This seems to be completely against the spirit of the Humble Bundles. They are normally creative games from independent publishers, available cross platform and DRM free. These are some generic mass-market games from a failing major publisher, available only on Windows, and delivered via Steam rather than DRM-free.
The excessive numbers of "Humble X Bundles" that have been coming out recently have been kind of killing my interest in them. When it was an occasional thing with some really good games in the bundle, and I was able to support cross-platform DRM-free game development, I would buy pretty much every one, even if I didn't play many of the games. Now that they've diluted the brand so much, I'm a lot less likely to look when they announce a new bundle.
Of course it’s a typical Humble Bundle. There were goddamn Android bundles in the past. No one complained. But now suddenly everyone. I do not get it.
The point of Humble Bundles is to make a bunch of cool games available for however much money you want to pay. Sometimes those games are cross-plattform, sometimes not. That’s it.
The Android bundles were just bundles that included Android versions of the games. They were still cross-platform and DRM-free (you can use their app, or download the .apk and put it on your device any way you choose)
The thing is, people have certain expectations of a Humble Bundle now; that's what it means to have a strong brand.
It's fine that they are doing new things -- I don't mind the Amnesia Fortnight stuff at all, in part because it's a pretty cool concept, but probably also because they're not calling it a Humble Bundle.
It's not just this one that I mind. The "Humble Android Bundle", "Humble Ebook Bundle", and so on are also diluting the brand.
But this one goes against some of the basic tenets of the Humble Bundle series; namely, the DRM-free, cross-platform nature. One of the reasons I support them is that I support choice. I want to have choice in what platform I run. I want to have choice in what machines I run my games on. DRM and single-platform games mean that I don't have that choice.
All I'm saying is that in the past, I've bought Humble Bundles and never even played a single game, just because I supported the idea so much. Now they've violated some of their core principles; they are still "pay what you want" and allow supporting charities, but they are selling games that I am morally opposed to. I'm better off just giving my money to the charities directly.
It's a cliche thing to say, but hey, you don't have to participate.
If you truly support Humble Bundle and what they do, then you would support them in this endeavor as well -- you are giving them some tip as well (and charities if that's your thing). Does anyone really think that since they are doing this with THQ they are going to simply stop supporting the indie community?
THQ made some bad decisions, and they are desperate. This is a pretty clever move for them, and one can only hope a kick in the butt to pay more attention to what gamers are looking for.
Yeah if this THQ bundle earns them a lot of money, maybe they do not need to work their ass off to promote indie titles from now on, and simply rely on big AAA titles sales once and then. Of course it would be stupid for them to do so (killing their brand) but it seems that they would be well off financially.
Not exactly an "independent" publisher, only available for Steam, only for Windows, no contributions to the EFF? But when you add in that there is no DRM-free version, it's just not "Humble Bundle" anymore.
I'm really disappointed. I know the site has been doing very well monetarily with their format but stuff like this discredits them to me.
For most people I think Humble Bundle was about doing good while also building awareness of indie developers. I've tried so many games I would never have heard of let alone purchased because of the site.
Hopefully their next release won't be Disappointing Bundle 2.
So you'd rather them sell NOTHING than THQ games? These games are stellar. Company of Heroes is one of the best tactical RTS games of all time. Red Faction Armageddon is very good. Metro 2033 is very good. Saints Row and Darksiders are very good. These are not crap mainstream games thrown together with a Humble Bundle tag, these are brilliant pieces of software.
And anyway, you don't have to worry about this for long, there's not a lot of mainstream publishers out there that are going to give you a bunch of triple A titles to sell for donations. The money is still going where it used to go. I see no problem with this.
Yeah, I would rather they abstain from doing things that all other platforms can do. That's part of keeping your focus on your core values. This is NOTHING like the previous bundles and this is a clear regression to me.
Interesting... I hadn't known that. That reduces my objection to dropping EFF.
But if it were me in charge, I'd list 3 charities. One would be the charity that, last time, had received the greatest portion of the contributions from people who had adjusted the contribution sliders rather than accepting the default value. One would be a new charity never before featured on Humble Bundle. The last would flex, depending on circumstances: it could be a charity favored by the Humble Bundle team, one chosen by the app developers, or perhaps the second-favorite from contributors who adjusted sliders.
As fare as I remember the 4th indie bundle didnt have donations for EFF, as the charity are generally voted for by the developers.
also they have done none cross playform bundles before (with some of there android bundles.)
why not take this for what it is, the chance to pick up some decent games for cheep, and supporting eather a charity or a struggling games company who make some good games.
No, their Android games were also available on other platforms. Their bundles were all multi-platforms until now. And DRM-Free.
And THQ does not need money support, they need to go through an internal crisis, fire a number of people and get back to good basics. What this bundles does is just providing another injection to the drug addict.
I don't mean to be mean or thoughtless, but why should a community originally formed to support DRM free cross platform indie games support a failing corporation (that needs a lot more help than a humble bundle sale could ever do for it) which isn't any of those things?
Do they intend to be any of those things if they do get back on their feet?
Aren't they publishers themselves? Why can't they just run a sale? It seems like using the humble bundle is purely a marketing thing.
I didn't support the previous humble bundles as a marketing tactic, I supported them because of their goals.
If I was after low prices there'd be no reason for me to pay more than a dollar or two for a bundle. I pay what I pay because I want to support good art, good code and a good platform for that with good goals.
Very disappointed this isn't about THQ making some of these games available for Linux, also "Requires Steam to Play". I still have half a mind to purchase it as the Company of Heroes games are excellent, but I really dislike buying games that I have to use wine to play.
Unlikely. Much of the game industry in Vancouver is staffed by ex-EA refugees (hey, I guess EA is good for something after all) - it's unlikely any one of them would ever willingly sell themselves back to the company they fled.
I agree that it's not really in the 'spirit' of the humble bundle in that regard. As a Windows and Steam user, however, I bought it instantly. It's an amazing deal.
It would be cool to have these games available for Linux, but I just can't see the extra humble bundle money and good will being worth the engineering effort required. Valve has done a lot to get L4D2 working on Linux, and has a ton of resources and a long term business agenda to move away from Windows.
I think the only way we'll see a lot of AAA games going to Linux is if someone releases hardware that is Linux based and it has a large install base comparable to other major consoles. Most AAA game developers see extremely reduced sales on PC vs console already, so Mac ports are rarely worth it, let alone Linux.
Not that I particularly mind this bundle, but note that the two previous "Android" bundles were also available on other platforms. It's just that they were also available on Android and they focused on that.
You got all four (OS X/Linux/Android/Windows) platforms where they were available (might be for all games; I haven't checked). This is my purchase page: http://i.imgur.com/IN58e.png
Between compromising on DRM free and multiplatform I'm pretty ticked, especially because Humble Bundle has told indie devs I know to take a hike specifically because of not having a Linux port. The double standard is kind of offensive given that this money will likely get entirely devoured by THQ-the-publisher instead of the worthy studios that built the games being sold.
This bundle doesn't have "indie" in the name. I'm pretty sure they've done similar bundles in the past. I think it's a good thing that they are introducing more traditional publishers to this pricing model, and I hope the experiment is a success.
It was never about principles, or being cross-platform, or even for charity for me. Personally, I just wanted cool games for a low price. And this particular Humble Bundle delivers.
Three of the four games are ones that I very nearly purchased in the past, so I'm thrilled. This is a great deal for me!
Interesting note. If you change the custom value to under $1 you get the following message:
"Warning! Please note that orders under $1.00 will ONLY receive the soundtracks and will NOT receive the games! "
This seems to go against the spirit of "pay what you want"? Not that $1.00 is really different from $0.01, but I'm pretty sure that for indy bundles before you could go as low as you wanted? I didn't think to try before though, I guess. Can anybody confirm?
They did that to work around a problem where people were paying $.01 just to get a steam key.
Adding a game to a steam account "validates it" and this can be abused in certain scenarios. For example, steam sometimes has events where you can enter contests, and people were creating hundreds of fake entries for almost no money.
Edit: just to be clear, for other bundles you can pay $.01 and get the DRM free games but not the steam keys (which require a payment >= $1). Here, since the games require steam, the minimum price is $1.
Some people were paying multiple times $0.01, using this as a vector to spam the steam key generation servers.
So they have asked (since few bundles) to pay more than $1 when you want to get te steam keys. And since this Bundle is steam-only ... The minimal amount to get the games is $1.
You have always had to pay at least a dollar to get Steam keys, no matter the bundle. I think it has something to do with Steam's requirements, but I don't know that.
No, the first few bundles gave away keys for any price. They changed it during a bundle where this was a big problem with a contest that Steam was holding at the same time.
Also interesting to see that (at the time of this writing) the average is only $5.50 which is a lot lower than the averages I've seen for previous bundles.
That's probably because it's Windows-only. In the Humble Bundles, Windows users consistently give less than Mac users, who consistently give less than Linux users. Most bundles are cross-platform, so the average is higher.
It's only about a dollar, maybe two, lower than average anyway.
That's by design of Steam. You can still download games that are not supported on your platform that is running Steam. It's actually convenient as you can utilize faster connection other than where you play the game, and then export and haul the data on your thumb drive to be installed on the machine you play the game.
I thought the point of these bundles was to support indie game studios? Still, money goes to charity, decent set of games.. it just feels a bit incongruous.
I have the feeling it's a last ditch effort from THQ to gain some goodwill. They are doing pretty bad financially and they probably hope this might help them going forward.
The Humble Indie Bundle is, which is why it has indie in the name. There are multiple Humble Bundles, not all of them indie, and not all of them games. See the Humble eBook Bundle and the Humble Music Bundle.
It's interesting that THQ stock is +20% since the bundle went live, in addition to about +20% earlier today, before the bundle. It's climbing sharply now.
Wow 37%! Yeah I can't see that much share price increase coming from a "choose your own price" when the games have already been out for a while. Buyouts are typically the cause for ~10%+ increases I suppose?
Warning about Metro 2033. It's actually a pretty good game with great atmosphere despite it's faults but there is a part quite near they end that is almost guaranteed to make you rage-quit even on easy skill settings.
Edit: Requires Steam and Windows. I though the biggest point of the bundle was proving the market for DRM free cross platform games? They may as well have just made this a steam sale.
Warning about Metro 2033. It's actually a pretty good game with great atmosphere despite it's faults but there is a part quite near they end that is almost guaranteed to make you rage-quit even on easy skill settings.
Huh? I played Metro from start to finish over the space of about a week during the summer of last year and its a fantastic game. While it was quite difficult at times, I didn't find it so difficult that I would rage quit at any point.
YMMV of course, I'm certainly not the best FPS player but I found this significantly more frustrating than any other point in the game by a large margin mainly because I kept losing because of a dumb NPC.
When I was googling around I found a lot of people frustrated by this part. I did most of the game on hard but struggled with this part on easy.
I have to admit, while desperate by THQ, this isn't a dumb move. Notice how they give away three games with sequels out or coming out and Saints Row 3 which has a ton of dlc. It seems like they are betting the bank on the new titles that are coming out. I hope this works for them because I like the titles produced by this company.
This is in no way against the spirit of the bundles. The spirit of the bundles is that you pay however much you please, allocating how you choose between charities, devs and the humble crew.
Unfortunately the games THQ offers are only available on Steam, but that's the way it shakes. However you look at it, they are still sharing a high-quality selection of games that you don't have to pay them ANYTHING for. You can put 100% of your payment toward charity and THQ still happily gives you the games.
I don't see how that's against the spirit of the bundles.
Why is THQ failing so hard? Is it simply because of how poorly the company was run for decades beginning with the Nintendo era where they foisted tons of licensed crap games on kids? I know I still kind of have negative associations with the THQ brand, even though I know for a fact that they've been releasing very good games for more than a decade now.
Is it just a matter of spending too much money on games like Saints Row that are huge money losers?
what how god how do you think corporations work? do they have magic money trees?
we, in conglomerate, purchase THQ, give their games away for free and then what, fire all their developers, close all their studios and sell all the buildings, revelling in our destruction of the future of gaming so everyone can gave some games today for free?
there was much better discussion on this topic on reddit.
Be aware that the key for saints row does not work when you are in Germany.
Luckily, the humble bundle support is good and will help you out if you have problems, at least they helped me very fast :)
It would be even nicer though if they would mention this on the official page.
>We are aware of the issue going on with Saints Row: The Third Steam keys for German customers who purchased the bundle prior to 23:00 CET on November 29th.
>Please email us at contact@humblebundle.com with your Transaction ID and the subject "Saints Row Steam Key", and we can get you a Steam key for the German version of Saint's Row: The Third.
Well - look from the point of THQ - they are fighting for their life. Maybe they really don't have the resources for stripping DRM, let alone porting. So they are throwing steam keys around for promo purposes. But I would really like for the both companies to better communicate the reasons for the breaking of the bundle rules. And the bundle is amazing value anyway.
The excessive numbers of "Humble X Bundles" that have been coming out recently have been kind of killing my interest in them. When it was an occasional thing with some really good games in the bundle, and I was able to support cross-platform DRM-free game development, I would buy pretty much every one, even if I didn't play many of the games. Now that they've diluted the brand so much, I'm a lot less likely to look when they announce a new bundle.