For anyone who keep up with the vastly popular Humble Bundle's that are released every once in a while. They offer a very comfortable system of payment with you, the consumer, choosing the where exactly the money goes with sliders to choose if you want all the money to go to the developers, Humble Bundle, or just to charity. The Humble Bundle's have always promised 3 things to any of their potential consumers:
Recently the stock of THQ has dropped significantly. THQ is struggling to release Metro: Last Light, South Park: Stick of Truth, & the next Saints Row game. As a result, in a last ditch attempt to raise some much needed capital THQ and Humble Bundle partnered together. They offer 6 games in DarkSiders, Metro 2033, Red Faction: Armageddon, Company of Heroes & it's two standalone DLC packs for any price at all and an extra game in Saints Row: The Third if you pay more than the average amount of $5.68. THQ's stock has jumped significantly from this and they have raised nearly $3,000,000.
Now for the issues. In the eyes of a lot of people and even some indie developers, this bundle betrays everything that has taken place before it. The THQ bundle is:
This has created a large level of backlash but then again does the purpose behind it not justify it? Let's look at the pro's of this bundle weighed against the cons. Pro's: Supporting charity, supporting people with less money afford a bunch of big games for the holidays, helps fund the Humble Store and other indie services, expands the audience for future indie bundles and what for me is more important than anything else; it could help THQ out of a rough spot. Now let's look at the con's: This particular bundle is Windows-only, has Steam DRM, & a differant pricing scheme.
It would have been ideal to get all the games ported to Mac and Linux and DRM-free, but there are major technical obstacles: these games use dozens of large Windows-only ware packages, and were created with Steam integration in mind, so making a non-Steam Linux version of every single game would be a long and expensive process. Also, this bundle doesn't replace any indie bundle, it is purely an addition to the bundle schedule. If there were no THQ bundle, there would be no extra money for charity, no major mainstream news event, no exciting new experiment. Given that it was impossible to get the THQ bundle cross-platform and DRM-free, should Humble Bundle have just dropped it and walked away? "Sorry, THQ. Sorry, Red Cross. Sorry, sick children, Sorry, poor gamers. We just can't budge on the Linux thing."
I'm sure it was a hard decision to make an exception to two of the founding principles of the bundle, and alienate some of the original bundle supporters, but it would have been a mistake to pass up such an important opportunity. At the end of the day this is win-win all around. THQ raises some much needed money and gamers can get at least 6 games for at least $1.
Are indie gamers(If such a thing exists) and Dev's right to be upset about this new Bundle?
- Cross platform games available for Linux, Windows & Mac Operating Systems.
- Absolutely no Digital Rights Management(DRM) on any titles.
- Pay what you want
Recently the stock of THQ has dropped significantly. THQ is struggling to release Metro: Last Light, South Park: Stick of Truth, & the next Saints Row game. As a result, in a last ditch attempt to raise some much needed capital THQ and Humble Bundle partnered together. They offer 6 games in DarkSiders, Metro 2033, Red Faction: Armageddon, Company of Heroes & it's two standalone DLC packs for any price at all and an extra game in Saints Row: The Third if you pay more than the average amount of $5.68. THQ's stock has jumped significantly from this and they have raised nearly $3,000,000.
Now for the issues. In the eyes of a lot of people and even some indie developers, this bundle betrays everything that has taken place before it. The THQ bundle is:
- Only available on Windows OS'
- Has Steam DRM
- The idea of "Pay what you want" is slightly skewed by having to pay a minimum for one extra game
This has created a large level of backlash but then again does the purpose behind it not justify it? Let's look at the pro's of this bundle weighed against the cons. Pro's: Supporting charity, supporting people with less money afford a bunch of big games for the holidays, helps fund the Humble Store and other indie services, expands the audience for future indie bundles and what for me is more important than anything else; it could help THQ out of a rough spot. Now let's look at the con's: This particular bundle is Windows-only, has Steam DRM, & a differant pricing scheme.
It would have been ideal to get all the games ported to Mac and Linux and DRM-free, but there are major technical obstacles: these games use dozens of large Windows-only ware packages, and were created with Steam integration in mind, so making a non-Steam Linux version of every single game would be a long and expensive process. Also, this bundle doesn't replace any indie bundle, it is purely an addition to the bundle schedule. If there were no THQ bundle, there would be no extra money for charity, no major mainstream news event, no exciting new experiment. Given that it was impossible to get the THQ bundle cross-platform and DRM-free, should Humble Bundle have just dropped it and walked away? "Sorry, THQ. Sorry, Red Cross. Sorry, sick children, Sorry, poor gamers. We just can't budge on the Linux thing."
I'm sure it was a hard decision to make an exception to two of the founding principles of the bundle, and alienate some of the original bundle supporters, but it would have been a mistake to pass up such an important opportunity. At the end of the day this is win-win all around. THQ raises some much needed money and gamers can get at least 6 games for at least $1.
Are indie gamers(If such a thing exists) and Dev's right to be upset about this new Bundle?