Y Combinator-backed Humble Bundle, which bundles together independently-developed games into a single sale that runs for less than a month, has launched its third bundle of games for sale and already made $286,188 in revenue — and it increases about every second.
Humble Bundle gives independent developers a way to publicize their games and compete with the major publishers in an industry that regularly churns out triple-A titles. This bundle’s breakout hit is a 2-D 8-bit platformer called VVVVVV, a game where players navigate obstacles by changing the direction of the gravity. The bundle has already racked up several hundred sales after only being on sale for a few minutes.
Much like the Apple App Store, independent game developers struggle for visibility on distribution systems like Steam and the Xbox Live Arcade. Humble Bundle brought visibility to games like World of Goo — which ended up porting its game to the iPad because it became so popular. This quarter’s bundle also features “Crayon Physics Deluxe,” “Cogs,” “Hammerflight” and “And Yet It Moves.”
Humble Bundle went through startup incubator Y Combinator after 2009′s Humble Indie Bundle (put out by a group of indie game developers) ended up being a runaway success. The sales let gamers pick up a number of indie games that don’t have copyright protection software.
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Gamers can pay whatever they want for bundle — which could be anywhere from 1 cent to $6,000. Gamers also decide what percentage of the fund goes to charity, to the developers and whether to give Humble Bundle a “tip,” which is around 5 percent by default.
Humble Bundle hasn’t disclosed how much money it has made off its sales, but it ended up selling more than $1.8 million worth of game bundles in less than two weeks the first time it launched a game bundle. If most gamers used the default payment schedule, that means Humble Bundle picked up more than $90,000.
This is the third bundle the company has launched. It launched a “Frozenbyte” branded bundle that included games from one specific developer. The company’s first bundle included indie darlings like side-scrolling puzzle game Braid and survival horror game Penumbra.