Update, 2/21/2017 8:35am PST: Humble Bundle announced that it raised $6.43 million for the American Civil Liberties Union, Doctors Without Borders, and International Rescue Committee via the Humble Freedom Bundle. The company matched $300,000 of those donations-slash-purchases.
Humble Bundle raised $300,000 for the American Civil Liberties Union, Doctors Without Borders, and the International Rescue Committee in just 90 minutes. The proceeds were raised via the Humble Freedom Bundle that offers 47 games and books in exchange for a minimum payment of $30.
Humble Bundle often supports various organizations with dedicated "bundles" of discounted games and books. The company usually lets customers decide how their payments are split up--all the money can go to a charity, for example, or it can be split between the charity and Humble Bundle itself--and features a "pay what you want" scale along with some higher tiers which require minimum payments. The service, then, is all about freedom.
The Humble Freedom Bundle differs in that 100% of proceeds will go to rights organizations, and Humble Bundle vowed to match donations up to $300,000. This special bundle also offers just one tier--people can donate as much as they want, but they'll only get those 47 titles if they cough up at least $30. But the company did leave open the possibility that more games, books, and tiers will be added before the promotion ends on February 20:
We were not able to add every game in time for our launch, so we will be trying to add more content from interested developers over the course of the promotion. Keep an eye out for more content will be added to this bundle this Wednesday at 11:00 a.m. Pacific time, but no guarantees!If you already paid for the $30 tier, you'll automatically receive the additional content once they're added!
This bundle includes many noteworthy games like Stardew Valley, Super Meat Boy, The Witness, and many others. It also features the R in a Nutshell desktop reference guide, novels from the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Cory Doctorow, and The Smart Girl's Guide to Privacy: Practical Tips for Staying Safe Online, among others. Humble Bundle didn't just take whatever it could get for this effort; it assembled a long list of high-quality products.
Here's what Humble Bundle said about this Freedom campaign:
We humbly remember that the United States is a nation of immigrants, and we proudly stand with developers, authors, and charities that champion liberty and justice for all.This special one-week bundle features over $600 in incredible games and books for just $30. 100% of your payments will go to the American Civil Liberties Union, the International Rescue Committee, and Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). Humble Bundle will proudly match your contributions up to $300,000.We chose these three organizations because of the inspiring work they do in providing humanitarian assistance to refugees and displaced people as well as in defense of justice, human rights, and civil rights.
The campaign is likely inspired by President Donald Trump's executive order banning immigrants and refugees from seven majority-Muslim countries. Almost 100 tech companies (including Microsoft, Intel, Apple, and Facebook) filed a brief challenging the order. Almost 16,000 bundles have been sold at the time of writing.
The Humble Freedom Bundle will run until February 20. Every game can be downloaded from Steam--all for Windows, some for Mac and Linux--and several are DRM-free. All the books are also DRM-free so they should be compatible with anyone's reading platform of choice.
