For the longest time, gamers have been portrayed in the media as anti-social basement dwellers who were more interested in wasting hours in the digital world instead of interacting with real people. This is, of course, the furthest thing from the truth and is no more apparent than in the surge of gamer-based charities. Gaming marathons (such as Extra Life) and charity drives (such as Children's Play) are some of the more popular ways that gamers have raised funds for those in need. One method that's recently seen fantastic results is charity donations through the sale of bundled video games in the appropriately named Humble Indie Bundle.

The concept sprung from the mind of Wolfire Games' Jeff Rosen. He combined gamers' love of bundles and "pay what you want" schemes with an extremely easy and flexible charity donation mechanism. Humble Bundle's website is one of the best landing pages I've ever encountered. It quickly tells you what they're about, the games included in their latest bundle, and (to inject a sense of urgency) a real-time countdown until the end of the bundle. If that wasn't enough, stat nerds will love the real-time chart of how much money the Humble Bundle has raised broken down by total money raised and the average price paid per operating system. For the competitive, there's even a top contributors ranking. See which gamer will be crowned the next King of Generosity!

There's something inherently satisfying about watching those numbers climb closer and closer toward the millions, which is why I participated in Humble Bundle #3 and the latest one: the Humble Frozen Synapse Bundle. You don't often get an immediate reward for donating to charity other than a sense of satisfaction in helping your fellow human beings, but with the Humble Bundle you also get exposed to some cool indie games that you might never have seen before. I've already had my gaming horizons expanded by such games as Braid, Machinarium, and Osmos.

If you haven't already donated to charity this year, then this is a great way to give back while also supporting the indie game scene. If you have donated this year, what's a little more to help those in need and also score some sweet games in the process?

For those still in need of a little more convincing, check out their trailer: