The Humble Heroines Bundle is an awesome deal for Steam Deck and Linux Desktop

Worth it, hugely, for the first two games alone. Control is superb and Hellblade's atmosphere is incredible. Praey looks great (a Shadow of the Collosus tribute) and both Batora and Dreamscaper have a Grim Dawn vibe, but single player. I've no interest in Syberia (point'n'click), but I've been meaning to pick up Sable for months now. Call of the Sea looks like a nice wee bonus - a first-person puzzler.

Might have to pick this up, even though I already own the two main stars.

Already have most of these games.
If you don't, buy this bundle. They are wonderful

Call of the Sea = free on EPIC right now
Control = Has been free on EPIC twice
Hellblade = Has been part of MANY bundles in the past.

Then I have 2 others from other rarer bundles.

If you have been collecting EPIC games, it's an okay-ish bundle not great but okay.
If you have been collecting EPIC + Most all good value bundles for a while then you're almost paying sale prices for the stuff your missing. Which the issue with paying near sale prices on bundled games is you can not return them if you don't like them, so unless you know you're going to like them you're better off just paying the couple extra dollars for return protection. Actually taking the time to returning 1 or 2 games out of 4 during a big normal sale can literally save you more money than buying a bundle where you're only save a few dollars per game.

Call of the Sea = free on EPIC right now
Control = Has been free on EPIC twice
Hellblade = Has been part of MANY bundles in the past.

Then I have 2 others from other rarer bundles.

If you have been collecting EPIC games, it's an okay-ish bundle not great but okay.
If you have been collecting EPIC + Most all good value bundles for a while then you're almost paying sale prices for the stuff your missing. Which the issue with paying near sale prices on bundled games is you can not return them if you don't like them, so unless you know you're going to like them you're better off just paying the couple extra dollars for return protection. Actually taking the time to returning 1 or 2 games out of 4 during a big normal sale can literally save you more money than buying a bundle where you're only save a few dollars per game.

Or you want the games, pay "sales prices" for them and support some charity organizations with a bundle!

Because that's what these are about. If you're just looking for the cheapest prices, you're not the targeted audience.

Call of the Sea = free on EPIC right now
Control = Has been free on EPIC twice
Hellblade = Has been part of MANY bundles in the past.

Then I have 2 others from other rarer bundles.

If you have been collecting EPIC games, it's an okay-ish bundle not great but okay.
If you have been collecting EPIC + Most all good value bundles for a while then you're almost paying sale prices for the stuff your missing. Which the issue with paying near sale prices on bundled games is you can not return them if you don't like them, so unless you know you're going to like them you're better off just paying the couple extra dollars for return protection. Actually taking the time to returning 1 or 2 games out of 4 during a big normal sale can literally save you more money than buying a bundle where you're only save a few dollars per game.

Or you want the games, pay "sales prices" for them and support some charity organizations with a bundle!

Because that's what these are about. If you're just looking for the cheapest prices, you're not the targeted audience.

That and grabbing free games on Epic, does absolutely nothing to support Linux and Steam Deck gaming. Additionally, there's no doubt many like me not really paying much attention at all to free games from Epic. While the Heroic Launcher is great, much prefer to stick with Steam and get bundles like this.

Worth it, hugely, for the first two games alone. Control is superb and Hellblade's atmosphere is incredible. Praey looks great (a Shadow of the Collosus tribute) and both Batora and Dreamscaper have a Grim Dawn vibe, but single player. I've no interest in Syberia (point'n'click), but I've been meaning to pick up Sable for months now. Call of the Sea looks like a nice wee bonus - a first-person puzzler.

Might have to pick this up, even though I already own the two main stars.

Played a bit of Hellblade in VR... talk about creepy!!

Call of the Sea = free on EPIC right now
Control = Has been free on EPIC twice
Hellblade = Has been part of MANY bundles in the past.

Then I have 2 others from other rarer bundles.

If you have been collecting EPIC games, it's an okay-ish bundle not great but okay.
If you have been collecting EPIC + Most all good value bundles for a while then you're almost paying sale prices for the stuff your missing. Which the issue with paying near sale prices on bundled games is you can not return them if you don't like them, so unless you know you're going to like them you're better off just paying the couple extra dollars for return protection. Actually taking the time to returning 1 or 2 games out of 4 during a big normal sale can literally save you more money than buying a bundle where you're only save a few dollars per game.

Or you want the games, pay "sales prices" for them and support some charity organizations with a bundle!

Because that's what these are about. If you're just looking for the cheapest prices, you're not the targeted audience.

That and grabbing free games on Epic, does absolutely nothing to support Linux and Steam Deck gaming. Additionally, there's no doubt many like me not really paying much attention at all to free games from Epic. While the Heroic Launcher is great, much prefer to stick with Steam and get bundles like this.

I have some questions about how this stores work:
How buying bundles on stores like HumbleBundle or Fanatical is supporting Linux?
- installing and playing a game in steam from Linux will raise the sales statistics the developers/publishers have access to? Are we sure "activated games" are handled the same way as "bought games"?
- will Valve get a percent of the cost of the keys in the bundle? You know, bandwidth, infrastructure etc.

Call of the Sea = free on EPIC right now
Control = Has been free on EPIC twice
Hellblade = Has been part of MANY bundles in the past.

Then I have 2 others from other rarer bundles.

If you have been collecting EPIC games, it's an okay-ish bundle not great but okay.
If you have been collecting EPIC + Most all good value bundles for a while then you're almost paying sale prices for the stuff your missing. Which the issue with paying near sale prices on bundled games is you can not return them if you don't like them, so unless you know you're going to like them you're better off just paying the couple extra dollars for return protection. Actually taking the time to returning 1 or 2 games out of 4 during a big normal sale can literally save you more money than buying a bundle where you're only save a few dollars per game.

Or you want the games, pay "sales prices" for them and support some charity organizations with a bundle!

Because that's what these are about. If you're just looking for the cheapest prices, you're not the targeted audience.

That and grabbing free games on Epic, does absolutely nothing to support Linux and Steam Deck gaming. Additionally, there's no doubt many like me not really paying much attention at all to free games from Epic. While the Heroic Launcher is great, much prefer to stick with Steam and get bundles like this.

I have some questions about how this stores work:
How buying bundles on stores like HumbleBundle or Fanatical is supporting Linux?
- installing and playing a game in steam from Linux will raise the sales statistics the developers/publishers have access to? Are we sure "activated games" are handled the same way as "bought games"?
- will Valve get a percent of the cost of the keys in the bundle? You know, bandwidth, infrastructure etc.

The last thing I heard on that was:
it's counted for the platform on which you played most during the first 2 weeks or so?
but that's a while ago and it could have changed...
i mean: they also have statistics that take into account the platform on which you add something to your wishlist... so they may as well consider the platform you bought the game on...

@stormtux, Valve does _not_ get a cut for what is sold on Humble. As a developer you are allowed to give away as much keys as you want. So, you request like 5000 keys for Humble. Steam generates a key list for you, and that's uploaded to Humble.

Valve does have to approve all the key requests, but in my experience that's only to avoid scams.


Last edited by spacemonkey on 11 March 2023 at 7:27 am UTC

Anyone want to go halfsies? I already own Control, Call of Sea, Hellblade. But I'm vaguely interested in the other half of the bundle.

I have some questions about how this stores work:
How buying bundles on stores like HumbleBundle or Fanatical is supporting Linux?

This one I can answer:
Haven't you noticed that the bundle link is an affiliate link?
Go to the checkout and have a look at the "charity" settings and you will see, that you support gamingonlinux quite literally. ;-)
(and with a decent share that is...)

I have some questions about how this stores work:
How buying bundles on stores like HumbleBundle or Fanatical is supporting Linux?

This one I can answer:
Haven't you noticed that the bundle link is an affiliate link?
Go to the checkout and have a look at the "charity" settings and you will see, that you support gamingonlinux quite literally. ;-)
(and with a decent share that is...)

but you can also customize those settings, i.e. nothing for charity and all to GOL or everything to the publisher and nothing for the rest of them... only the humble store has a minimum share they get

Nice bundle. The first two games are so unique they are almost classics in their own right.

Just purchased the bundle, though already owned Control and Hellblade. Particularly excited to try Sable.

Side note, not sure if anyone is aware but if using the link Liam gives you, when adjusting where your money goes, an extra option is given to choose how much of your purchase goes to GamingOnLinux.

Just purchased the bundle, though already owned Control and Hellblade. Particularly excited to try Sable.

Side note, not sure if anyone is aware but if using the link Liam gives you, when adjusting where your money goes, an extra option is given to choose how much of your purchase goes to GamingOnLinux.

Yeah, they took away the "per-game" sliders, but there's still a nice amount of customisation possible. Here's what the default £20 looks like.
!Image of the Humble customisation sliders, showing that GOL gets £3 on a £20 purchase.
So now you can bung Liam even more if you're so inclined!

If the theme is female protagonists, it's a shame they didn't have Ion Fury in this bundle. Such a great game, and the best thing ever made on the Build engine.

only the humble store has a minimum share they get

Someone has to pay the traffic caused by all those Steam keys

installing and playing a game in steam from Linux will raise the sales statistics the developers/publishers have access to? Are we sure "activated games" are handled the same way as "bought games"?

Yes. The platform that gets the most playtime during the refund period (two weeks) is the platform that counts for the sales statistics, unless there isn't any which means that it's the platform it was purchased on, unless that isn't available information (because it's Android or just a key) in which case it's left undefined.

will Valve get a percent of the cost of the keys in the bundle? You know, bandwidth, infrastructure etc.

No. Keys are given to developers for free, and Valve just eats the infrastructure costs. The only restriction (other than total number of keys) is that "you plan to give a comparable offer to Steam customers within a reasonable amount of time."

Thanks for all the answers!

I forgot about the affiliate link. It is incredible it is possible to zero the donation to the publisher and give all to the affiliate partner but it works!
When I tried the first time it wasn't working but the cause was the Firefox add-on ClearURLs that was doing its work removing the tracking parts in the link. If someone uses a similar addon keep in mind that to be able to donate to GamingOnLinux you need to disable temporarily the add-on.

You can donate to GaminOnLinux even on the books bundles!


Last edited by stormtux on 11 March 2023 at 7:22 pm UTC

Or you want the games, pay "sales prices" for them and support some charity organizations with a bundle!

Because that's what these are about. If you're just looking for the cheapest prices, you're not the targeted audience.

Whilst I understand the point being made, some of us are on a very limited household budget through no choice of our own. Freebies keep the gaming going whilst times are difficult.