The Humble Bundle, a group dedicated to bundling up independent video games and selling them to audiences using a pay-what-you-want model, is thinking outside the (cartridge) box. The group announced on their blog yesterday that they’ve assembled the first ever Humble Music Bundle.
The bundle includes six albums by bands and artists revered by the online and gaming communities. Amongst them are Christopher Tin’s Grammy-winning debut album Calling All Dawns, a They Might Be Giants rarities compilation called Album Raises New and Troubling Questions, Jonathan Coulton’s greatest hits, nerdcore rapper MC Frontalot’s Favoritism, music composer Hitoshi Sakimoto’s Best of the Valkyria Chronicles, and OK Go’s Twelve Remixes of Four Songs. The latter album is only available as a bonus to users who pay more than the average price, which currently stands at $8.11.
Watch as Christopher Tin tries to entice you to buy the Humble Music Bundle:
As with previous Humble Bundle offerings, buyers can also decide how much of their money goes to the artists, how much goes to Humble Bundle, and how much goes to non-profit organizations that the group supports. For this particular bundle, the charity partners are Child’s Play and the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
But why music? For Humble Bundle co-founder Richard Esguerra, it seemed like a natural progression. In a press release, Esguerra admitted that Humble Bundle was partially motivated by the success of In Rainbows, the Radiohead album the band sold directly to consumers in 2007 using the same pay-what-you-want model.
“Our philosophy with games has been to help independent creators, support charity, and provide an unbeatable deal for customers and fans around the world– all values that we could definitely see working for music as well.”
The effort seems to be working, too. In less than a day, The Music Humble Bundle has been purchased 27,869 times, raising $226,302.12. Users are being loose with their wallets, too. The top contributor,@BeatKitano, spent $300 on the bundle. Similarly, the next nine top contributors all contributed $100 or more.
The Humble Music Bundle will be on sale until August 9.
Image via YouTube
