Humble Bundle is currently facing something of a backlash after announcing they will be replacing the sliders on bundle purchases, with two options that are far less generous.
The what: usually when you go to purchase a Humble Bundle, there's sliders allowing you full choice on where you money goes. You could choose all to developers, all to Humble, all to Charity - or whatever. However, recently they vanished for a lot of customers.
Humble has now actually announced their planned changes which include an overhaul to bundle pages. They're replacing the sliders with only two options. The option to give more to charity will be capped at 15% up from the normal option being 5% (which will make it match Humble Choice).
Picture Credit - Humble Bundle
Across Reddit, Twitter and other places they've seen a backlash on this since people feel it's no longer them being "humble". The replies and quoted tweets from the announcement are particularly critical of what Humble are doing.
As a Humble Partner, I'm definitely disappointed they're doing this. To be blunt, personally the charity angle for me was a nice extra while buying a bundle of games now and then when it interested me personally. I do hope Humble are listening to the feedback on this though, while business is business and as a store they want to obviously be sustainable and turn a profit (and so do the developers / publishers involved) - it's clearly not a very humble way to go about it.
How do you feel about this? Will it affect future purchases from Humble for you?
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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rustybroomhandle 24 Apr 2021
Humble died a long time ago.
29 Likes, Who?
I actually expected something like this to be announced sooner after they were acquired by IGN.
20 Likes, Who?
Humble used to be something quite different, and I stopped being terribly interested in it quite a while ago. Sure I've made the odd purchase, but rarely for games and instead ebooks.
Equally I'm not jumping up & down about it. It once was something I liked, now it's not, and that's really about it. Meh.
I much prefer to use patreon, itch.io, and purchases directly from developers these days.
I feel the same way. I've been buying more and more from itch.io. They have a lot of DRM FREE titles I can not find anywhere else and many of their online MP games work in linux as is.
0 Likes
I'm disappointed because they don't explain the rational behind this decision in their blog post.
Is it because users were confused by the sliders? Have they even done some survey even before starting to develop the new feature?
As most people here, I'm no longer really excited about Humble.
It used to be a bold offer, proposing independent games and, in exchange, you'd give to the devs and to charities. And for the very first bundles some games would even go open source if they were to reach a certain amount.
Most of that is lost and Humble became a mere Steam store with the possibility to give to charities at the same time.
But I can do both on my own, thank you.
Is it because users were confused by the sliders? Have they even done some survey even before starting to develop the new feature?
As most people here, I'm no longer really excited about Humble.
It used to be a bold offer, proposing independent games and, in exchange, you'd give to the devs and to charities. And for the very first bundles some games would even go open source if they were to reach a certain amount.
Most of that is lost and Humble became a mere Steam store with the possibility to give to charities at the same time.
But I can do both on my own, thank you.
11 Likes, Who?
I didn't buy anything on Humble for a long time, and I'm pretty sure I won't in the future.
I hope a lot of people will simply boycott them...
And
I hope a lot of people will simply boycott them...
And
Today we’re sharing some updates coming to bundle pages and how they will help us continue to support charity.Yeah, sure!
2 Likes, Who?
Well, if they’re bleeding so much money that they can’t stay in business, they won’t be able to support charities at all.Today we’re sharing some updates coming to bundle pages and how they will help us continue to support charity.Yeah, sure!
Last edited by Salvatos on 24 Apr 2021 at 2:54 pm UTC
2 Likes, Who?
I bought a couple of $1 bundles recently and wondered where did the slider go... I used to give more percentage to GoL. What share will Humble Partners get now? Nothing?
0 Likes
I didn't buy anything on Humble for a long time, and I'm pretty sure I won't in the future.The slider change kinda sucks, but who else is doing what they're doing? Don't boycott. What for, anyway? Then we have zero places like them.
I hope a lot of people will simply boycott them...
And
Today we’re sharing some updates coming to bundle pages and how they will help us continue to support charity.Yeah, sure!
That said, my game buying is lower than it was years ago. And their bundles are often weak on native Linux support. So, I find myself also buying more eBooks from Humble lately than games like mirv.
3 Likes, Who?
I bought a couple of $1 bundles recently and wondered where did the slider go... I used to give more percentage to GoL. What share will Humble Partners get now? Nothing?We'll just have to wait and see, they've not told partners of any changes.
Last edited by Liam Dawe on 24 Apr 2021 at 4:11 pm UTC
0 Likes
Mohandevir 24 Apr 2021
That said, my game buying is lower than it was years ago. And their bundles are often weak on native Linux support. So, I find myself also buying more eBooks from Humble lately than games like mirv.
Exactly this. It was a natural thing, to me... It began a little while before, but at around the time they replaced humble monthly with humble choice, I realised, for many reasons (Linux support, quality of games offered...), that the service was far less appealing to me... I found myself uninterrested in what was offered and I dropped my monthly bundle subscription... Now this... I might be wrong, but It looks like a gradual downward spiral for Humble as a whole.
Sad. The initial concept was something of it's own.
Last edited by Mohandevir on 24 Apr 2021 at 4:13 pm UTC
3 Likes, Who?
I didn't buy anything on Humble for a long time, and I'm pretty sure I won't in the future.
I hope a lot of people will simply boycott them...
And
Today we’re sharing some updates coming to bundle pages and how they will help us continue to support charity.Yeah, sure!
Which other store out there supports charities at all?
As for the other posts here claiming their "disappointment with HS" - what did you expect? The first Indie Humbles (11 year ago) were the first time I could professional games for Linux at all. Nowadays I have a backlog of hundreds of games (quite a few AAA titles among them). Even a proper Humble Indie Bundle would hardly be exciting nowadays - you've seen it all before on Steam already.
2 Likes, Who?
How do you feel about this? Will it affect future purchases from Humble for you?
Probably not the most popular thing to say, but I normally move the sliders so most goes to either GoL or Bluesnews, as a way to say thanks, never that much to charity, I wonder how that will change
Probably not the most popular thing to say, but I normally move the sliders so most goes to either GoL or Bluesnews, as a way to say thanks, never that much to charity, I wonder how that will change
0 Likes
Guys, I hear you but precisely the "charity/sliders" thing was the only appealing one about Humble Bundle.
Now they partially killed it, they have nothing to offer better of other stores.
It seems their behavior is simple hypocrisy for me, other stores don't do that, but Humble Bundle pretend to help charity and by doing this pretend to be better than the others...
But in the end, it's just a capitalist structure that behave exactly like the others.
In the end they don't trust the customers to choose carefully the amount of money they give, we give.
We can't choose anymore, put a minimum amount of money for them is a thing, but to forbid increase the amount of our choice is another...
It's like GOG could have some "light DRM" because they suspect their customers to share the games they bought etc... It would be unforgivable.
The only thing I care right now about this news, is how it could impact GOL and Liam, but I don't know if a lot of money or not comes from Humble Bundle. Maybe I'm wrong but I don't think it's a lot.
Now they partially killed it, they have nothing to offer better of other stores.
It seems their behavior is simple hypocrisy for me, other stores don't do that, but Humble Bundle pretend to help charity and by doing this pretend to be better than the others...
But in the end, it's just a capitalist structure that behave exactly like the others.
In the end they don't trust the customers to choose carefully the amount of money they give, we give.
We can't choose anymore, put a minimum amount of money for them is a thing, but to forbid increase the amount of our choice is another...
It's like GOG could have some "light DRM" because they suspect their customers to share the games they bought etc... It would be unforgivable.
The only thing I care right now about this news, is how it could impact GOL and Liam, but I don't know if a lot of money or not comes from Humble Bundle. Maybe I'm wrong but I don't think it's a lot.
2 Likes, Who?
To be honest it has long been my opinion that the whole Humble thing was a great idea originally, when it was just some people doing a bundle now and then, but was kind of pumped up beyond what it could sustain. It was too slight a gimmick to base a whole game store on. Eventually, the ongoing Humble thing became like when you have the umpteenth sequel to a good movie. As we're seeing in the comments here, people lose interest.
11 Likes, Who?
It used to be a bold offer, proposing independent games and, in exchange, you'd give to the devs and to charities. And for the very first bundles some games would even go open source if they were to reach a certain amount
I think this was the problem. Playing a little devil's advocate here, but let's really think about it. Was this ever a sustainable business model? Helping devs port to linux? Convincing them to open thier code? Letting us not pay them for it?
Look at Steam. People here love them for the Linux support and literally throw money at them. Yet, they can't even do those things that Humble did and we all believe they are very well off financially.
I really think, as nice as it was, it was never going to last. It simply couldn't compete as a store against Steam and GOG, even with the charity and Linux support gimmicks.
3 Likes, Who?
I'm just curious, do they have any kind of financial troubles? Changes like this could mean money struggles sometimes...I dunno, I'm just saying. Maybe I should just backup all my HB games and forget about them?
I've lost already some 100 games or so from another something-something-bundle (maybe Indie-Royale?) and they also "improved" the site before going belly up.
I was more lucky with Desura, still have all the games on a drive somewhere.
I've lost already some 100 games or so from another something-something-bundle (maybe Indie-Royale?) and they also "improved" the site before going belly up.
I was more lucky with Desura, still have all the games on a drive somewhere.
1 Likes, Who?
Cloversheen 24 Apr 2021
Hmm... Looking at the split it makes me wonder though.
Default split for $25 according to the GIF in the article is:
$21.25 Publisher
$1.25 Charity
$2.50 Humble
With the more charity option being:
$20 Publisher
$3.75 Charity
$1.25 Humble
It doesn't really speak much for the idea that HB is in financial trouble, it seems to suggest that publishers didn't like the ratio of "publisher to charity". And while that would seem on the nose for game publishers, we really need more info here.
As a side-note: Did it always say "Publisher", didn't it use to say "Developers"? Because those are not the same thing.
Default split for $25 according to the GIF in the article is:
$21.25 Publisher
$1.25 Charity
$2.50 Humble
With the more charity option being:
$20 Publisher
$3.75 Charity
$1.25 Humble
It doesn't really speak much for the idea that HB is in financial trouble, it seems to suggest that publishers didn't like the ratio of "publisher to charity". And while that would seem on the nose for game publishers, we really need more info here.
As a side-note: Did it always say "Publisher", didn't it use to say "Developers"? Because those are not the same thing.
2 Likes, Who?
thoughtfulhippo 24 Apr 2021
Liam, as a Humble Partner how does this affect you? I saw no mention of the impact on partners in their blog post. While I rarely gave anyone zero, I always rewarded GoL and Linux devs more. Looks like this will no longer be possible.
3 Likes, Who?
Liam, as a Humble Partner how does this affect you? I saw no mention of the impact on partners in their blog post. While I rarely gave anyone zero, I always rewarded GoL and Linux devs more. Looks like this will no longer be possible.Well it for sure means we get less, since I know a few people did up the amounts to us. We've steadily gotten less from HB over time anyway, especially since we've not covered a lot of their bundles for lack of good Linux support. I emailed Humble to see how this new change affects normal partner cuts, as yeah we've heard nothing so far.
1 Likes, Who?
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