THQ Humble Bundle laugh a minute thread

Do you have any data to back that up? I suspect the effect of reducing prices to impulse purchase levels may be much bigger than you think. I've read that most AAA games go off a sales cliff after the first few weeks anyway so as long as the price drop is timed right this is extra money for the games, not cannibalising the $60 sales in any meaningful way.

I have no data, but a firm belief that more people have iPhones than $1500+ gaming PCs. $0.99 games work on phones because there are a zillion phones and when you get that many people impulse buying stuff for a buck, it adds up.

If PC games started at $50-$60, but then reliably dropped to under $10 after a few weeks, which is what I think was suggested here, then nobody in their right mind would ever buy at full price, so that price may as well not exist.

There is no reason to for people to be negative about THQ having a bundle that gives money to charity.

There is plenty of reason to be negative about the Humble Indie Bundle people having a bundle for THQ. It represents a compromise to many of their principles, and it makes absolute sense that if you were felt positive about the HIB because of those principles that they have now thrown away, you would be down on the Humble Bundle people, and down on this bundle as a representation of Humble Bundle. The fact that the biggest defense people marshall on this front is "it makes lots of money for charity" is terrible ends-justifies-the-means nonsense -- there are reams of terrible things HIB could do to raise money for charity (e.g. sell porn) that nobody* would defend.

[*] nobody sane

And of course this opens up a whole question about what exactly Humble Bundle Inc is and what it is trying to accomplish. As wikipedia says:

It does not appear that Humble Bundle Inc is a not-for-profit corporation (although even if it was, that wouldn't prove much of anything). Generally they were originally perceived (as far as I can tell) as a company whose primary reason for existence was to raise money for independent developers and charity. Things like the THQ bundle set aside that first goal (and as Charles noted earlier in the thread, doesn't even necessarily get any money into any developers' hands). Of course the degree to which they make money versus others make money is in the hands of the users, but without any information about how expensive it is to run the promotions etc. it's not possible for anyone to make informed decisions about it. (Do they even break down how things have split on past promotions? I can't find it; they don't even seem to preserve past promotions other than on their blog.)

Of course Humble Bundle Inc is in it for profit. And that is great, because it means they have people working fulltime to bring their "all-power to the consumer" model to other markets and make sure that the bundles keep their quality. They just were the first to find a distribution model that works very well and now they are reaping the benefits. Kind of like Valve when they were the first to create a digital distribution platform.

Humble Bundle Inc.'s default tip has always been 15%. Which means, assuming the vast majority of supporters leave that value as-is, that they've hauled in more than 4 million dollars over a period of 31 months.

Yeah, I cannot fault THQ for doing this. I can fault Humble Bundle Inc. for going along. Using charity as a front to milk money to line your own pockets has a long history in which it happens a lot and is almost always reprehensible. I generally knock HB's tip down to 5% or so, because as much as they'd like to call it a "tip" and assume that everybody knows the standard "tip" is 15%, this isn't a goddamn full service restaurant and it's really a transaction cost to a middle-man.

Your criticism of Humble Bundle Inc. has nothing whatsoever to do with THQ or the THQ bundle.

How are they using charity as a front for milking if they're not only completely transparent about how much of the sale they take, but they also allow each customer to set that amount themselves?

Oh no! Not p-p-p-porn! Seriously, if they did a Humble Porn Bundle I'd say more power to them. Jesus, lighten up.

Also, see the "Inc." at the end of "Humble Bundle, Inc.?" That means they're not a charity, they're not a cause you're supporting, and they're not something whose principles you should be super-invested in. They're a video game retailer. You might as well get upset if Gamestop stopped hassling you for twenty minutes about preordering stuff because that would be a violation of one of their core principles.

This is why I get confused when people lose their shit over people paying the absolute minimum for Humble Bundles.

Calling their cut of the take a "tip" and defaulting it to 15% for a start. This last bundle is less of providing a service to market titles that most people would never even have heard of otherwise than a blatant cash grab. I'm curious how far off of 15% the total "tip" winds up being compared to the actual take. Do they publish the stats for how people split their money or just break down the totals paid per person per platform?

What does it matter what they call it or what they default it to? You think people see the word "tip" and think "well apparently this is a restaurant, better leave it at fifteen percent?" They put the slider right there in front of you so you can't miss it, they make it clear that that's the part of the money that they're going to keep, and they make it as easy as possible for you to change that to any value you want including zero.

And if fifteen percent is what they end up with on average, so what? Again, they're a store, not a charity.

Not that I can find. I did find a breakdown for the original one, but it didn't include a tip amount so maybe they hadn't started doing that yet.

Honestly? Not in so many words, but yes.

As much as I like the idea of that thought running through someone's head, I just can't see it as some kind of scam. People don't patronize the Humble Bundles primarily because they want to give money to charity, they do it because they want in on the fantastic deals. If they do go there because they're so concerned about giving the money to charity, they're going to be inclined to move the sliders appropriately.

I'm not saying it's a scam though. I just find it to be distasteful.

For example, Kickstarter keeps 5% of funds raised. I would find it distasteful if they chose to use the popularity they've obtained to start acting like a store and turned their back on the purpose of crowdsourcing projects that otherwise might not happen. It wouldn't be a scam if Kickstarter decided to let THQ "sell" this bundle of games through their website, but I'd think less of the organization.

Oh so it is THQ-related? Sorry, I thought you found it distasteful that HB took a cut at all. I can more see where you're coming from in that case, although I wouldn't really think less of them (or more think it was a shame I guess) unless they stopped doing the actual indie bundles.

Porn for Charity would be the fucking awesomest cause.

I wanted to respond to this even though it's old. That's not an exorbitant amount of money. I mean, they're probably doing well, but four million dollars in revenue over two and a half years is not a fortune, especially when you factor in that any one dollar purchase with a 15% tip is still a loss for them. Four my part I'm glad they're doing well--they invented a new business model for selling games and it's revolutionized the indie game world, after all--but if the default tip is also the average tip, that doesn't make the people involved overnight millionaires.

So what magic amount makes it tasteful? As far as I know they're the only company that allows its customers to give them zero dollars on a transaction.

I think Kickstarter is more or less there. I think there are tons of projects that are on Kickstarter not because they need the money for completion but simply as a marketing vector and storefront.

Also pretty sure when the HB started it was intended as a charity/indie model with the tip being just that a tip to the company that was managing it as HB wasn't actually their primary business they were just looking to offset the costs. I imagine it turned out much more successful than they thought, hence Humble Bundle Inc.

Well, they aren't the only company. I do find it funny though that there are morons who will institute a pay-what-you-want promotion and then have the audacity to turn around and smack people for actually paying what they want. I'm not against companies having these promotions, but you'd think they'd be better prepared to handle the consequences without crying about it.

If they're gonna get this upset, they could just have a "pay what you want as long as it's over this minimum price" promotion, but I guess that wouldn't sound as friendly and full of promise to the consumer.

Click to see insult:


(pic stolen from the internet)

I'm pretty sure this exists, I remember reading an article about some Scandinavian porn site that raised money to stop deforestation or something. They got in trouble for some publicity stunt doing live sex at a metal concert? Something like that. Not the sort of thing I am going to search a citation down for at work in any case.

Sounds like it would tie in well with Sperm donations for charity.

Oh man, a dozen ideas just ran through my head. And the mildest was already significantly more saucy than currently available "highest charity bidder gets a date with so-and-so hot celebrity/porn star."

This bundle just added Titan Quest and some Red Faction DLC, which is fine I guess.

I think it's more about companies finding ways to make money during the tail of a game's lifecycle.

Also, the porn point earlier was so stupid I almost loaded the nerd rage thread to complain.

Wish it was Titan Quest Gold.

:|

Nah who wants more boring grindfest.

Following that sentiment... As someone who has never actually played Titan Quest at all, is it worthwhile playing the base game or should I just wait for Immortal Throne to come up on a steam sale?

You're not right in the head.

Immortal Throne adds another skillset that's pretty cool, it adds artifacts (one time use super powers) and a common loot bin.

It's also got a really cool story, because I wrote it. :-)

If you like Diablo-styled roguelikes, TQ is probably the best one ever.

How dare they add more stuff for no additional cost. Thats just wrong.

I hope they add the TQ expansion, so its even wronger!

Yep, and it will really piss off Adree, which is just an added bonus.