Humble Indie Bundle Finally Sells Out

[crazycheese]

Like Google the Humble Indie Bundle has now reached critical mass and is nolonger niche, so they dont have to depend on their niche customers to make a profit now. They have grown and this is now the result, expect more big name bundles tied with drm and a single OS platform (Windows) and less cross platform Humble Indie Bundles until perhaps its completely phased out, however dont expect this to happen immediately probably over the next five years if they continue to grow.

Lets see... Google principle is "not to be evil". It stays true. They fund many opensource projects. They provided full support Linux for Google hangout. They did Android and merge changes back into Linux kernel.
What critical mass are you talking about?

The single fact here is that the people have destroyed their own mission. A project without mission is like nut without content. Its dead! When they are asked about the case, their single response is "so far its been good" - clear lie, just check wikipedia, and that they "have been making 2 million of dollars". These are the indicators of success for them. Wooo!

The funny thing that happens next, is that there will be WAY less Linux and probably Mac users. Thats 1/2 of income lost. But its not as tragic as what comes next: with their mission broken, those who left will question IF ANYTHING will go to charity AT ALL. For just $ 2 mio, they have literally sold the trust and own future... And everything without Elop!

Seriously, if we allow people like these in FLOSS key areas, its just like employing a terrorist with live bomb. Imagine Linus binding whole kernel to Android and closing it down,.. or Xorg & Wayland devs shutting down because Apple offered them bunch of money. Damaged mission, means zero trust. Zero trust means instability on future. With instability there will be no "community" and no positive "buzz".

Somebody should really write "Congratulations on selling your souls so cheap" on their support forum.

Google is not this stupid and opportunistic. They deny 100 million of bribe offers, but increase their daily income by building trust.

[ElderSnake]

Like Google the Humble Indie Bundle has now reached critical mass and is nolonger niche, so they dont have to depend on their niche customers to make a profit now. They have grown and this is now the result, expect more big name bundles tied with drm and a single OS platform (Windows) and less cross platform Humble Indie Bundles until perhaps its completely phased out, however dont expect this to happen immediately probably over the next five years if they continue to grow.

That's the really sad thing though and once again shows how money talks. Once enough $$$ come along, people throw any values or principles out the window.

[dredhammer]

Like Google the Humble Indie Bundle has now reached critical mass and is nolonger niche, so they dont have to depend on their niche customers to make a profit now. They have grown and this is now the result, expect more big name bundles tied with drm and a single OS platform (Windows) and less cross platform Humble Indie Bundles until perhaps its completely phased out, however dont expect this to happen immediately probably over the next five years if they continue to grow.

[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.

[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...

[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.?

[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!

[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"?

[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.

[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.