The AGS Bake Sale --- $4191.98 Dollars Raised :D

[Stupot]

Ahh right, my bad.  I dunno where I got that from... That was the original idea though, right?  I hope I didn't just make up lies?

[Dave Gilbert]

We talked about it internally and argued about it quite a bit, and in the end decided to do it this way.

And in case anyone is interested in seeing how well the bundle's doing so far, here are the stats after three days of being online:

Number of bundles sold: 695

Largest amount donated: $85

Average donation: $3.86

Number of donations $5 or below: 535 (77%)

Number of donations $20 or above: 22 (3%)

Total earned: $2683.46

[CaptainD]

Total earned: $2683.46

Excellent news!  Thanks for the update.  8)

[Chicky]

Average donation $3.86 O:

That $2683 is mighty impressive though

[Cyrus]

Are there any plans for Bake Sales in the next years? 

[Stupot]

Are there any plans for Bake Sales in the next years? 

Hope so, I'll have finished uni by this summer and my mission is to finish a game by next Xmas.  It probably won't be any good but if it is I'd happily include it.

[Ponch]

There has been talk about Bake Sale II. Possibly even Bake Sale 1.5, which would be a smaller fundraiser here in this community, just to raise money for Peder or CJ or some "local" cause. Maybe we could get the bakers who weren't able to finish their games for this sale to polish 'em up and sale them this summer to help the AGS Archives of something. Heck, who knows? We might even buy CJ a server or something. 8)

Bake Sale II, when it happens, would be a larger, "open to the world" affair that would raise money for charity again. But that's a year away and we're all pretty baked-out at the moment. 

Thanks so much for all your support guys. Clearly this is still the best community on the intertubes. 

[Peder 🚀]

I'd suggest with next bake sale to go more advanced, get some website developers to create a more advanced system more like all the other bundle sales, with a way to pick the charity they want the money they spend to go to etc. Fully AGS Bake Sale branded. Look at the other bundle sites for ideas. Making it more interactive could probably help raise more money too. I dunno if it is, but I would think some people MIGHT be put off by the payment page being fully WEG branded with only the product name hinting it is AGS Bake Sale related. I also recon there must be ways to avoid all these ridiculess transaction fees.

[zyzzyvette]

I would also suggest using a different payment setup, but for different reasons. I think the WEG one is a little awkward. If you try to donate $x in a different currency, it sets the price to $x USD and shows the converted amount. I'm not American so I had to guess at exchange rates. Also the form makes it seem like Paypal users have to fill in their contact details, then just throws them out when you get to the payment options section. Part of the point of Paypal is that you don't have to do virtual paperwork; if I hadn't already learned the "trick" from the Blackwell games I might've bailed. Yeah it's extremely lazy but it's hard to overestimate the power of laziness.

That said I've played a half dozen of them so far and finished a few and they're pretty great so far.  :o "The Rail" is probably my favorite -- my astronomy class discussed how life would have to operate on tidally-locked planets only a few weeks ago, so in addition to being a great game it made my inner nerd whee. But it's pretty close competition. 

[Ponch]

Thanks for supporting our fundraiser, zyzzyvette.

I'm glad The Rail touched your inner nerd in a special way. And I'm sorry you found the WEG setup a little awkward.

We chose WEG for several reasons. If we went through Child's Play's PayPal setup, then we would have no idea how much money we were actually raising. And since this is our first time doing a fundraiser, we wanted the ability to check our stats day to day and see how we were doing. Further, this being our first fundraiser, Dave has ready access to the WEG setup and the fine folks at BMT Micro, so that made it an obvious choice for us. Plus Dave offers free tech support and PR releases to us, and that's the sort of thing that's hard to say no to. 

Still, you dared the fearsome dragons of the WEG checkout page and returned home victorious with much treasure and swag. Sure, it may not have been quite as easy as PayPal, but think of the adventure you would have missed out on if you'd taken the road more traveled. And now you have a tale to share with your grandkids one day. 

Thanks again for showing us a little love,

Ponch

[Spectreincarnate]

Several people are very confused that there is no option to designate a portion of their donation to the developers. People do want to support you guys and they think you're being even more humble than a Humble Indie Bundle... almost stupidly so. Please, consider respecting people's decision on whether or not they want to give to *you* as well as a charity of their choice. Sometimes respecting a person's decision to help is worth more than refusing that help.

I happen to agree with this. As much as I support Child's Play, I still feel a bit gypped that I was not allowed to help you guys at least a little. Do you have anywhere people can send an added donation?  

[Stupot]

I do see the point, and I would happily have given a proportion of my payment to the devs if that were an option.  But there is a difference in that the games on Humble Bundle are all commercial titles, whereas the vast majority of AGS games are free anyway, so the fact that the bakers didn't ask for any money for themselves kind of follows on from the typically freeware nature of this community.  That said, I can see some of the games in the bake sale becoming commercial deluxe ventures in future

[tzachs]

Maybe by the next bundle this would be made public?
Humble Store Widget

[Tabata]

Several people are very confused that there is no option to designate a portion of their donation to the developers. People do want to support you guys and they think you're being even more humble than a Humble Indie Bundle... almost stupidly so. Please, consider respecting people's decision on whether or not they want to give to *you* as well as a charity of their choice. Sometimes respecting a person's decision to help is worth more than refusing that help.

How about respecting the decision of the developers?

I didn't donate to Child's Play. I donated the developers and got the games for it. But I knew, that they won't hold on this money, because they told us about their choice to donate everything (that we are willing to pay/donate for the games) to a special charity organization.

It's not that complicated. We support the developers and they donate!

Who am I to tell someone else, where he has to donate? This may be a given option sometimes, that's okay -  but all the people who demand it, show a kind of disrespect in my eyes.

This Bake Sale is such a wonderful project - enjoy the games and that there is something positive going on 

[Chicky]

Do you have anywhere people can send an added donation?  

Yes! My Paypal account is: NathanHaml...

Naww

[Technocrat]

That's awesome, great job everyone! And my head's swelling with people mentioning The Rail. I guess I'll just have to make another game, then!

[qptain Nemo]

Technocrat, I've just finished The Rail. Amazing job as always. I absolutely loved the dialogue and the story and the presentation and everything really! Music was lovely as well. Cheers, looking forward to more awesome games from you.

[Ponch]

UPDATE: We have passed the 3000 dollar mark!  :o

Thanks everyone!   

[Stupot]

Nice one!  
Can't wait to see the final tally.

[edit]
Not meaning to be a spoil sport here but... is this total including or excluding all the $1.50 transaction fees, 'cause that would take quite a chunk off.

[Dave Gilbert]

[edit]
Not meaning to be a spoil sport here but... is this total including or excluding all the $1.50 transaction fees, 'cause that would take quite a chunk off.

That includes all the fees!