THQ has been struggling, so they're trying something new. That's a good thing. If you don't want to buy it, don't. I did, as did many of my friends, and I'm quite happy with it.
"Humble bundle" is more or less in the same mental category as I would place "brand names".
It is a specific brand of name your price software offering, estalished on a set of core ideals.
It was those core ideals that made Humbe Bundle stand out from other name your price offerings.
This is not an offering true to the humble bundle ideals. It should not be labeled as being a humble bundle offering, unless they strip off the DRM, and FOSS the game afterwards, like the previous closed source games in the past did.
Unless they do BOTH of those things, this is an unacceptable offering, akin to opening a box of heineken and finding that it had been instead filled with old milwuakee.
People support the humble bundle brand for a reason. Throwing away that foundation to placate AAA studio developers is a betrayal of the user base, and a slap in the face to prior bundle participant developers.
No developer should get preferential treatment by the bundle. Ever.
Ok, how about buying a carton of milk, and finding orange juice inside?
Buy a bottle of champaign and discover it is really white zinfendel?
The point is that simply because "its a liquid, and you can drink it", that does not make it interchangeable. Ordering a porche and getting a ford festiva delivered is NOT how you treat customers. They are both cars, and they both drive from point a to point b. But saying they are the same is disingeuous to say the least.
Ordering a porche and getting a ford festiva delivered is NOT how you treat customers. They are both cars, and they both drive from point a to point b. But saying they are the same is disingeuous to say the least.
If the Porsche dealer dropped Porsche and picked up Ford, then I have no right to complain to the management that they made a decision I don't like. I can buy a Festiva or walk. There is no fraud (which is what you are asserting, when you order one thing and get another). There's simply a change of product. People didn't like New Coke, but that didn't mean they got to sue for fraud because it tasted different.
It's actually more like buying drinks, and only getting milk. Now you assume you'll always have milk. So when you get some orange juice in the box too, you start a drama. Well, to be honest, it isn't bad, milk and orange juice go well together sometimes.
Oh for goodness SAKE. I'm undoing my mod points here because your analogies sucked so bad.
Nobody has bought this and got something they didn't expect to pay for, unlike all of your examples. Instead, people are getting angry that they are being *offered* the chance to buy something. If it's not to their taste, they can ignore it. Instead they're throwing a hilarious shit fit like you and going on about 'betrayal'.
Are Western geeks so absolutely full of themselves that now they are getting offended
It is my understanding that people are offended because this Humble Bundle is not in the spirit that has been established by earlier Humble Bundles. That is, cross-platform and DRM-free games.
It is a specific brand of name your price software offering, estalished on a set of core ideals.
Maybe that was true for the first few bundles. But they've since branched out into releasing music and books. They sold Crayon Physics Deluxe without source code, and probably other games too.
People support the humble bundle brand for a reason.
But not always the same reason. I've supported the Humble Bundles from the beginning, always paying several times the average, and keeping all my keys neatly sorted in KeePass. I've never played half the games, but I support it anyway. Not because I care about DRM (so long as its inobtrusive, I don't) or open source, but because I support the pay-what-you-want-and-give-some-to-charity model.
This happens. Little communities expand, and become more ideologically diverse. You shouldn't be so angry towards your fellow supporters. We give just as much as you do.
When you become too ideological diverse you have no ideology at all. All the music and books sold were DRM free, thus following the same set of rules established by the brand. This is the first time they deviated from it, and betrayed all the loyal supporters they acquired. Many won't go back there to buy again, rest assured, and will stop recommending it. The end result is still to be seen, but I hope they sink.
THQ is hardly a "smaller publisher". Only its last game made 5 million dollars in sells. Humble Bundle sold out. Plainly as that.No matter how much you want it to be otherwise. It is better that they go away and someone else who really cares for independents, EFF and anti-DRM takes their place.
The response from the Humble Bundle co-founder John Graham is this [arstechnica.com]: They're experimenting. They're trying to see if they can make the HIB system work for bigger games. But this is in no way a guaranteed change in how it will work in the future - they fully plan to continue the DRM-free, cross-platform indie game bundles, possibly even another one this year.
My own addendum: If the experiment is a success, they'll likely be able to push harder in the future to force their partners to remove the DRM and/or port to Mac/Linux. But since this was the first one, they had to compromise a bit. And even then they could only get a publisher that's nearly dead and is desperate for PR and sales. Given how much backlash that's brought them from some sectors*, they almost definitely won't do the next one just like this. At least, not under the Humble Bundle name.
* I say "some sectors" because the gaming world is actually pretty excited about this one. They don't really care about the lack of Mac/Linux support or the DRM. It's rather clear that this bundle was aimed at them, not at anti-DRM crusaders or Mac/Linux fans.
If the experiment is a success, they'll likely be able to push harder in the future to force their partners to remove the DRM and/or port to Mac/Linux.
I think you have that backwards. The reception to the previous bundles, which were cross-platform and without DRM, was great. Now it can go one of two ways:
The reception to this bundle is also great. This would show that the cross-platform and DRM issues aren't important to their customers and can be ignored.
I've never bought any Humble Bundles, but when people are saying that this has outsold all the previous ones...is that just in numbers of units sold? If so, I would assume its possible for this bundle to outsell all the old ones in terms of quantity, but can you compare how much money was sent to charity between the different bundles? If this one has a significantly higher amount, that could send a pretty strong message about DRM.
Bullshit. There have been several Humble Bundles which didn't even include games (e.g. Music & eBooks), and most of the games in previous bundles haven't been FOSS. They've also done publisher/developer specific bundles in the past (e.g. Frozenbyte, Introversion).
I honestly have no clue what your problem with this is, as none of the things you talk about have been true for previous bundles. The only real difference is that in the past many of the items were DRM free, but even that's not been 100%, and many of us (myself included) just used the steam keys anyway so that wasn't really significant.
This is raising money for charity and/or THQ - I have no problem with that. If you don't like it, don't buy it. End of story.
There have been several Humble Bundles which didn't even include games (e.g. Music & eBooks)
And in addition, the eBooks one (which I purchased) had some pretty not-in-any-imaginable-way-humble-category-level authors. Neil Gaiman and John Scalzi, to name but two. The genres in which they publish aren't what passes for literary mainstream, but within those genres they both are most definitely major AAA-authors.
I really don't see the reason for the hate on this THQ bundle. THQ is almost bankrupt. Helping a struggling company to maybe, with luck, not disappear (or, worse, become part of EA), isn't evil by any means.
Why is this bad? (Score:5, Informative)
THQ has been struggling, so they're trying something new. That's a good thing. If you don't want to buy it, don't. I did, as did many of my friends, and I'm quite happy with it.
Re:Why is this bad? (Score:5, Insightful)
"Humble bundle" is more or less in the same mental category as I would place "brand names".
It is a specific brand of name your price software offering, estalished on a set of core ideals.
It was those core ideals that made Humbe Bundle stand out from other name your price offerings.
This is not an offering true to the humble bundle ideals. It should not be labeled as being a humble bundle offering, unless they strip off the DRM, and FOSS the game afterwards, like the previous closed source games in the past did.
Unless they do BOTH of those things, this is an unacceptable offering, akin to opening a box of heineken and finding that it had been instead filled with old milwuakee.
People support the humble bundle brand for a reason. Throwing away that foundation to placate AAA studio developers is a betrayal of the user base, and a slap in the face to prior bundle participant developers.
No developer should get preferential treatment by the bundle. Ever.
Re: (Score:1)
I don't know what "miwuakee" is, but I don't think Heineken would be that much better considering that beer drinkers joke how it's a cow's pee.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Ok, how about buying a carton of milk, and finding orange juice inside?
Buy a bottle of champaign and discover it is really white zinfendel?
The point is that simply because "its a liquid, and you can drink it", that does not make it interchangeable. Ordering a porche and getting a ford festiva delivered is NOT how you treat customers. They are both cars, and they both drive from point a to point b. But saying they are the same is disingeuous to say the least.
This is not a humble bundle offering any more tha
Re: (Score:2)
Ordering a porche and getting a ford festiva delivered is NOT how you treat customers. They are both cars, and they both drive from point a to point b. But saying they are the same is disingeuous to say the least.
If the Porsche dealer dropped Porsche and picked up Ford, then I have no right to complain to the management that they made a decision I don't like. I can buy a Festiva or walk. There is no fraud (which is what you are asserting, when you order one thing and get another). There's simply a change of product. People didn't like New Coke, but that didn't mean they got to sue for fraud because it tasted different.
Re: (Score:1)
It's actually more like buying drinks, and only getting milk. Now you assume you'll always have milk. So when you get some orange juice in the box too, you start a drama.
Well, to be honest, it isn't bad, milk and orange juice go well together sometimes.
Re: (Score:1)
Nobody has bought this and got something they didn't expect to pay for, unlike all of your examples. Instead, people are getting angry that they are being *offered* the chance to buy something. If it's not to their taste, they can ignore it. Instead they're throwing a hilarious shit fit like you and going on about 'betrayal'.
Are Western geeks so absolutely full of themselves that now they are getting offended
Re: (Score:1)
It is my understanding that people are offended because this Humble Bundle is not in the spirit that has been established by earlier Humble Bundles. That is, cross-platform and DRM-free games.
Re:Why is this bad? (Score:5, Insightful)
It is a specific brand of name your price software offering, estalished on a set of core ideals.
Maybe that was true for the first few bundles. But they've since branched out into releasing music and books. They sold Crayon Physics Deluxe without source code, and probably other games too.
People support the humble bundle brand for a reason.
But not always the same reason. I've supported the Humble Bundles from the beginning, always paying several times the average, and keeping all my keys neatly sorted in KeePass. I've never played half the games, but I support it anyway. Not because I care about DRM (so long as its inobtrusive, I don't) or open source, but because I support the pay-what-you-want-and-give-some-to-charity model.
This happens. Little communities expand, and become more ideologically diverse. You shouldn't be so angry towards your fellow supporters. We give just as much as you do.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Why is this bad? (Score:5, Insightful)
The response from the Humble Bundle co-founder John Graham is this [arstechnica.com]:
They're experimenting. They're trying to see if they can make the HIB system work for bigger games. But this is in no way a guaranteed change in how it will work in the future - they fully plan to continue the DRM-free, cross-platform indie game bundles, possibly even another one this year.
My own addendum:
If the experiment is a success, they'll likely be able to push harder in the future to force their partners to remove the DRM and/or port to Mac/Linux. But since this was the first one, they had to compromise a bit. And even then they could only get a publisher that's nearly dead and is desperate for PR and sales. Given how much backlash that's brought them from some sectors*, they almost definitely won't do the next one just like this. At least, not under the Humble Bundle name.
* I say "some sectors" because the gaming world is actually pretty excited about this one. They don't really care about the lack of Mac/Linux support or the DRM. It's rather clear that this bundle was aimed at them, not at anti-DRM crusaders or Mac/Linux fans.
Re: (Score:3)
I think you have that backwards. The reception to the previous bundles, which were cross-platform and without DRM, was great. Now it can go one of two ways:
Re: (Score:1)
Re:Why is this bad? (Score:5, Insightful)
Bullshit. There have been several Humble Bundles which didn't even include games (e.g. Music & eBooks), and most of the games in previous bundles haven't been FOSS. They've also done publisher/developer specific bundles in the past (e.g. Frozenbyte, Introversion).
I honestly have no clue what your problem with this is, as none of the things you talk about have been true for previous bundles. The only real difference is that in the past many of the items were DRM free, but even that's not been 100%, and many of us (myself included) just used the steam keys anyway so that wasn't really significant.
This is raising money for charity and/or THQ - I have no problem with that. If you don't like it, don't buy it. End of story.
Re:Why is this bad? (Score:5, Insightful)
There have been several Humble Bundles which didn't even include games (e.g. Music & eBooks)
And in addition, the eBooks one (which I purchased) had some pretty not-in-any-imaginable-way-humble-category-level authors. Neil Gaiman and John Scalzi, to name but two. The genres in which they publish aren't what passes for literary mainstream, but within those genres they both are most definitely major AAA-authors.
I really don't see the reason for the hate on this THQ bundle. THQ is almost bankrupt. Helping a struggling company to maybe, with luck, not disappear (or, worse, become part of EA), isn't evil by any means.
Re:Why is this bad? (Score:4, Informative)
and FOSS the game afterwards, like the previous closed source games in the past did.
Only a couple of games went FOSS after the bundle and that was only at the beginning. The vast majority of the bundle games are never open sourced.