Sam’s two cents before you start reading: I edited this article on Thursday last week, ready to publish today. A few hours later IGN announced its purchase of Humble Bundle. I feel rather strongly that a gaming review site shouldn’t own a gaming distribution platform. The room for abuse on this is huge and potentially unethical. BUT, that doesn’t take away from Humble Bundle and how rad it is. Thus why this post is still much the same as it was last week. Rant over.
I like to think of myself as being forever young, a female Peter Pan if you will.
Very early on in life, I decided that getting older and ‘growing up’ just wasn’t for me. My dad just loves to remind me how, the evening before my 16th Birthday, I cried and cried… The cause of all my anguish? I just didn’t feel like I was ready to grow up yet. Many years have passed since then, but not much has changed, I still try to avoid being an adult like a Vampire tries to avoid the sun. But as much as I hate to think of it, I have grown up. Maybe not in the ways that my mother would like, I still don’t believe in sleep, practical shoes or cutting down on junk food, but I have grown up in the way that I think about my impact on the world around me. I’ve always been someone who cares very easily, and very deeply about others.
A year ago I was still working as a full-time dance teacher and playing the therapist role that comes along with it. This was the perfect daily fix to my ‘feel like you’re helping’ meter… but then I stopped. Now, I don’t regret walking away at all, since leaving I started up my YouTube channel, I started writing for Tech Girl and I became happy again. But the one thing that I just couldn’t shake was feeling like I’m not giving back to anyone anymore, and the dread of knowing that I simply didn’t have time to give, even if I wanted to. I felt stuck, and drowning myself in games wasn’t helping anymore either.
So like the ‘adult’ that I am, I decided to Google places that I could start donating money to, and that’s when I discovered Humble Bundle.
What is Humble Bundle:
Humble Bundle is an online shop where you can buy games, e-books, mobile apps and curated, time limited bundles consisting of a collection of items from one of these categories.
But here is why it’s different from other online shops. Firstly, you set the price.
When you purchase any one of their bundles there is a minimum price set by Humble (usually set on $1) and then you can either just pay the $1 and get your games/books/apps etc. OR you can pay a custom amount and then, you can even choose where the money goes. Every time you make a purchase there is a slider that lets you choose which charity you would like to donate too and how much of your purchase amount you’d like to give them. This amount can be split among the game devs/authors, Humble itself, and the charity of your choice (or of their recommendation) OR you can choose to give 100% of your money to charity. The choice is yours.
Why I love it:
Because of the type of industry I’ve found myself in, and the type of interests I have, I end up buying a LOT of games in any given period. Not even counting the games purchased by my partner who loves games just as much as me, if not more. So being able to go to a site like Humble every time we make a purchase, and then being able to donate that amount to charity? It’s a complete game changer for us.
Humble Bundle supports a huge number of charities, including Child’s Play, Woman Who Code, WaterAid and The World Wildlife Fund. If you don’t like the charity that they recommend for you to support, then you can pick your own.
Oh, and If you’re a skeptic like me you’re probably wondering how much could possibly be raised this way? Well by May this year they had raised over $95 MILLION across 50 different charities.
So yes, it really does make a difference.
How You can get involved:
It’s super easy to start using Humble Bundle, just head over to their website, find something you like, set the amount you are willing to pay and choose where your money goes.
It’s that simple.
The donations I make through Humble Bundle might not be enough to change the world on their own, but it is a way for me to give back to others with every game I play, review, or write about.
It’s a way for me to make my drop in the ocean…
