New titles added as Humble Freedom Bundle raises $4.2 million [Updated]

[Update (Feb. 15): Humble Bundle has added 14 additional games, an ebook, and a downloadable music album to the Freedom Bundle selection in addition to the 40 games and seven ebooks discussed below. At the same time, certain games like Subnautica and Super Meat Boy have run out of Steam keys to distribute to new bundle purchasers (though Super Meat boy is still available for standalone download).

Just over 48 hours after its launch, the Humble Freedom Bundle has raised nearly $4.2 million dollars for the charities discussed below. The Humble Freedom Bundle will be available until Monday, Feb. 20.]

Original Story

Since its start in 2010, the Humble Bundle has raised north of $50 million for various charities as part of its pay-what-you-want downloadable sales. Today, the Humble Freedom Bundle puts a sharp point on that kind of giving, with a charity bundle launched in direct response to President Trump's recent immigration order.

"Our employees, our business partners and our millions of customers come from all around the world," Humble Bundle's Jeffrey Rosen told Ars. "We stand together in dismay over Trump’s recent immigration ban. We find it to be un-American and damaging to global businesses like ours."

Rosen tells Ars the charity bundle was a joint idea "from our employees and a number of game developers, including Double Fine and Wolfire Games." As the Humble Bundle team started reaching out to other developers to ask about taking part, "it was clear that this bundle was very important to many people and something that needed to happen," Rosen said.

So far, dozens of game developers and authors have signed on to support the cause, freely providing 40 downloadable PC games and seven ebooks worth a collective $600 to anyone who donates a minimum of $30 (there's also the promise that "more content may be coming soon"). That makes the Freedom Bundle much larger than most previous pay-what-you-want Humble Bundles. Already the offer includes some of the most notable and critically acclaimed indie games of the last few years, such as The Witness (Ars' No. 3 game of 2016), Stardew Valley, Super Meat Boy, Super Hexagon, The Swapper, The Stanley Parable, and plenty more.

Inspired by "the magnitude of games that developers were donating" Rosen said the Humble Bundle team will match the first $300,000 in donations made with additional funds from its own coffers. "We humbly united lots of people with similar feelings. Every team at Humble Bundle worked tirelessly to put this together in less than a week."

Unlike most Humble Bundles, which split proceeds with developers and content creators (as well as a portion for the Humble Bundle team itself), 100 percent of the money raised in the Freedom Bundle will go to three charities: The ACLU ("among the first to challenge the travel ban" and "tireless in their fight for our freedom", as Rosen puts it); Doctors Without Borders (which can provide "critical care" to millions who are prevented from "fleeing war zones and seeking refuge in the United States" by Trump's order); and the International Rescue Committee (providing "brighter futures" for "refugees... directly affected by the travel ban and [who] are the most acutely in need of help").

While Rosen said he regrets not being able to include more nonprofits in the Bundle, he said the company "hope[s] this promotion will have a real positive impact on the world."

The joint charity effort comes as the games industry continues to respond to President Trump's executive order last month, which severely limited immigration, visitation, and refugee status for people from seven Muslim-majority countries until it was temporarily halted by a federal court earlier this month. Many individual developers have previously donated all or parts of the proceeds from their game sales to the ACLU and other charities in direct response to the order. Other developers, publishers, and gaming trade groups have put out statements expressing opposition to the order.