Humble Indie Bundle Finally Sells Out

[Kristian Joensen]

" "Sorry, our last windows only bundle created a lot of community backlash, but if you'd be willing to let us port the game over for you we'd be more than happy to make you five million dollars.""

In which case the developers will just point to the sales numbers of this bundle.

[KameZero]

" "Sorry, our last windows only bundle created a lot of community backlash, but if you'd be willing to let us port the game over for you we'd be more than happy to make you five million dollars.""

In which case the developers will just point to the sales numbers of this bundle.

And? Despite what you seem to think, there will ALWAYS be indie devs who will be willing to let HBI port their games to get into a bundle. All HBI has to do is say they will not do you a bundle unless you let them port your games. Which will continue to work as long as they don't ever do another windows only bundle.

[Kristian Joensen]

"All HBI has to do is say they will not do you a bundle unless you let them port your games. Which will continue to work as long as they don't ever do another windows only bundle."

I don't see how they can say that after this. Imagine the conversation:

Humble Bundle: "We would love for you to be in our bundle, you just have to agree to provide use the games in a cross-platform(Windows, Mac, Linux) and DRM free state".
Devs: "We would love to be in your bundle, but we expect to be treated equally and fairly. So obviously you will allow us to provide you with Windows only Steam keys since that only fair."
Humble Bunlde: "Uhm....."

They will have nothing to say at that point in the conversation except to give up or loose out and with this move they have shown that they prefer the latter.

[Hamish Wilson]

So basically, if HIB come out with another one of these types of bundles then, yes, I agree they have completely sold out and definitely won't be considering future purchases. Hopefully this is a once off

I am not even arguing for a boycott even then - I am still going to buy bundles that are cross-platform and DRM free. But I will never be able to look at HIB the same way again.

And? Despite what you seem to think, there will ALWAYS be indie devs who will be willing to let HBI port their games to get into a bundle. All HBI has to do is say they will not do you a bundle unless you let them port your games. Which will continue to work as long as they don't ever do another windows only bundle.

Which makes me wonder why they did not do the same thing to THQ. It seems really unfair to me that they enforce these rules on smaller developer but they let a AAA developer just walk in and take the money. A lot of these developers worked hard on their Linux support, some had to rip out their DRM, and I am very grateful for their work. HIB does not seem to be anymore. And yes, I know THQ has been having financial problems, but this is the Humble Bundle. If they are not humbled by their own downfall enough to play by the rules they do not need to apply.

[Kristian Joensen]

If THQ had created their own Pay What You Want bundle in order to get in some much needed cash, that would have been an entirely different beast. But no, that is not how things went down. Humble Bundle Inc decided to throw all their principles over board.

Edit:

The more logical partner for this would have been Valve, since as others have pointed out this is just a Steam sale in disguise. If Valve and THQ had launched this as a Pay What You Want steam sale I would not have minded it at all.

[ChrisXY]

Maybe they should make some categories or "tags". So when you open you see all the logos that apply to that bundle like "this bundle has drm free games" or "this bundle is cross platform" and you could subscribe only to newsletters for certain combinations of tags.

I don't like either that they are diluting "their brand" but why not have several clearly distinguished "brands"?

[crazycheese]

Lets see...

"Humble indie bundle"

The "THQ" bundle is not "humble". Its not indie. And contrary to their mission claims - not drm free and not crossplatform. Whats left? Bundle

In fact, if you look at edit war around 30.11.12 on wikipedia, you can conclude one thing:

You got "ownt"

The negative thing about it - they are gone, since they broke their own mission;
The positive thing about it - they managed to fsck up even without help of Elop!


So, feel free to start new "bundle" without the guys in question! There are much better distribution proprieties left unexplored! Like community voting on titles and so on!

[Kamikaze]

Just saw this on Rock, Paper, Shotgun.

They asked Humble Bundle Inc. about their new non-indie THQ bundle, this was the Humble Bundle's response:

“When THQ expressed interest in our pay what you want plus charity model and willingness to let us bundle so many top tier titles, we couldn’t believe it at first,” the rep explained to RPS. “But trying to turn up our noses at this epic chance to make gamers happy and help worthy causes like Child’s Play and the American Red Cross could only have been defined as arrogance. We had to try and we were extremely curious to see what would happen.”

“So far, it’s been pretty well received: we’re on record pace both in total sales and number of purchases. It looks like we’ve passed the two million dollar mark in just 16 hours. We are hopeful that this excitement is growing our community in a way that can only help our future promotions, and rest assured that indie bundles will continue to be an important part of our business.”

[entropy]

Just saw this on Rock, Paper, Shotgun.

They asked Humble Bundle Inc. about their new non-indie THQ bundle, this was the Humble Bundle's response:

Well, I wasn't that negative at first, but

(...) rest assured that indie bundles will continue to be an important part of our business.

sounds more like "we will still have those Indie Bundles but expect way more of those THQ-alike bundles."

Let'a wait and see. *If* they manage to come up with new Indie Bundles which contain surprising new high-quality stuff, I'm perfectly fine with that route.
Some people seem to be convinced that this won't happen anymore...

[Hamish Wilson]

My real complaint has nothing to do with quality, but the fact that they just did what they said they would not do - sell Windows only DRM titles. It is hypocritical.