If you’re a passionate gamer then you might have heard of Humble Bundle. If not, and you own a Nintendo Wii U console, or a Nintendo 3DS handheld system, now’s a great time to acquaint yourself with the charitable gaming company as you can get about £57-worth of games for £1ish until 7pm on Tue 10 May – while also helping a great cause.
What is Humble Bundle?
Through the support of its community Humble Bundle’s raised over $70 million (£48m) for a wide range of international charities since its formation, including Diabetes UK, Parkinson’s UK, Amnesty International and GamesAid.
One of the main ways the US-based company raises money for charity is through sales of Humble Bundles, collections of digital games (and less frequently digital books) typically offered for a couple of weeks at a time. The games available in these bundles vary from collection to collection, from classic titles to more modern releases, and from small budget games made by independent developers to blockbuster titles from major industry players such as Electronic Arts or Sega.
Why do companies offer up their games for inclusion in Humble Bundles? Simply put, it’s a great way of growing your audience while also meeting charitable commitments (or more cynically, it’s good PR).
How does it work?
It lets you ‘pay what you want’ for content and choose where your money goes. Games you buy come in the form of digital codes, so you have to download them.
The minimum purchase is actually $1 (69p), payable by credit card or PayPal. Most cards charge the usual 3%-ish foreign transaction charge (see our how much does your card charge? tool).
You then decide how your payment is split between Humble Bundle, the companies that make the games, and charities. All of the money can go to one, or it can be split between them as you see fit.
The number of games you get depends on what you’re willing to fork out – there are three payment tiers and if you pay for the most expensive, you get access to the games in all three tiers.
What you can get right now
A current Humble Bundle promotion, the Humble Friends of Nintendo Bundle, features a collection of Wii U and 3DS games. The three tiers are:
- If you pay $1 (69p) or more you’ll get four games: Retro City Rampage: DX (3DS), Affordable Space Adventures (Wii U) and Shantae and the Pirate’s Curse (you’ll get codes for both the Wii U and 3DS versions). These games normally have a combined value of £56.96.
- If you choose to pay more than the average price paid on Humble Bundle, currently $9.77 (£6.90), you’ll unlock six more games: Freedom Planet (Wii U), Rhythm Thief & the Emperor’s Treasure (3DS), Citizens of Earth (Wii U or 3DS), Swords & Soldiers II (Wii U), Nano Assault EX (3DS) and Runbow (Wii U). The cheapest we could find all of these games was £80.85 combined.
- If you pay $13 (£9) in total you’ll add two more titles to your collection: Super Street Fighter IV: 3D Edition (3DS) and Darksiders II (Wii U). The cheapest combined price we found for these two titles was £28.46 – taking the total value of all 12 you can now download to £166.27.
Since its release on Tue 26 Apr, The Humble Friends of Nintendo Bundle has been bought 138,450 times.
How do I do it?
- Create a Humble Bundle account and make your purchase, choosing the amount you want to pay and how it’s split.
- Within a few minutes your digital game codes will be accessible from within your Humble Bundle account. You’ll also receive an email directing you to them.
- If you haven’t already, you’ll need to create a Nintendo Network ID on your Wii U or 3DS. This’ll allow you to access Nintendo network services such as eShop.
- Game codes can be redeemed directly on your console or remotely on the web. Detailed instructions on how to do so can be found here (Wii U/3DS).
Will you be buying this Humble Bundle, or have you bought a previous one? We’d love to hear your stories in the comments below, on Twitter @MSE_Deals or on Facebook.
