After getting its start selling bundles of indie games and letting consumers pay whatever price they like, the Humble Bundle has since expanded into music, ebooks, and blockbuster games. Today marks yet another new venture with the first Humble Comedy Bundle. The promotion includes Louis CK's Live at the Beacon Theatre performance, as well as Patrice O'Neal's posthumously released collection Unreleased, currently one of iTunes' best selling comedy albums. Both are available if you pay more than the average price, while the base bundle includes Tig Notaro's album Live, Maria Bamford's show Special, Special, Special, Hannibal Burress' My Name is Hannibal, and the Jim Norton video Please Be Offended.
"Part of our model is surprising and delighting people."
It may seem like a big departure for a platform best known for games, but the Humble team doesn't really see it that way. "Philosophically we knew we were aligned with what we were seeing a lot comedians start to do," co-founder John Graham tells The Verge. CK's Beacon Theatre special was sold directly to fans DRM-free when it launched in 2011, for instance, selling more than 100,000 copies in the first four days of availability. Meanwhile, other comedians like Jim Gaffigan soon followed suit with their own digital-only specials.
"It's more of an art than a science," Graham says of deciding what's next for the Humble team. "While we like to recapture the magic of bundles past, one thing we always want to do is make sure we try new experiments. And that's why I'm particularly excited about comedy, because it is outside our comfort zone." As for what's next after this bundle, Graham was tight-lipped, explaining that "part of our model is surprising and delighting people." You can grab the Humble Comedy Bundle now at the source link below.