THQ Humble Bundle laugh a minute thread

Which is why we now have a bundle where I can't give any of the stuff I already have to my friends, cos of fucknuts like this who basically shit it right up for everyone else.

So buy an extra bundle for a dollar, and give 'em that.

DOLLAR BILLS DO NOT GROW ON TREES, SIR.

The only one I don't have is SR3, and I still haven't played SR2 (or anything else in the bundle except a fuckload of CoH). I'll wait a year when SR3 is $5 or less on a steam sale.

Also, could SR3 going for bargain basement prices be related to the THQ exec who hated it and said they should be making better games?

I don't hate them at all, but I have no idea what the current fashion trend is for that kind of stuff at the moment beyond the gaming community's general dislike of EA and hard-on for Valve. In fact, until I started seeing THQ bundles on Steam, I never gave the company a second thought, but it wasn't until those bundles that I realized just how many great freaking games they've put out -- some of my favorites in the last few years.

No idea about how that fool's statements affected the game's price, but I heard he has since recanted those statements and demonstrated his respect for the game by posing with pictures of huge purple dildos on Twitter or something.

Tangential topic: can anyone summarize (or link to articles discussing) how THQ has managed to destroy over $60 per share of value since Jan 2011? I'm not talking about game nerd stuff OMG Red Faction: Armageddon SUXXORZZZ but like the business case. A couple shitty games does not cause this kind of collapse from the market's point of view; it has to be something more fundamental to think that no one else has swooped in and bought them outright for say a 20% premium to price = $11M. That's less than the budget on most single games these days.

Two responses, one more flip than the other:

1) A couple of shitty games can cause that kind of collapse if they only have one game that does well in an entire cycle.

2) uDraw.

I'm sure that hookers and/or blow are involved somewhere in the executive chain.

More likely, it's because "Saint's Row the Third: Full edition" is out now.
When games have these "Game of the Year" type of editions come out wth all the DLCs included, the base game price usually goes pretty low.

Well short version.
And long version.

Edit: Sorry, this was in reference to shift6, and I forgot to quote.

Thanks Bahimiron and zuckerkick (and scharmers lol). I just came back here to update that I found the answer: that $100M note coming due in Aug 2014 which was also references in the "long version" gamasutra article posted above. A simple $10M stock buy-out would be a great deal to pick up Volition, the Saints Row and Red Faction IPs, the W40K rights, and other smaller items, but that big creditor coming due with nothing but a vague SR4 is the pipeline is the real kicker.

Interesting. I wonder what it would/will cost to just buy those properties while the ship is sinking.

Wow, I hope CoH2 comes out before they go under. And then I hope all their studios somehow come out of this alright. Is that too much to hope for?

Yes, probably it unfortunately is. THQ has enough developers, and that $100M is a scary enough pile of doom, that it's unlikely all of those developers will get off scot-free without some kind of random management shutdown whim-hammer.

THQ's creditors won't let all those devs walk out the door for free, and if THQ goes bankrupt before finding buyers for those devs, then it's up to the bankruptcy lawyers whether those devs get paid. And a month or two of no paychecks tends to destroy developers mighty quick, as people walk and can't be reassembled. Of course, this is the worst-case value destruction scenario, but it's happened many times before and will again.

Best scenario is all those devs get sold to better publishers before THQ breathes its last, and the creditors take a serious bath, but not a total loss. And those devs have to be worth at least $20M to the right publishers.

Just wanted to give a shout-out to L'Oncle, who very generously offered his HB code. Much thanks.

Yeah exactly. And not only the devs (Volition+Saints Row doesn't suck at all) but long term publishing rights to WH40K, WWE, and Nickelodeon branded titles.

There is almost no way that the games they have in the pipeline don't get released though, the only question is whether THQ manage to be the ones doing it.

It's very tempting to buy this like 30 times for 10 cents each time, then find people who are the annoying gamer hipsters that are all "I only play indie games. You probably haven't heard of them." and send them the key saying that it's a new puzzle-based 2D explorer from the makers of Binding of Isaac, where you use the transience of memory to create new liquid paradigms that are less of a game and more of a cooperative work of art -

And then they put in the CD key and you're all "HAHA MOTHERFUCKER now you own a THQ bundle no take-backs!"

$1 minimum! Because only Steam keys with this one. THQ is too proud to put their games in the humble library, or something.

The or something being that at least some of those titles require steamworks.

Ha! In that case the whining is even more ridiculous.

Don't. Really, seriously - don't. Don't play it. Just don't.

Ill most likely do it even though I have all the games in the bundle id ever want to play, just to get them on steam with the rest of my games.

I just paid $10: $1 for Humble, $4.40 for THQ, $4.60 for charity. Damn, the value. Of course I'm still in hacking mode, not gaming mode, but this effectively scratches my bargain itch until the post-Christmas Steam sale, which I will probably pass up altogether at this point....

Never accept keys from random strangers, kids.

Actually, RF: Armageddon is not a bad game. It's just terribly, terribly bland... which is a damn shame when you consider that the game's tech allows you to blow nearly every structure apart at will, built it back up at will, at then blow it up again just to prove what a total badass you are. This right there should get you 4/5 stars, but playing through RFA is like chomping through a white bread & mayo sandwich -- you get tired off it real fast.

RF: Guerrilla was so fucking awesome. I thought Armageddon would be more of that, but it seems somebody successfully pressured Volition to go back to shitty shooters.
I bought it and am excited to play it, though.

Armageddon is dumb. I would actually have been ok with them switching tacks back to a typical scripted shooter experience, but it's not a good one of those.

I thought Armageddon was just Epic Mickey with guns.

The puzzles were the best part about Guerilla imo.

So is the THQ Bundle going to do the usual thing where they add another game or two into the mix this week? I was kinda holding out for that because the only thing that appeals in the current crop is Metro as I already own CoH and Saints Row doesn't float my boat.

This really isn't a usual bundle, so I'd be surprised if they did. And wow, holding out...wow...

I know, I know. Everything is amazing and nobody's happy. :(

I just hope the negative feedback that people are giving for no good reason don't stop them from doing something like this again in the future. I wish I could understand the negative points of a sale of AAA quality games (at least the CoH series) with the ability to pay what you want and even have it all go to charity are.

BUT BUT BUT DRM AND LINUX

For those curious to know how this sale has affected THQ, here's an article that talks a little about it:

How any of this will matter in the long term, or even much beyond Christmas, has yet to be seen. But, if anything that's about 576,117 possible new DLC & sequel buyers.

I have no coherent thoughts on this right now, but I do have this sneaking suspicion that we are beginning to see a permanent paradigm shift of top-flight PC title prices to mobility game prices. Maybe a week or two of premium prices, then bam Steam/fire sale prices for good on everything...even including the CoD belles of the ball. We've been slowly moving that way at any rate, but I have a feeling a price cliff is going to become institutionalized.

I hope not, that would be terrible for AAA game development. There aren't nearly enough people with gaming PCs to support an industry of games with CoD budgets at mobile prices.

I'm really not sure which way the market is going at this point. The AAA budgets mostly seem to be focused on SGWFPS games at this point, and I'm not really shedding a lot of tears over that.

We may be heading towards the end of games with large budgets that solely expect to make their money back on high initial sales, but how that will look is anyone's guess. Episodic releases haven't exactly been shining stars.