About a week ago, I was minding my own business, probably doing homework or re-watching Stranger Things, when a friend messaged me about this thing called the Humble Bundle. He explained it as the “deal of a lifetime” and a way for me to pick up games that I had always been meaning to play. I stopped playing video games a while back, the only exception being Hearthstone and the occasional game of Overwatch, so although the prospect of lucrative deals on time-wasters seemed appealing, it was an offer I had planned on refusing. It wasn’t until my own editor in chief here at The Poly suggested that I look into it that I actually visited the Humble Bundle website. What I saw there blew me away.
47 games, among them cult hits, indie classics, and unknown releases. A total value of over $600. All mine, for just $30? This was an offer I couldn’t seem to resist. With a repertoire of games like Stardew Valley, The Stanley Parable, The Witness, and Octodad: Dadliest Catch, I was hooked. It took mere minutes for me to enter my payment information and begin the long and arduous process of copy-pasting Steam codes from the Humble Bundle website to my Steam account. Armed with a fresh arsenal of creative ways to not do homework, I began my journey towards a lowered GPA with stride.
Later, I found out the true story of what I had stumbled upon. Turns out, the money I had spent went to a great cause, and one that I felt strongly about. Last week, the Humble Bundle had its Freedom Bundle, which raised money for charities that helped refugees and other people affected by the current political climate in America. Benefiting the American Civil Liberties Union, Doctors Without Borders, and the International Rescue Committee, the Humble Bundle team raised over 6.4 million dollars in charity donations. 300,000 of those dollars came from Humble Bundle itself—the rest were either donations or revenue from bundles sold.
This, however was an atypical bundle. Most of the time, the bundles offered follow a pay-as-you-wish type deal, with a payment over the average amount paid netting in additional games for your collection. Currently, the Bundle is Civilization themed, meaning that, for the next 13 days, one can pick up Sid Meier’s Civilization 3 and 4 for whatever they want to pay, and grab Civ 5 and all its DLCs by paying over the minimum of $7.59 (as of 7:40pm on 2/21/2017).
One thing is for certain: I have a lot more content to be sharing with you guys over the next few weeks. Stay tuned for reviews on just about any video game that I can get my hands on!