Humble Bundle And Pay What You Can
ServiceSpace
--Tapan Parikh
1 minute read
Nov 23, 2014

 

Cory Doctrow talking about an example of Pay-What-You-Can ...
 

The Humble Indie Bundle is a wildly successful “pay-what-you-like” distributor of video games. Several times a year, the Humble Bundle people announce a new “bundle”—five to seven video games, all sold together. The games are shipped without any digital locks, and will play on Macs, PCs, and GNU/Linux computers. Customers are invited to name a fair price for the bundle, and are shown how much other customers are giving on average. To spur their competitive natures, buyers are given stats broken down by operating system: “You’re on a Windows PC, and Windows users are giving an average of $40. Mac users are giving an average of $43, and Linux users are giving $48.” Customers are also allowed to go back later and donate more money, if they feel like they underpaid. And even though people can pay anything, from zero dollars to thousands, the bundles typically make in excess of a million dollars each. Each customer specifies how much of their payment should go to a few charities nominated by the Humble project, and the rest of the money is divided up among the games’ producers—a hundred thousand to three hundred thousand dollars each. Users also have the option to add a “tip” to Humble itself, to pay for the administration of future bundles, and that brings in enough to keep the lights on.
 

Posted by Tapan Parikh on Nov 23, 2014


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