Beyond Good And EAvil: The Humble Origin Bundle
THE WORLD HAS GONE CRAZY. First Activision took some progressive (well, by Activision standards, anyway) steps with Call of Duty, and now EA's teamed up with Humble Bundle to host a bonkers sale whose proceeds go entirely to charity. It consists of eight titans of electronic artistry (or whatever EA's "A" actually represents these days) both past and present, which by the mega-publisher's count comes out to a $215 value. The bundle is, as ever, pay-what-you-want, but this time around highlights include the likes of Mirror's Edge, Burnout Paradise: The Ultimate Box, Battlefield 3, and, er, Medal of Honor. Well, they can't all be winners. Also, some require Origin. But still: ultra-cheap games for some really great causes! It might be EA, but today I must set aside my torchfork and don my giant rubber applauding hand.
The full lineup is (de)composed of Dead Space, Dead Space 3, Crysis 2 Maximum Edition, Burnout Paradise: The Ultimate Box, Medal of Honor, Mirror's Edge, and - if you beat the average - Battlefield 3 and The Sims 3. As of writing, the average was below $5. I made this face O_O
And while a few of the games require Origin, EA's also offering Steam keys for Dead Space, Crysis 2, Burnout Paradise, Medal of Honor, and Mirror's Edge. Yes, there's still a rather musky odor of brownie-point-baking (not to mention marketing) to this, but EA could've been a lot more halfhearted about the whole effort.
Should you donate, all funds that would normally be siphoned into EA's mighty money maw will instead be distributed among the Human Rights Campaign, Watsi, the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, the American Red Cross, and the American Cancer Society in whatever distribution you wish.
So probably get on that. There's still about two weeks left until the world goes back to normal, but it's often a case of "the sooner, the better" with these things. Speaking of, I'm now off to see if Zynga CEO Don Mattrick will donate one of his private jets to my benevolent non-profit which seeks to take all of Zynga's games and hurl them into the ocean.