INTRODUCTION
A year and a half ago, I posted my concerns about humble bundle. I described how it was as I got in, and how it had slowly evolved. The writing was, not coincidentally, not very long after its acquiring by IGN...but still long enough afterward so that all the first-hour doom&gloom critics had their say and left for other stuff (it's easy to predict doom when a large corporation takes over, especially if you can pretend you never said it, should it not happen). Unfortunately, I had to agree with the critics. Not so much because IGN is IGN, but because of how the platform had evolved since then.
So what happened since then? Well...first you should know that the original founders of humble bundle (Jeffrey Rosen and John Graham) didn't so much leave as became advisors until the end of 2019 (source).
...and while they're technically still on that job, a major change happened (humble choice). I'll get to that, but since you probably already know, I better list the smaller things...
THE SMALLER THINGS
Last time I smirked at the addition of (comic) books and software as bundles. Those certainly haven't gone anywhere. Rather the contrary: I now have more ebooks than real books, and I've got a lot of books in my house (last count was little over a hundred...my current humble library is over 300 books now
). But the least I can say is that things have become bloated in that aspect. A year and a half ago, 3 or 4 bundles going on at the same time was the average (with perhaps 5 or 6 as a maximum). To say that it increased a bit is an understatement: the average is now at 9 or 10. Most with the known 3 tier model (1 dollar, beat the average and the top tier of somewhere between 10 and 20). However, this increase is in all but PC gaming. As I'm writing this, of the ten bundles, six are about books (of which one comic book and two tabletop-related), two are about software and two are about games.
Still: at first glance it shouldn't matter. I wouldn't be worried if the remaining two bundles were worth it. However, there's more going on. Because what seemed like an oddity is gaining ground: one game bundles. A few weeks ago, there was a Europa Universalis 4 bundle. The base game was in the first tier, with a whole slew of DLC in all tiers. Hard to say if it was worth it. From what I gather, EU4 has a strong and dedicated fanbase...I'm just not one of 'em. If I were a fan, I guess I'd get it...but then again, I would have already gotten it much earlier. So I'm wondering just how much this actually sells.
The current one game bundle is trainz. A game that gets many downvotes because of bugs, slow gameplay, an outdated engine and - especially - an insane amount of DLC. I haven't played it, but it's as best a niche game aimed at a very specific audience (train lovers), but probably more a cash grab than a real attempt of a good game. Unfortunate enough...
The other game bundle is humble choice. Formerly known as humble monthly. And the center of the controversy I was talking about earlier.
HUMBLE CHOICE
Let's start with one advantage, and one fair assessment. I like that you can see in advance what games you'll get. I honestly do. I've had it perhaps once or twice that I seriously would have subscribed for a month if I know what else I'd get, but it happened. The uncertainty was good for trying games (I'll be honest: I'd never given zachtronics games a chance after spacechem, but infinifactory was AWESOME!), but it was trial and error.
The fair assessment: nobody plays all the games. And I should know, because I've given away quite some of those games to others. And while I hope they find a good player, the people at humble bundle (and even more so: the developers) realise that most people just scour up these games and perhaps never play them. So the time in the spotlight has a diminishing return, and it's IMHO only fair that developers are less inclined to provide game keys. So that the price needed to go up...I can't blame them. I've seen many people throw all sorts of insults at humble bundle, but I'm not one of them. At most that the way they're going about it is shady. That is, provided that you can call something shady if it's so out in the open.
What I'm talking about? The humble monthly used to give you a net worth of 9 or 10 games (including one original), no matter if you wanted them or not. Now things are also broken up in tiers:
* lite (5$/month): the lowest tier only gives access to the humble originals (formerly known as humble trove). This is a weird move, as literally any subscriber can download and keep these games legally for ever after. But on the other hand: while it contains older games, these tend to be fairly good ones. And the amount has grown to nearly a hundred. So it's not as bad a move for a beginner gamer. More so: it's hard NOT to recommend it ("for five bucks you can get about a hundred games or for fifteen bucks you can get a hundred and three. Then...what do you mean, the first one is better???"). Only one month, yes, but still...I'm not against this.
* basic (15$/month): this tier gets the same, and a pick of 3 games from the offered selection (10 or 12 games so far). From my perspective, this is the strangest option, if not for no other reason than for the upcoming two tiers.
* premium (20$/month): this gets 9 games of the offering. The strangest part of this is that even this plan doesn't get all the games. So you're basically paying more for getting less. I'd point to the earlier assessment if it wasn't for the "hidden" last option:
* classic (12$/month): this gets 10 games of the offering. Yyyyeah....it's basically them attempting not to lose customers by giving them an "early access" bonus.
IMHO, the interesting part of this is that it's purposely skewed. As an early subscriber I get benefits that those who don't use it won't get but I have to remain subscribed (okay, I can get a temporary break, but that's not the same as subscribing and unsubscribing). Even if nobody ever buys the premium bundle, it ties guys like me to their model because it looms over our head. The prospect of having to pay more later if we want to pay less now is...well...not fun.
Perhaps the weirdest complaint: the quality of these games is, IMHO of course, pretty decent. I mean...Humble bundle wasn't really a bad curator on the games they picked for their game bundles, but certainly not the best one (see also: that trainz bundle). It's almost strange that these last three bundles had actually fairly good games all around in them. I'm not really sure if that's because they want to quiet criticism ("save some of the best games for when we're going to push that price increase through!"), that they limit other potential bundles for humble choice ("we could be doing a game bundle now...or have these games be part of a humble choice bundle") or that I'm just seeing things because of the format(1). But still...
Granted: I signed up because the november bundle was awesome (spyro trilogy and bandicoot trilogy were already six great games, and that was just the reveal), and told myself I would quit the first time humble choice wasn't worth it (so what if it costs more in the long run? I only want to pay for games I want to play, damnit!). Well...so far, it's worth it. December had Desert child, blasphemous and (especially) horizon chase turbo that made it worth my while, on january I had a really tough time just picking ONE game to dismiss (I already had bad north) and february there are only two games I otherwise would've given away(2). So yeah...there's THAT...
OUTRO
Even assuming that humble choice is a purchase that keeps on 'giving' each month...that doesn't mean HB isn't on its way out. The original (partial) intent to bring gaming to linux is completely dead. Sure, it matters far less than it used to (hint: valve's proton is still gradually improving to the point where I can't even tell if a game runs natively anymore), but it's dead nonetheless. It branched out in directions that are all but gaming, and the few exceptions are just that: exceptions (though admitted: 100% of income going to the the australian fire relief was as awesome as the games it held).
I started this year with a large giveaway. Due to moving, I didn't have a proper gaming PC from April to January. I still browsed and gamed on a laptop, and bought bundles that excited me (I just didn't redeem anything because I'd get to it later). I won't deny: it was a very decent loot I had to redeem. About as much as the games I ended up giving away, really. But as someone (@ThoD) remarked: there used to be more giveaways. And that someone was right: I used to give away excess games much faster, and that wasn't because I bought larger bundles or kept fewer. I just bought less because there was less to buy. I can't really complain about that (I'm well over 1000 steam games at this point, so I'll easily last for the rest of my lifetime ). But I can state it how it is...
(1): this might sound weird, but it's psychology at play: involvement has a positive influence on one's attitude. On face value, it's not hard to understand that when presented with a bundle of ten games vs a bundle of twelve games minus two games you actively dismiss, is the better choice. The interesting psychological aspect is that even when the outcome would consist of the same ten games, then the latter still feels like the best option. Reason: as gamers, we don't slightly dismiss games we could be playing. We tend to compare and check versus our likes and dislikes. But by that process, our appreciation for the games we pick grows more than if we were just passively glancing what was in the bundle.
(2): not entirely true: Ive been given frostpunk (by gbatemp staff, no less), so it's only natural that I pick that game to give it away as well.
A year and a half ago, I posted my concerns about humble bundle. I described how it was as I got in, and how it had slowly evolved. The writing was, not coincidentally, not very long after its acquiring by IGN...but still long enough afterward so that all the first-hour doom&gloom critics had their say and left for other stuff (it's easy to predict doom when a large corporation takes over, especially if you can pretend you never said it, should it not happen). Unfortunately, I had to agree with the critics. Not so much because IGN is IGN, but because of how the platform had evolved since then.
So what happened since then? Well...first you should know that the original founders of humble bundle (Jeffrey Rosen and John Graham) didn't so much leave as became advisors until the end of 2019 (source).
...and while they're technically still on that job, a major change happened (humble choice). I'll get to that, but since you probably already know, I better list the smaller things...
THE SMALLER THINGS
Last time I smirked at the addition of (comic) books and software as bundles. Those certainly haven't gone anywhere. Rather the contrary: I now have more ebooks than real books, and I've got a lot of books in my house (last count was little over a hundred...my current humble library is over 300 books now
). But the least I can say is that things have become bloated in that aspect. A year and a half ago, 3 or 4 bundles going on at the same time was the average (with perhaps 5 or 6 as a maximum). To say that it increased a bit is an understatement: the average is now at 9 or 10. Most with the known 3 tier model (1 dollar, beat the average and the top tier of somewhere between 10 and 20). However, this increase is in all but PC gaming. As I'm writing this, of the ten bundles, six are about books (of which one comic book and two tabletop-related), two are about software and two are about games.Still: at first glance it shouldn't matter. I wouldn't be worried if the remaining two bundles were worth it. However, there's more going on. Because what seemed like an oddity is gaining ground: one game bundles. A few weeks ago, there was a Europa Universalis 4 bundle. The base game was in the first tier, with a whole slew of DLC in all tiers. Hard to say if it was worth it. From what I gather, EU4 has a strong and dedicated fanbase...I'm just not one of 'em. If I were a fan, I guess I'd get it...but then again, I would have already gotten it much earlier. So I'm wondering just how much this actually sells.
The current one game bundle is trainz. A game that gets many downvotes because of bugs, slow gameplay, an outdated engine and - especially - an insane amount of DLC. I haven't played it, but it's as best a niche game aimed at a very specific audience (train lovers), but probably more a cash grab than a real attempt of a good game. Unfortunate enough...
The other game bundle is humble choice. Formerly known as humble monthly. And the center of the controversy I was talking about earlier.
HUMBLE CHOICE
Let's start with one advantage, and one fair assessment. I like that you can see in advance what games you'll get. I honestly do. I've had it perhaps once or twice that I seriously would have subscribed for a month if I know what else I'd get, but it happened. The uncertainty was good for trying games (I'll be honest: I'd never given zachtronics games a chance after spacechem, but infinifactory was AWESOME!), but it was trial and error.
The fair assessment: nobody plays all the games. And I should know, because I've given away quite some of those games to others. And while I hope they find a good player, the people at humble bundle (and even more so: the developers) realise that most people just scour up these games and perhaps never play them. So the time in the spotlight has a diminishing return, and it's IMHO only fair that developers are less inclined to provide game keys. So that the price needed to go up...I can't blame them. I've seen many people throw all sorts of insults at humble bundle, but I'm not one of them. At most that the way they're going about it is shady. That is, provided that you can call something shady if it's so out in the open.
What I'm talking about? The humble monthly used to give you a net worth of 9 or 10 games (including one original), no matter if you wanted them or not. Now things are also broken up in tiers:
* lite (5$/month): the lowest tier only gives access to the humble originals (formerly known as humble trove). This is a weird move, as literally any subscriber can download and keep these games legally for ever after. But on the other hand: while it contains older games, these tend to be fairly good ones. And the amount has grown to nearly a hundred. So it's not as bad a move for a beginner gamer. More so: it's hard NOT to recommend it ("for five bucks you can get about a hundred games or for fifteen bucks you can get a hundred and three. Then...what do you mean, the first one is better???"). Only one month, yes, but still...I'm not against this.
* basic (15$/month): this tier gets the same, and a pick of 3 games from the offered selection (10 or 12 games so far). From my perspective, this is the strangest option, if not for no other reason than for the upcoming two tiers.
* premium (20$/month): this gets 9 games of the offering. The strangest part of this is that even this plan doesn't get all the games. So you're basically paying more for getting less. I'd point to the earlier assessment if it wasn't for the "hidden" last option:
* classic (12$/month): this gets 10 games of the offering. Yyyyeah....it's basically them attempting not to lose customers by giving them an "early access" bonus.
IMHO, the interesting part of this is that it's purposely skewed. As an early subscriber I get benefits that those who don't use it won't get but I have to remain subscribed (okay, I can get a temporary break, but that's not the same as subscribing and unsubscribing). Even if nobody ever buys the premium bundle, it ties guys like me to their model because it looms over our head. The prospect of having to pay more later if we want to pay less now is...well...not fun.
Perhaps the weirdest complaint: the quality of these games is, IMHO of course, pretty decent. I mean...Humble bundle wasn't really a bad curator on the games they picked for their game bundles, but certainly not the best one (see also: that trainz bundle). It's almost strange that these last three bundles had actually fairly good games all around in them. I'm not really sure if that's because they want to quiet criticism ("save some of the best games for when we're going to push that price increase through!"), that they limit other potential bundles for humble choice ("we could be doing a game bundle now...or have these games be part of a humble choice bundle") or that I'm just seeing things because of the format(1). But still...
Granted: I signed up because the november bundle was awesome (spyro trilogy and bandicoot trilogy were already six great games, and that was just the reveal), and told myself I would quit the first time humble choice wasn't worth it (so what if it costs more in the long run? I only want to pay for games I want to play, damnit!). Well...so far, it's worth it. December had Desert child, blasphemous and (especially) horizon chase turbo that made it worth my while, on january I had a really tough time just picking ONE game to dismiss (I already had bad north) and february there are only two games I otherwise would've given away(2). So yeah...there's THAT...
OUTRO
Even assuming that humble choice is a purchase that keeps on 'giving' each month...that doesn't mean HB isn't on its way out. The original (partial) intent to bring gaming to linux is completely dead. Sure, it matters far less than it used to (hint: valve's proton is still gradually improving to the point where I can't even tell if a game runs natively anymore), but it's dead nonetheless. It branched out in directions that are all but gaming, and the few exceptions are just that: exceptions (though admitted: 100% of income going to the the australian fire relief was as awesome as the games it held).
I started this year with a large giveaway. Due to moving, I didn't have a proper gaming PC from April to January. I still browsed and gamed on a laptop, and bought bundles that excited me (I just didn't redeem anything because I'd get to it later). I won't deny: it was a very decent loot I had to redeem. About as much as the games I ended up giving away, really. But as someone (@ThoD) remarked: there used to be more giveaways. And that someone was right: I used to give away excess games much faster, and that wasn't because I bought larger bundles or kept fewer. I just bought less because there was less to buy. I can't really complain about that (I'm well over 1000 steam games at this point, so I'll easily last for the rest of my lifetime
). But I can state it how it is...(1): this might sound weird, but it's psychology at play: involvement has a positive influence on one's attitude. On face value, it's not hard to understand that when presented with a bundle of ten games vs a bundle of twelve games minus two games you actively dismiss, is the better choice. The interesting psychological aspect is that even when the outcome would consist of the same ten games, then the latter still feels like the best option. Reason: as gamers, we don't slightly dismiss games we could be playing. We tend to compare and check versus our likes and dislikes. But by that process, our appreciation for the games we pick grows more than if we were just passively glancing what was in the bundle.
(2): not entirely true: Ive been given frostpunk (by gbatemp staff, no less), so it's only natural that I pick that game to give it away as well.
