • http://nightdreamerscreamer.blogspot.com Samiadji

    OMG!
    world of goo?
    aquaria?
    gish?
    penumbra?

    fyi those all are IGF winners!
    COOL!

    • Anonymous

      Penumbra is not an IGF winner.

  • Anonymous

    THE RHYME IN THE VIDEO IS TERRIBLE.

    Other than that, great.

    • http://omgubuntu.co.uk/ d0od

      It’s about on par with your female american accent…

      • Anonymous

        Touche.

        • http://omgubuntu.co.uk/ d0od

          (i found your female accent very funny, i just wanted to sound witty for a moment)

          • http://itbcn8world.spaces.live.com itbcn8

            haha the rhyme is so dorky, but the games are amazing. i love open source.

          • daas88

            I think they are not open source, but they are available for linux so it’s good to support them anyway :)

    • Dubfunked

      Hmm, i thought it was very funny

  • Anonymous

    “(though read on to see why that isn’t entirely nice). So far the ‘average’ price people have paid for the bundle is a relatively bargainous $7.88.”

    Well, you have to see it from another point of view. I guess that most people which bought this pack so far possibly wouldn’t bought the titles one by one or even wouldn’t bought it at all (maybe because they simply didn’t knew about them!).

    Also, I have to admit that I bought 3 packs of this special offer for $10 each, which also lowers the average per-box sale price. But, and this is important, I payed $30 in summary and will only use one pack. The other two I will give away as a gift to my friends which possibly also wouldn’t bought it at all and so they didn’t ‘lost’ customers. Besides that, I already own 4 out of 5 games on that list, but I simply wanted to support the developers one more time.

    Also have a look at the ‘Total raised’ statistics on the website. Looks like this offer really pays off, especially because all of these games but Aquaria are more than a year old and was already sold by themselves for some time. This is a perfect win situation for them and I for myself hope that we will see some more games from these 5 developers in the near future including a Linux version! :)

    • http://omgubuntu.co.uk/ d0od

      True.

    • http://www.martinsmucker.com Michael Martin-Smucker

      I agree completely. This bundle seems to be generating quite a bit of buzz on two of the blogs I follow closely (this one and Ars Technica), and I would guess that through the bundle, they’re reaching a much wider audience that wouldn’t have normally purchased the game, even though the average price is quite a bit lower than the games would usually sell for.

      Take me for example. :) Before I heard about the Humble Bundle, the only game I had heard of was World of Goo, and I didn’t even know that it was available for platforms other than Wii, and I definitely wouldn’t have guessed it was available for Linux. Now I’m probably going to pay $10 for a pack of games that I’d never considered buying before (partly just to help prove that a market for Linux games /does/ exist). When you split my $10 seven different ways, it’s a pretty small amount of money, but it’s definitely more than they would have gotten from me otherwise. I would bet there are a lot of others like me, as well.

  • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/WZCLEZCUDRXGRV6XVGXODK7UEE David

    This is great news for linux gaming. I hope other developers will look at the chart, and realise that they are losing 25% of market becouse of their ‘windows-only’ policy.

    And im proud to see the amount raised (they totally deserve it). I would like to know if it would be the same with a fixed price (like 20$).

    • Anonymous

      It would not. I myself am willing to pay a few euros to have these games, but I like to have a choice. Plus, this encourages people to actually think about what they are buying, and how much they think its worth, it cultivates thought and introspection. Win win win?

    • Anonymous

      It would not. I myself am willing to pay a few euros to have these games, but I like to have a choice. Plus, this encourages people to actually think about what they are buying, and how much they think its worth, it cultivates thought and introspection. Win win win?

  • http://0rax0.deviantart.com rAX

    Well, the most of us, ATI owners, don’t have a decent driver to play most of the games (or at least Penumbra), so…

    • Anonymous

      drivers are getting better, for me 2d works almost perfect now (since jaunty was pain) and 3d is better (slower, but playable)

      anyway for a few bucks the bundle is more than worth it :)

      • Anonymous

        Does anybody know if I might be able to play smoothly with my ati x1950 xt.

        out of topic: I bought this card to play games on windows, when it was the best of ati at that time and I am now worried if it’ll allow me to play 2d games. damn you ati, make your drivers open source, at least for those that you don’t support anymore.

        • Anonymous

          yours should be ok

          am using 1250 express (laptop and they are playable, bit slow sometimes), but my card is slower than yours

          just probably disable 3d graphics and stuff

          also better drivers are comming

        • Anonymous

          hm i just noticed that with the cpu frequency applet, when i use the “performance” option, the games go a lot smoother

          it wasnt using all the needed power , now it does

          it does get a little hot , so is good to place it back to “on demand” when done playing

  • Anonymous

    So, can I theoretically give them $20,000 for five games? Do the developers make a profit? How much goes to charity?

    • http://omgubuntu.co.uk/ d0od

      You decide what – if anything – goes to charity. You can give all of your theoretical $20000 to just the developers.

      • Anonymous

        that would be amazing…just be sure to make sure they know its for linux

    • Anonymous

      Do it.

  • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/WZCLEZCUDRXGRV6XVGXODK7UEE David

    I want to throw a question:

    Do these games can get support like updates, or new content?

    ie, if they cant be run in maverick, can you get an update through wolfire?

  • Dubfunked

    Very nice deal. Payed 20 bucks for it. Already owned World Of Goo, so can make one of my friends happy with a free game ;)

  • http://www.lucainvernizzi.net Luca Invernizzi

    Thanks d0od for the info! I’ve done my duty :D

  • Anonymous

    This Is AwEsOmE! Kudos to the bundle idea!!! im getting it and paying nicely =)

  • http://twitter.com/lunarcloud88 Samuel Sarette

    Beat Goo ages ago, but Lugaru and Penumbra are amazing.

    I love it when Linux gaming works out so awesome.

  • http://www.pcmuze.tumblr.com/ PC_Muze

    I would love too see plants vs. zombies on linux! I’d pay like $20 for it!

    • augias

      im playing it right now. the wine emulator handles the game very well.

      • z111a

        I ended the game using wine here! ^^

  • Search for more

    Thank you so much for finding this! :D
    I’m a happy gamer now :)

  • Yi Sun-sin

    I’m considering buying this package, though :
    - I’ve already bought World Of Goo
    - Penumbra overture looked cool, but the demo is working really poorly on my computer
    So I should try the other games’ demo before taking my decision. I’ve found the Gish and Lugaru HD demo, but not the Aquaria one. Do anyone know if it even exists ? Can someone who already bought the package tell me if it will work on a Radeon Xpress 200M with the free drivers ?

    • Anonymous

      AFAIK there is no Aquaria demo (yet). I can only speak for myself but I really enjoyed playing it during the beta. Maybe you want to check out some gameplay videos on youtube and co. to see if it fits your personal taste.

      • Yi Sun-sin

        Thanks.
        It was mainly a concern of «Will it work well with my drivers».
        World of Goo works absolutely perfectly, Penumbra Overture and Lugaru HD works very poorly :â‹…C, and Gish only works if a make libopenal.0 a symlink to libopenal.1 , but then everything works fine.
        (By the way, if anyone is experiencing troubles with the Gish demo, try opening a terminal, going to the right folder, and typing those two commands :

        ln -s /usr/lib/libopenal.so.1 libopenal.so.0
        LD_LIBRARY_PATH=. ./gish

        They allow you to play without modifying system libraries, which is definitely not something you want to do.)

  • http://olympusdigitalpen.blogspot.com/ dr. watson

    what linux needs to do is copy the Apple App store design.

    • http://twitter.com/Herr_Gabriel Gabriel Shahzad

      Linux does not need a copy of the app store or its design.

      • http://olympusdigitalpen.blogspot.com/ dr. watson

        you right, after-all it’s not like the app store hasn’t been a successful business model ;-)

      • http://olympusdigitalpen.blogspot.com/ dr. watson

        you right, after-all it’s not like the app store hasn’t been a successful business model ;-)

        • Anonymous

          Ubuntu Software Center
          its already setup so that paid programs would be easy to include
          the issue now is how to make paid for PPA’s

        • Anonymous

          Ubuntu Software Center
          its already setup so that paid programs would be easy to include
          the issue now is how to make paid for PPA’s

        • http://itbcn8world.spaces.live.com itbcn8

          that is what the new ubuntu software center looks like. It’s the app store! and you can go in there and get the featured apps, browse, or search for your own.

          i agree with dr. watson, they need to keep pushing that further, it’s a REAL good design for grabbing new software. :)

          • http://olympusdigitalpen.blogspot.com/ dr. watson

            itbcn8 – thanks, that was what I was saying. I didn’t mean to say ditch the software center, but the KISS (Keep it Simple Stupid) model Apple is using is quite effective. The software center is definitely moving in the right direction.

            Linux definitely needs paid apps, it’s the only way they are going to draw better software. Most open-source apps are developed by over-worked programmers who already have a full time ‘paid’ job (been there, done that). The quality of open-source is sometimes pretty apparent (bugs, lack of updates, poor GUIs, projects never finished). Start adding a paid model, and the quality of software will definitely improve. Of course a paid-app model will inevitably lead to closed-source products, but no matter how you gauge it, close-sourced and quality do go hand-in-hand as the products are controlled more tightly by the manufacturer as opposed to the developers.

          • Yi Sun-sin

            So, I guess Windows is much better than Ubuntu, then, since it is proprietary. Why the hell do you care about Ubuntu, then ? Just go use that superior proprietary OS that comes bundled with any computer !

        • http://twitter.com/Herr_Gabriel Gabriel Shahzad

          I don’t care about the success of the business model, I care about the people looking at Linux or Ubuntu for the first time, telling me what has been copied from OS X and that Linux lacks innovative ideas.

          Personally I did not use the software center even once as I use the terminal or Synaptic to install stuff. But for new and inexperienced users this software center might be a good point to get what they are looking for.

    • Yi Sun-sin

      I guess you meant «What Apple did was copy the Linux repository design».

  • http://blastfromthepast.se/ Tommy Brunn

    I already bought it twice. Once for me and once for my girlfriend. This despite already owning World of Goo, and having previously owned copies of all three Penumbra games (I gave them away as prices for a competition on my blog).

  • Anonymous

    This is great stuff. If my laptop was gaming friendly I would definitely buy these games. Damn! I wan’t a desktop beast!

    • Anonymous

      My laptop is awful and hasn’t been able to run anything since WC3. Surprisingly, World of Goo runs absolutely flawlessly.

      • Anonymous

        Mine has an Intel chipset, it’s ok for multimedia and HD content, but the Celeron processor kills it, every decent game I’ve tried runs so sluggish it’s unplayable.

  • Anonymous

    what happens when I pay the money? do they give me a download link or send me a cd containing the setups. if latter, I am not interested, since the cargo and the custom payment might be too much. anyway I am willing to pay if that will motivate them to develop for linux in the future, so last question is “will they know I will be buying for the linux support?”

    • Anonymous

      In my case (using Google Checkout for payment) it took them < 1 minute to send me a link to a page which allowed me to download all the games for Win/Mac/Linux.

  • Todd

    I grabbed it.
    The guys over at Wolfire are developing their follow up to Lugaru called Overgrowth which they plan to have running on linux.
    This is good news for linux. Hopefully it will garner some attention from Valve and maybe they’ll make a move too.

  • Anonymous

    Hey dood, any news on Valve porting the Steam platform to Linux?
    I heard that Valve may be porting Steam along with the Half-Life Series, Team Fortress 2 and the Left 4 Dead series.

    If TF2 gets ported to linux, I will finally get rid of my Windows partition!

  • Anonymous

    Hey dood, any news on Valve porting the Steam platform to Linux?
    I heard that Valve may be porting Steam along with the Half-Life Series, Team Fortress 2 and the Left 4 Dead series.

    If TF2 gets ported to linux, I will finally get rid of my Windows partition!

    • Anonymous

      theres been talks. nothing quite set in stone yet.

  • Anonymous

    I paid 10 dollars :)

  • Anonymous

    I paid 10 dollars :)

  • marno

    If call of duty would be released for linux I would pay full price for it

  • Anonymous

    I gave $10 to developers for Linux!

  • Anonymous

    I gave $10 to developers for Linux!

  • Moi

    Pity my PC only runs Gish and World of Goo..
    My videocard doesn’t run the other ones.

  • http://denizatm.com darkblack

    i have missed world of goo “pay what you want” campaign and this better i’ve loved it.

  • daas88

    I don’t know about any of those games (well, I’ve heard about world of goo), but I’ll be willing to pay a decent amount if there were games like Dragon Age: Origins (or any other Bioware RPG actually), Assassin’s Creed, COD…
    I’ll see about these games anyway, i’d be happy to give support to the developers!

    • daas88

      I watched some demos on youtube, and they look awesome! Especially penumbra!

    • Adam

      Lol that’s why it’s called an “Indie” bundle. You won’t see COD offered in a “pay what you want” sale any time soon.

  • Anonymous

    There’s an error in your article.

    You write ‘it goes 100% to the developers themselves (and, in this case, optionally, charity)…’

    The default is actually a 50-50 split between the developers and the charities.

    And yes, it’s an amazing deal. Goo, Aquaria and Penumbra are stunningly good games, and the other two ain’t bad.

    • ninjapirate89

      Actually its right, just not very clear the way it’s written. You have to option to pay 100% to developers or split it any way you want between charities.

    • Anonymous

      Theres a selection for who to donate it too.

  • Anonymous

    how do I install Gish? :(

  • ninjapirate89

    Just bought this earlier today. I was really apprehensive about buying these but I found that I really like World of Goo. Just got past chapter two a minute ago. I wish I had the funds to pay more than I did.

    @d0od – I tried sending you a news tip about this yesterday in case you had missed it but the captcha image didn’t appear so I couldn’t.

  • Anonymous

    I bought them, thanks for sharing! Great games!

  • http://twitter.com/dylian17 Heiner Valverde

    Anybody of you guys have been having problems installing Aquaria or Lugaru?? I have changed their attributes using chmod +x and then tried to run them using ./ and the file name and bash states that cannot find the file :( I am using Ubuntu 10.04 64 bit

    • tom

      1.make sure you’re in the right folder (pwd)
      2.use tab completion to get the names right. ;)

      btw the games are amazing!
      I’ve only got problems with Penumbra: sound glitches + cpu hogging.

  • daas88

    I just bought them, but I didn’t pay much because I bought some ubuntu lucid souvenirs from canonical store too :P

  • Billy Lee

    hey it now shows the average paid depending on your os! Win $7.01 Mac $9.72 Linux $13.77

    • pjavier@ciudad.com.ar

      by the way, this means that they are getting a little less money from linux users overall than they are from windows ones

      • daas88

        Hmm I think it means that linux users pay more than windows users, but they are still getting more money from windows users because there are more of them.

  • woodfrog

    They added a new game called “Samorost 2″ to the bundle just now. Everyone who purchased the bundle should get an email with a new download link :) what a nice surprise.

  • dakkar

    Got it! Well worth the money! Thanks for the info.

  • Anonymous

    few hours left !

    OMG i think they will reach a million :O

  • Anonymous

    They’ve had another indie developer sign on since this post. Samorost 2 is now also included in the bundle.

  • http://twitter.com/john_hamelink s0l1dsnak3123

    Bought the whole bundle today – thanks for giving us the heads up! :)

 
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