Get a $50 game bundle for $4, help feed the hungry
For the price of a grande latte, you get five popular indie games, a bunch of bonus content, and the satisfaction of helping your fellow humans.
The only thing better than a dirt-cheap software bundle is a dirt-cheap software bundle for a worthy cause.
An outfit called Groupees is offering the Be Mine 2 bundle, which includes five solid indie games and a boatload of extra content, all for a minimum donation of $4.
Here's the worthy-cause part: Every $2 pays for a meal courtesy of Feed Them With Music, a charitable organization that organizes concerts and other events aimed at feeding the hungry. So if you pony up, say, $10 -- a more-than-fair amount given what you're getting -- you're covering five meals.
(Side note: According to the FTWM Web site, every $1 donated equals three meals. So it's a good bet that part of your bundle purchase goes to Groupees and/or the developers. That's absolutely fair in my book, but some disclosure on the Groupees site would be appreciated.)
The primary bundle consists of five games, all of them compatible with Windows, three also available for Mac. They're listed below with links to their Steam product pages, as that's where you'll end up accessing them:
1. Beat Hazard (PC/Mac), a unique arcade shooter that integrates your own music library into the gameplay.
2. 3D arena shooter Madballs in Babo: Invasion (PC/Mac).
3. Plain Sight (PC), a "multiplayer arcade game about suicidal ninja robots." Need I say more?
4. Futuristic tower-defense game Sol Survivor (PC)
5. The Baconing (PC/Mac). There's a game called The Baconing. If I wasn't sold before, I am now.
These games have a combined value of nearly $50. But wait, there's way, way more: the Be Mine 2 bundle also comes with survival/horror FPS Killing Floor (PC/Mac) and various comic books, graphic novels, and albums. If the "meals delivered" tally hits 25,000 (it's currently just under 16,000), you'll gain access to four more bonuses in the form of add-ons for the various games.
You can pay for the bundle via Amazon, Dwolla (never heard of that one), or PayPal.
To me this is a no-brainer; I'm in for $10. Dig deep, folks.
Bonus deal: While supplies last (and they won't last long), Newegg has the refurbished Xbox 360 Slim 4GB game console for $139.99 shipped. You also get a Turtle Beach Ear Force X11 Amplified Stereo Headset (wired, not wireless, alas) for in-game verbal smackdowns. It comes with a one-year warranty, making this arguably the best Xbox deal I've ever seen.