Humble Bundle announced back in April they would be making changes to the purchase sliders based on (much hated) testing, then backpedaling in May, they've announced again some changes are coming to always give Humble a cut.
Previously when buying a bundle you would be able to adjust the sliders of who gets a cut, to give 100% to charity if you wish (or developers/partners) and you could even give nothing to Humble. That's going away. The sliders themselves this time will continue to be an option, so you will be able to adjust who gets what. However, Humble have made it clear they will always have a minimum cut between "15 – 30%". This brings them more inline with other stores but it does mean it's far less generous to charity and developers.
Pictured - the current sliders on bundles.
This change comes after 10 years of Humble allowing people to give them nothing. To play "devil's advocate" for a moment: it's not even remotely surprising they want to do this though, they are a business and they do obviously want to always be able to pull in money from customers, they aren't a charity themselves. However, after enabling full customization for this long, it's obviously still not going to go down well with a large portion of their customer base.
Explaining why they're doing it now, Humble said "The PC storefront landscape has changed significantly since we first launched bundles in 2010, and we have to continue to evolve with it to stay on mission. The update will allow us to continue to offer great prices on amazing games, books and software all while supporting important charitable initiatives with every single purchase" and that the change will allow them to invest more in their content. They also noted they're closing in on $200 million in donations to various charities.
In an email with Kotaku, Humble boss Alan Patmore said "Operational costs, such as the cost of acquiring content, have risen dramatically" which is one of the reasons why they're doing this.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
HyperRealisticRock Jul 3, 2021
Quoting: BeemerQuote"Operational costs, such as the cost of acquiring content, have risen dramatically"What content is Humble acquiring? They have a storefront where others that make content can sell their stuff. I know occasionally in the past, they've paid to have something ported. Does Humble Bundle make games or other content for sale now?
Anyways - This is a wholly unexpected development.
Sorta ya,
Humble is a games publisher now.
Steam - https://store.steampowered.com/publisher/HumbleGames
HumbleGames - https://www.humblegames.com/work-with-us/
They finance and release indi games.
QuoteIn an email with Kotaku, Humble boss Alan Patmore said "Operational costs, such as the cost of acquiring content, have risen dramatically" which is one of the reasons why they're doing this.
There is no cost to them for bundles so this is really mealy mouth market speak garbage. Yes they publish other developer games but that has zero to do with their bundles. Also they host almost nothing anymore. They mainly sell steam keys these days which cost them almost nothing in bandwidth since they are not hosting the files and providing downloads. Very little of what Humble Bundle does anymore is actually selling DRM games that you actually download from them.
The market for gaming hasn't changed as much as Humble Bundle has changed. They have gone from a DRM free to store to mainly just another store selling Steam keys. Humble Bundle really doesn't do all that much to promote and help sell small indie developers either. There are other stores doing a much better job of that these days and Humble Bundle has no one to blame but themselves for chasing Steam keys and AAA games. Examples of better indie games stores in my mind would be ichi.io and indiegala.
Last edited by dejaime on 4 July 2021 at 4:47 am UTC
It's surely nice to want to support charities and developers, but websites don't develop and maintain themselves, servers don't automagically get updated and protected, customers support is not done by AI, electricity doesn't come for free, and there's no free office space or unpaid staff.
EPIC Games Store takes 12%, so not far from the Humble minimum of 15%. And I think Humble gets 15% on bigger payments, and 30% on the lowest ones, in order to get something out of the whole transaction. Hey, it's arguably more than some people feel comfortable, but they offer more options compared to most stores. How often do other game stores allow you to send money to a charity? Humble do it with every bundle - right?
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