New Humble Bundle Is Windows Only, DRM Games 553
jbernardo writes "After all the indie, multi-platform (including 4 for android) and DRM free releases, the latest Humble Bundle release is a polarizing one. It features non-indie games, it is Windows only, and the games are saddled with DRM. There is already a very vocal discussion on the Humble Bundle Google+ thread, but it seems it is selling well."
Polemic? (Score:1, Informative)
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/polemic [wiktionary.org]
Do you know what polemic 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:I'm one of the people who's pretty angry... (Score:1, Informative)
Seriously, if you don't like it, just don't buy it.
Some shops sell items I don't like or don't want and I just skip these and buy what I want when I see it. No need to make a fuss about it!
Sure it's Steam on Windows only. But considering it has the biggest market share, it's quite ok to do so when you want to raise money for a charity. If you're considering buying the bundle and don't want to support THQ or Humble Bundle, just change the split accordingly! It's for a good cause!
Re:Polemic? (Score:5, Informative)
No, that would be Polemish.
Re:I'm one of the people who's pretty angry... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I'm one of the people who's pretty angry... (Score:5, Informative)
Okay, I know nothing of these people, but did they ever promise to always be free and cross-platform?
Pretty much, yeah. From the Humble Bundle's blog:
Welcome to the blog of the Humble Bundle. We sell bundles of cross-platform, DRM-free video games by independent developers. You get to set your own price while supporting the Electronic Frontier...
Cross platform, DRM free, indie, and "pay what you want" are the four things that the Humble Bundle has built their brand on. Ars has a pretty good write up on the problems here:
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2012/11/humble-thq-bundle-threatens-to-ruin-the-brands-reputation/ [arstechnica.com]
Re:I'm one of the people who's pretty angry... (Score:5, Informative)
Sure, let's all completely ignore that this bundle is dwarfing the previous bundles in the first day in terms of money collected.
Re:No Good (Score:5, Informative)
At least they don't call it "THQ Indie Bundle" like some other big publisher named their Steam bundle a while ago (I'm not going to name that publisher... OK, it was EA)
THQ is one of the most fair and square publishers out there. They're not scared of new ideas and new IPs, and they don't seem to bind the developers with unfair contracts (not to my knowledge at least). They support their games for ages and a new DLC doesn't mean a 'tiny map-pack for $20'. Keeping them in the game means more competition to the likes of Activision-666-Blizzard and EA (Evil Antichrist) and this is a good enough reason for me to pay them a fair share for their games.
And to answer the three major concerns everyone seems to have:
Yes - it's DRM locked, just like practically every single AAA title in the world. I don't understand why would anyone expect anything different this time around.
No - it's not multi-platform, because they'd probably spend more money porting those old titles to linux/mac, than they'd ever make from this sale.
No - it's not indie, but does it have to be? You have the option to give all your money to the charity if you don't like the idea of supporting a big publisher, so what's the problem? The spirit of the bundle is to encourage gamers to support charities by offering them games in return - to me all the boxes are ticked here, and even more so considering the class of the games in question.
So don't worry, be happy, buy games, support charities. Happy holidays!
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.
Re:I'm one of the people who's pretty angry... (Score:5, Informative)
Yes. I made a post a couple of dozen people saw. I talked personally to 5 or 10 people.
And there are thousands of people like me. We each made our little contributions. Each of us helped make the Humble Bundle brand what it was. It wasn't just me, but I helped. And so did they. Many of us our upset.
Thousands of negligible effects add up to a real effect. I think my anger is justified. So is theirs.
Re:I'm one of the people who's pretty angry... (Score:5, Informative)
There have been four android-only bundles. That's not any more cross-platform than PC only.
You are very mistaken. The games in the Android bundles were available for Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, and Android.
This bundle is useless for a large portion of regular Humble Bundle buyers. Apparently they're raking in cash, good for them. Maybe this is a good direction for them, but they're risking the loyality of their Mac and Linux supporters.
Re:No Good (Score:5, Informative)
Just an Update: (Score:4, Informative)
From ArsTechnica:
UPDATE
In a response to Ars, Humble Bundle co-founder John Graham assured users the company will "never stop creating Humble Indie Bundles... and the other bundle types we've successfully launched this year. But we’re also eager to see if our pay-what-you-want plus charity model meshes with critically acclaimed AAA content as well."
Graham said the new THQ bundle did not represent a permanent departure from the company's indie roots, and that the company may even release a third indie bundle this year. "This year has also been a year of many experiments for us that fall outside the traditional Humble Indie Bundle framework," Graham told us. "We’re very excited to be able to offer the gaming community a massive sale with blockbuster content and raise money for charity at the same time. We will of course continue to support indies content as a core of our business."
Regarding the lack of Mac and Linux ports this time around, Graham said plainly that, "in the case of this promotion, it would not have been possible for us to deliver this blockbuster content via other means." But Graham also promised the Humble Bundle "will not cease in our quest to bring awesome content to Mac and Linux and Android," and pointed out that the Humble eBook Bundle contained the first digital publication of Neil Gaiman's graphic novel Signal to Noise.
Re:Sure (Score:3, Informative)
You're missing the major difference. These are old games, that simply do not have any sales any more. At the same time, THQ is trying to sell sequels to these games (such as darksiders 2).
To THQ, this is a zero risk strategy. The assets on sale are of minimal to nonexistent value. At the same time, they're selling sequels right now for decent prices, sequels that in spite of proper major marketing push didn't sell all that well.
When small indies peddle their stuff for "whatever you want to pay for it", it's usually a game that simply can't get any marketing or picked by a major publisher. This is a major publisher using the system that indies started to peddle its old stuff to squeeze the extra dime out of old, nearly worthless investment while getting free advertisement for sequels that are currently selling at decent prices.
And this rubs in in a very wrong way in spite of the fact that I would really love to see darksiders 3, as I loved 1 and 2, and neither sold very well making third installment of that franchise a big question mark. It's principles against seeing yet another small dev friendly started franchise become just another form of marketing for major publishers against game series I liked a lot getting another shot.
Because to many small guys, HIB was pretty much the only way to make waves. And with major publisher pushing into it, their chances of making waves with it again go down significantly. It's on the way to become yet another case of "you can't fight a marketing budget of big publisher when you're just a small company". And that sucks.