Humble Bundle Limits Charity Donations To 15% (humblebundle.com) 112
An anonymous reader writes: Some weeks ago, in a shady move, Humble Bundle silently removed the ability for customers to define the breakdown of their payments to charity -- a key aspect of Humble Bundle since its inception. Since that time, they refused to explain to customers why their sliders weren't appearing, and investigation by some users, who reenabled the sliders client-side, showed they were also being ignored server-side even if reenabled, such that for a $14 donation only a pathetic $0.72 was going to be split in half between two charities.
Humble Bundle has now finally admitted what everyone feared -- that they're formally and significantly reducing the amount of the purchase value that can go to charity, from a default value of 5% to a maximum of 15%. Given it was previously possible to contribute as much as 100% to charity, this is a significant reduction in the amount that Humble Bundle will allow to go to charity going forward, changing it from a humble effort to do good, to a cynical for-profit cash grab off the backs of the reputation of the charities whose names they use.
Humble Bundle has now finally admitted what everyone feared -- that they're formally and significantly reducing the amount of the purchase value that can go to charity, from a default value of 5% to a maximum of 15%. Given it was previously possible to contribute as much as 100% to charity, this is a significant reduction in the amount that Humble Bundle will allow to go to charity going forward, changing it from a humble effort to do good, to a cynical for-profit cash grab off the backs of the reputation of the charities whose names they use.
Simple Solution (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Simple Solution (Score:5, Informative)
I mean it's a solution, but is it a good solution? Why not just buy the bundle and make manual donations as a consumer, if the bundles are saving money?
Considering 5% is not 0%, there is still value to both consumers and their charities in what Humble Bundle are doing (So long as they are able to get "Good" titles in the bundles - which will imply that they have to pay more to the software publishers to get the deals necessary to put in their bundles, Therefore it becomes unaffordable to donate away all the revenue). It was clearly always a gimmick, but there is No alternative to Humble Bundle that I know of which will provide a similar kind of value and donate to charity... Are you claiming to have one?
It does not sound like "abusing" the charities either... the Charities would very likely allow even Steam or other commercial retailers to use their name if they donated just 0.1%. The fact is a small fraction of a purchase being donated is greater than 0 being donated, And a smaller percentage of a much larger number of purchases being donated is more valuable than a high percentage of a tiny number of sales being contributed --- the more popular Humble becomes, the more the site will fit into the former category and can decrease the % of each sale buyers can donate while still giving lump sums to the charity; The lower percentage will represent a larger donation the more sales Humble gets than when Humble was a smaller business with much lower volume.
It's not like an alternative exists where we can go buy on Steam instead of Humble Bundle and contribute more than 15% of the purchase price to charity. In fact, a single Game will generally cost more than double the price of what a bundle costs, and there is not an option to put even 1% of that to charity.
The draw of Humble bundle was always you can spend a lower price for a package of goods and with the extra knowledge a significant portion goes to charity, but the retailer themself has never been a charity, so this isn't a "Cash Grab off the backs of charities" - Clearly they have partnered with their charities in some way in the past and both would have benefitted, including Charities benefitting from a higher cut of each sale when their sales were fewer. Perhaps It's always been a loss leader for their business obviously to Help them get started and build a customer base that would be mutually beneficial for both Humble and their charities.... now with a later stage in their growth, Humble doesn't need to "look" like as generous a deal as they used to have to look like to maintain future business, especially with all the people now subscribed to Monthly bundles:
To allow a larger portion of orders to be donated than can be done while still being able to sustain their existence for the long term.. the Limit or some additional revenue model was guaranteed to occur at some point.
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You also made no arguments or justifications as to why.
Given a logical reason is not the same as "making excuses".
Will you now be a proud bad consumer non-sheep and buy the same games on Steam or GoG with 0% given to charity instead?
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No, you didn't justify why you're boycotting. You simply assert that what they're doing is wrong. You have every right to do so and are under no obligation to explain why. Unfortunately, without trying to explain why, you haven't convinced anyone else to join you, and as you clearly think their decision to limit the charitable component is enough not only to boycott but to tell others that you're boycotting, I think that you'd prefer others to go along with a boycott, as it will have more effect on Humbl
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[continuing comment] Also, the fact that the purchaser could cut off the revenue to Humble Bundle itself to me supported the medieval notion that it was somehow shameful for them to accept any money at all, that it was profit, and it came at the direct expense of the charity. Indeed the very structure of the split among the various components made it look like a zero-sum game, where you had to choose between the "good guy" charity or "bad guy" evil / profiting / capitalist Humble Bundle.
But that zero-sum i
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In reply to : "Will you now be a proud bad consumer non-sheep and buy the same games on Steam or GoG with 0% given to charity instead?"
You said: "Cannot speak for the other services you talk about, as I don't use them"
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He did, he felt it was wrong. That's moral compass, it's a thing, and it's perfectly valid. Just because you may not have a moral compass, or understand morals, doesn't mean you can ignore someone else's moral standing.
The way this was done also feels /wrong/ to me as well. Basically not explaining why in what would appear to be a vain hope 'it will go away and people will stop asking and carry on as normal' whilst more money goes elsewhere. This is the wrong way to do business. (maybe great in the short
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Yes, how dare he act in accordance with his feelings to protest a perceived wrong or injustice. It's almost like he cares for people in the abstract.
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If someone is doing something that I feel is wrong, I do not support them period.
That's fine, but without proper foundation it's an irrational choice being followed blindly - It is dishonest to say you're not a sheep in that case.. it's being a sheep to just follow some article's negative sentiment without appropriate cause. You don't state anything they are doing is wrong, nor provide any foundation there.
They seem to be doing nothing that they were not doing before, other than removing an option from bu
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You forgot to mention the part effecting the charities.
What "part effecting the charities"? Obviously it puts those at a disadvantage that buyers can no longer Opt to allocate like 99% to charity and 0% to Humble and the publishers, But you fail to indicate anything about how this is wrong and a violation of a moral duty on Humble's part.
The notable feature of Humble is kept that people choose how much they will pay, And the bulk of the revenue ends up going to Publishers by default.. Their blog post s
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main reason for using Humble Bundle was because of the charities. Now that is gone, so am I.
The charities are still to be on Humble after their UI update described in their blog post... As for buying books from other retailers: the charities will get nothing, the publishers will also get a little and most goes to the bookseller - the price is also bound to be higher if it's not a used book... Doesn't sound like a better alternative to Humble ---- that is a problem.. any known source seems to be a wo
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I make no excuses. If someone is doing something that I feel is wrong, I do not support them period.
Are you saying giving donations is wrong and you would instead support those who don't while paying the same amount of money for your product?
Or are you saying you are addicted to making knee jerk reactions and not thinking things through? I mean you may have missed the financials of 2020 that gave the games industry (especially resale) a bit negative hit which has affected not only multiple sites, but given a profit hit to major companies and even lead to the shutdown (due to financial reasons) of 2 pirate
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I do not. I don't read minds, I only read words. Are you saying you will not withdraw your support for Humble Bundle? err... Period?
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I mean it's a solution, but is it a good solution? Why not just buy the bundle and make manual donations as a consumer, if the bundles are saving money?
Because purchasing from them supports their corruption. Better to boycott and buy elsewhere and make donations. As for “saving money”, none of the humble bundles I saw were better than the frequent steam sales, so no money was saved, it was more about helping a charity.
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Because purchasing from them supports their corruption.
What corruption? Their "corruption" of reserving 10% for themself and 75% for the publishers - whereas retailers usually get 50%, Google Apple and Steam get 30% of game purchases for themself, etc?
Meanwhile buyers from HB get a large discount off retail and the capability to donate up to 15% to charity? Where is the "corruption" in this deal?
Re:Simple Solution (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Simple Solution (Score:5, Informative)
That 30% was based off a bundle I just looked at, with it's entirely fixed values and no ability to adjust. It was 15% to the charity and 30% to Humble. I just checked another and it was 5% to charity and 40% to humble.
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Wow, a 30% cut of the transaction? That's Apple level greed right there.
Re: Simple Solution (Score:1)
Maybe the charity will accept money directly? I know, perhaps you could fax the money to them?
Seriously though, if you can't figure out how to get money to a charity without a third party games distributor acting as a middle-man, you have bigger problems in life, like figuring out how to put on socks. Hint: they go on BEFORE your shoe.
Re: Simple Solution (Score:5, Insightful)
You're missing the point.
One of the core features and "selling" points of Humble Bundle service was that you, the buyer, could allocate as much as you liked to charity. That changed, stealthily, with no formal previous announcement, Humble Bundle keeping some (or, rather, most) of that money instead.
While I have no issue with a change in process, I do mind if that's not announced well in advance, to give people time to understand what's coming and prepare.
Other donation methods being available for said charity is an irrelevant point in this context. This has nothing to do with how can you donate to charity and everything to do with how a specific service provider chose to change their service to their advantage without informing their customers.
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I think it's a stretch to say that the consumer is NOT being informed, as the new split constraints would be completely apparent before purchase.
The issue is not about information proper, but that what used to be on offer is no longer the case, kind of like prices going up. Of course nobody in business likes to advertise their price increases, as that would discourage sales.
I believe that their move is completely justified, but it "sucks" from the donor/purchaser's point-of-view in that we could put all th
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You're missing the value proposition of those bundles. Usually there's one game or app (Often an older one that goes on sale periodically anyway,) that I know I will use and enjoy, one or two others that are "nice to have but I wouldn't miss them", and a bunch of "Well, maybe I'll find time or a use for them at some point... probably not, but it's for charity." Given the fairly low value proposition of the bundles; I always went with 50% to charity. The other 50% to Humble and the publishers was a pretty
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If a deal is worsening, fine, but if the part that's worsening was supposed to be the core of the whole thing, well...
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People would still have an incentive for donating, even without an adjustable cut to HB. I think that as long as they're clear about the fraction going to charity (and they are clear, since that fraction appears before payment), then I'm happy that HB exists, vs. other bundle businesses like Fanatical, which don't do charity at all.
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I think that as long as they're clear about the fraction going to charity (and they are clear, since that fraction appears before payment), then I'm happy that HB exists
I disagree, based on the numbers I'm seeing them force on bundles today, but I'll hold out until May to say for certain. I saw Humble Bundle forcing their own cut of 40%(and only 5% to charity) in one bundle, and 30%(15% to charity) in another bundle. The examples they used in the blog posts were more reasonable. So, I don't know what they'll end up doing when the update is released.
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Same here, they're crossed off my list forever, period, end of story.
Sucks that they turned so mercenary. I think it'll hurt them, both in the short- and long-run.
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I would be outraged maybe (Score:2, Insightful)
If I knew what Humble Bundle was.
But don't tell me! I like a little mystery.
Re:I would be outraged maybe (Score:5, Funny)
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Do people really buy games so often that a business can be set up catering to that market? I normally pick them up from the second hand shop - averaging one every 3 or 4 years. And every penny goes to the charity running the shop (so obviously I avoid god-squad charity shops).
Ah, it's late tonight. Shall I play a few missions of this years version of a BBC-Master and Atari classic game (free for the downloading), or a couple of rounds
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how would anyone know that "humble bumble" is related to games? moron.
If pizza slices were money (Score:5, Insightful)
This sucks... (Score:1)
Humble Bundle is, as far as I know, one of the very few ways to legally buy normal mainstream manga* in a DRM-free format. Other digital manga stores it's the same ol' "you're really just leasing it to view in our special app/website unless we go under", but the Humble-Bundle stuff was plain CBZ files you can read keep on your hard drive forever and read on any comic reader.
*-- yes, I know FAKKU's wares are also DRM free, but they are catering to a slightly different audience with their titles.
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So why does it suck if Humble Bundle will still allow you to do that, but only that you can't Donate more than 15% of your purchase payment? It seems doesn't break the option to buy from them at all.
It's just like a "free extra" no longer being included, Not shutting down or barring all purchases - people will just need to spend more money by donating directly if you want to Donate to charity.
Re:This sucks... (Score:5, Informative)
ACTUAL theory. IGN purchased Humble Bundle in 2017, and now IGN wants to cash in.
https://www.polygon.com/2017/1... [polygon.com]
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Sounds like a sound theory to me that their acquirer would want to make this kind of change if it was reducing their profitability.
That would make this unfortunate, but by the same token.. I'm not sure the model was sustainable about people being able to pay for a product at commercial retail and then reduce the retailer and publisher's take from the transaction to a miniscule amount.
I guess main objection should be that since Humble bundles are Name-your-price sales.. if someone is contributing an extr
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Some were using the sliders as a form of punishment against HB. Go to the subreddit forum and listen to all the complaints before all this. Vindictiveness has a cost.
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But in July, I move from part-time to full-time employment at the library where I work and will be able to resume more serious charity giving, so it
Alternative theory... (Score:2, Interesting)
If I have the choice to buy from HB, and send some of the cut to charity, I'm still going to do it.
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Alternate alternate theory: a buyout is afoot, they want to make the deal as sweet as possible. MS just got denied by Discord, who knows what other userbases Redmond is sniffing around?
Stop buying products as part of a donation (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Stop buying products as part of a donation (Score:4, Insightful)
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charitable giving isnt a relevant tax deduction unless you itemize. you'd have to itemize over $24,800 of expenses, a number that's hard for most.
The IRS had to create a special non-profit deduction but that only gets you to $300 of deductible income, a paltry meaningless amount since it's just a deduction off your income, lowering your taxable income by $300 nets you like $15-50 in reduced tax liability, if you make enough to even be taxed.
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Please mod this up. If you really want to support your charity of choice, give directly to them. You may get a tax deduction and the charity gets all the money.
Don't pat yourself on the back for using Humble Bundle, AmazonSmile, etc. and consider that you are actually supporting the charity. Sure, if you are buying from them anyway, click the little box but what goes to the charity isn't really all that much. It's not quite as bad as the fundraising firms that cold call folks (and take a huge percentage of
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It's amazing how many people are totally missing the point here.
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Considering I got an excellent price on Vegas Pro via the bundle, yeah I'd say they have missed the point. Donate directly to charity. Get a tote bag. Donate through HB. Get $756 in software. Sounds like people cutting off their noses, to spite their face.
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You get a tote bag? :)
Man, that's priceless!
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Buy the product because it is good or a good value.
If two products cost the same thing at two different companies but one gives part of the proceeds to charity then that very well may be the better value. It's a zero sum game involving you, a charity, and the profits of another company. There's nothing wrong with supporting the company that takes a smaller cut for themselves even when you don't feel the need to support a charity directly.
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Companies are basically trying to profit from being the middle men in charities or using charities as a form of advertising for their product.
It's a tax dodge. I'm pretty sure the companies who do this also claim the tax deduction for those charitable contributions when they eventually make the aggregate contribution. They certainly don't give you a charity-gift receipt for you to file with the IRS to take the write-off!
Charity-at-Checkout is a scam.
Charity (Score:1)
The blog post itself is also quite interesting as well. It makes the whole thing sound like a simple UI change. The 15% split is almost presented as a kind of afterthought, and in a way that makes it sound larger than it really is by comparing it against 5%. And they make sure to emphasize how charitable their community is. I hope I'm not
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It's not a slashvertisement but could I suggest you search for Humble Bundle instead?
It's a digital store front, selling computer games, electronic books (including cartoons) and sometimes computer software like audio processing tools or image manipulation programs.
It was first set up selling bundles of games at a customer defined price, with the customer further allocating how much of that price went to the content creators, went to the storefront operators and went to a charity of their choice.
They still
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Originally the software was all open source and DRM-free, too. They slowly slid away from the original model. They started selling software that wasn't open source, then started adding Steam keys as an extra, then software that was only available as Steam keys with no DRM-free option, then reducing the ability to define the price, and so on. They're just another software sales channel now.
Hmm (Score:4, Insightful)
Is there some reason that if you want to donate extra that you can't just do it yourself? Pretty sure nobody is stopping you.
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For me I sometimes bought a bundle of games where I owned more than half of the games already, so I would adjust the slider giving more to charity in recognition of the fact that I already own some of the games.
Donating extra costs extra, bundle buyers are penny pinchers.
The fact that you can donate outside of the bundle is literally besides the point, this story isn't about the fact that anyone is free to donate to any charity, this article is about Humble Bundle limiting the amount they will give to chari
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Account Closed (Score:1)
The usual greed? (Score:2)
The Greed that creeps in when something is successful and some people want to make more money with it because they cannot help themselves? Sound like it. Seems these morons may not have killed the "humble" in the bundle and probably the whole thing. Time for somebody with more personal integrity to step in.
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The Greed that creeps in when something is successful and some people want to make more money with it because they cannot help themselves? Sound like it. Seems these morons may not have killed the "humble" in the bundle and probably the whole thing. Time for somebody with more personal integrity to step in.
Sorry, just can't bring myself to think of a business that allows a large percentage of the proceeds to go to charity now disallowing a, frankly unsustainable, model where 100% of proceeds can go to charity as "greedy."
That's not greedy, it's just deciding not to commit corporate suicide, lol.
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Thank you for your sane comment!
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That's not greedy, it's just deciding not to commit corporate suicide, lol.
Amazing false dichotomy you made there! So, in your concept of reality, everyone buying their bundles was donating 100% to charity, so they had to stop the madness. That pretty clearly BS.
Here's the more realistic take: they were probably growing exponentially until some time ago. Now their profit stabilized at some pretty nice plateau, which by all accounts would be more than enough for them to continue operating comfortably, but the psychopaths in charge decided they must continue to see exponential growt
I have purchased every bundle (Score:2)
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"if you need a minimum to operate": seriously, the people at Humble Bundle are your slaves to provide a service to you, and they should feel ashamed for the food they eat? How about some bloody gratitude that it exists at all? Why don't you make a sustainable business, the Abuse-Me-Bundle, where you're allowed exactly 2000 calories of rice per day, with vitamin water, a rat-based protein source, and a concrete floor with a computer to continue developing more bundles for entitled consumers who feel guilty
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the people at Humble Bundle are your slaves to provide a service to you
Poor, poor millionaires and their inability to live on a mere $200k to $500k a year. Because we know no one can live without exponential growth without, in the very fact of living on a fixed income, being turned into a slave.
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Humble bundle is not ideal but... (Score:2)
Oh no. Only 15%. Those pigs! (Score:1)
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Exactly, thank you!
Sigh. (Score:3)
I always slide the charity bit down to zero anyway.
If I want to donate to charity, I do that.
If I want to buy the software, I do that and pay the publisher/developer.
Rarely do the two coincide in a single transaction.
Goodbye Humble Bundle (Score:1)
Chairty was always a gimmick to begin with (Score:4, Interesting)
And if, god forbid, you pay for Humble Choice, even for a single month, you'd better remember to cancel because they signed you up to auto renew at that price whether you wanted to or not. But at least it's easy to cancel right? Only after you suffer through all the dark pattern, r/assholedesign bullshit. Enjoy wading through 6 or so dialogs all designed in different styles with differently worded/placed buttons to put you off.
So yeah.
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Recall that the Humble Choice was only introduced much later. I think it was due to the lack of revenue generated for HB itself, mostly because they made their revenue optional, provided purchasers with a UI that forces a choice between good guys (charities & creators) and profiteers (HB itself). So they had to diversify. But that insane choice itself was always the problem. HB is a business, and it absolutely helps charity.
Huge change (Score:2)
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Huge Research. (Score:2)
But... It was always a commercial project. As far as I can tell, it is not a registered charity.
Tells you in the fine print it's Paypal Giving [humblebundle.com] that handles it.
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Tells you in the fine print it's Paypal Giving [humblebundle.com] that handles it.
I actually looked around humblebundle.com before posting that, and I must say they do not make that information obvious. But in any case, that page you linked to tells me that Paypal Giving is the charity side of the operation, and it still looks like humblebundle.com itself is a fully commercial, for profit organization. From how I read "PayPal Giving Fund raises new funds for charities through technology, certifies charities that participate in the Humble Bundle program; receives donations from Humble Bun
Wow interesting way to look at it BeauHD (Score:2)
I always set my sliders to 0% charity, 95% to the developer who is actually giving away their game and 5% to humble.
They need to turn over something.
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Using charity (Score:2)
The whole premise was charitable. They bank on that. They named themselves to fit that theme.
My opinion based on that is that charity should get no less than 50% of what is left after paying the publisher. Preferably more like 75% to charity.
If it was called "Bob's games and books discount bundles" with an option to tack on a charitable donation, and advertised as such, my opinion would be totally different.
An approach with better optics? (Score:1)
Rather than limiting the percentage that could go to charity they should have put a minimum dollar amount that can go to HB and the Developer. then make the charity % slider log scale above 50% and people can scroll the percentage up forever just increasing what they pay.
Limiting the % (particularly so low) makes them look petty. saying we need to make some money on these transactions may be more palatable. and why does HB care if someone gives them $10 and charity $1000 or gives them $10 and charity $1?
It
So donate a different way.. (Score:1)