Can someone show me proof they have actually donated anything to charity.
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You need to ask humble that, only they have the proof.
Plus it's kind of illegal to allow people to send money for charities but then pocket it yourself...
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Not if it is pocketed as administrative expenses. Some big name charities pass through only 10-15% of what is donated. It is very sad. I can think of 1 foundation who has passed through to the intended recipient only 5% of donations.
But I am sure HB is passing through to listed charities. Too many people are watching.
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Oh god, that tactic. I forgot about that. Hnngh.
Though if that was the case there would usually be a higher profile warning about the site from one of the charity tracking websites, and this would blow up into a major controversy pretty fast. Nobody likes to miss out on a good drama, after all.
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It's imporant to know that HB itself is not a charity. but yes there's a lot of proof that some money have gone to charity.
Some examples:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUdVacGCwFY from Action Against Hunger | ACF-USA
http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/vital-pact/campaign-update - Doctors without borders
http://blog.watsi.org/post/70207419740/announcing-a-1-5m-donation-from-humble-bundle - watsi
http://www.worldreader.org/blog/humble-bundle-impacts-literacy-ghanaian-schools/ - worldreader
http://www.redcross.org/news/article/ca/san-francisco/Corporate-Spotlight-Humble-Bundle - red cross
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_yiB1leET4 - humble bundles own "showcase"
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A site born on the idea of paying what you want isn't exactly a great base for greed.
Consider how many people habitually buy for the lowest amount, some degree of BTA / pricing tier is natural. This new method they're trying is going to kill the interest in the higher tiers, so they aren't likely to keep it. Experimentation with the price fluctuations isn't a sign they're suddenly about to turn evil, it's more a sign of lacking foresight. Seems they assumed that the one-dollar buyers would counterbalance the higher tiers price-point?
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A few of the book/comic humbles have all ready used this sytem in the past.
I think this will make them sell less bundles, but who knows. As I don't have stats for the book/comic bundles.
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Even if they sell less.. they might still make more money out of it.
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Even if they sell less, it'd be good PR. That's PR with the industry, not with the public.
In order to net high-profile deals with first tier companies (as in, not indies), they need a high payout per item ratio. Take the average price, divide it by the number of items, then by the average slice given to retailers, and there you have the payout per item. So, fewer items per bundle coupled with tricks to up the average buy price together nets them a higher payout per item. Which in turn attracts the big fish bundles. Which then allows them to make more money, since everyone buys the big-ticket bundles.
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Too greedy? Hmm, I'm tempted to say it's the opposite actually for this system in particular. There have been several cases where the highest tier was simply not worth it because the BTA was like 3.5$ and the top tier was 10-12$ for like one extra game, which was not worth buying. This might solve that problem.
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They've been greedy for a while. They used to make one excellent bundle every couple of months, and it would gather a lot of money for charities and all. They've gone and changed their prices a lot with the 10$+ tiers, opened their own store, drop tons of bundles per week, and now this. I'm not sure the idea behind it is charity oriented anymore.
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Well they gotta show a return for those millions in venture funding...
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Having 'lower quality' or more frequent bundles doesn't make them greedy. Owning a store that has discounts that even beats Steam's occasionally doesn't make them greedy.
There are only so many people willing to get involved in 'bundle culture' as it can sell their product at a lower price. The pricing tiers offers companies some assurance that a certain minimum return can be expected, rather than turning their game into spammed one-dollar fodder overnight.
You have the option to actually give Humble themselves ZERO out of your purchases, in case you forgot.
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Having a store is the definition of greed. Greed and self-interest is built into the very nature of the marketplace. It's what makes the market function. And nobody minds greed - at least, not when people are honest about it. It's when people say they're doing it for charity, and then it turns out they give only a slightly higher percentage of their profit to charity than your average department store does (and nowhere near the 80% that an actual charitable organization is supposed to) that people get disgusted.
'Tis what brought down the old telethon organizations in the past, and it'll take down Humble Bundle too if they're not careful.
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Greed implies selfishness or an attempt to favour yourself over others. Owning a store doesn't automatically make a person greedy, much less if that store has prices that are typically superior to those of other stores. To suggest that being a seller is greedy is quite a strange use of the word, in the same way that calling someone 'selfish' for eating a tin of soup would be (because only the person eating the soup benefits from it, therefore the act is selfish). That's some pretty weird voodoo to be using words like that.
Yeah, Humble are not a charity organisation, but rather a bundle group/store with a charity thing on the side. People bring up the charity thing as a counter to people who flat-out accuse them of being greedy from the starting line. It's a pretty good counter too, given if you buy the bundles you can actually determine where your money goes.
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Still, those are among the best GNs released in the past years. And considering one of them costs about as much or more as the top tier, even in digital format, this is a great grab.
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Greedy? Come on, you guys cant be serious...
With it setup as 10% of proceeds, as opposed to off of profit, and over $2 million going to charity already the Humble store certainly isn't not about charity. There are even curated versions of the stores (Nerd Cubed's for instance) where 15% is going to charity. Beyond charity it's pretty well known that developers get a much larger cut of sales from the Humble Store than from pretty much any other reseller.
Also on bundles everyone who buys it gets to determine the split of money so if people think they're being greedy they can simply reduce or remove the humble tip. Remember though that there are costs associated with running the service. If you use the default split 75% goes to the devs (as a whole), 10% goes to charity, and 15% to Humble.
At the end of last year total charitable payments had crossed $50 million and devs had earned over $100 million. That's $10 mill a year compared to the $6.25 million a year that Apple has donated through their matching program and Apple donated nothing until after Jobs passed. I suspect there are plenty of other very large companies donating less to charity than Humble.
Across the 5 years they've been in existence Humble has averaged revenue (not profit) of right about 15% of total payments and that's by design. What other company operates with 85% overhead on sales? Pretty much no one. Just remember all your other precious bundle sites are donating nothing (most of the time), and giving much less to devs.
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You forget to mention that they are only the middle-men organizing the bundles.. they provide servers and sales but don't have to actually make anything or produce anything to make their share. And they're not giving their share to charity .. the buyers are.
They're not a non-profit enterprise.. they're making millions by showing a front about Charity and the marketing opportunity they offer for Publishers, all because they were in the first great bundles out there. 15% of all sales isn't nothing. And yes you can change the shares but I'm pretty sure most people don't touch these when making their purchase.
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Steam sells Game A for $10 as does Humble.
Steam takes $3.50 on average leaving $6.50 for the devs
Humble Takes $1.50, gives $1.00 to charity, and $7.50 to the devs.
Whose "greedier"? I never claimed they were a non-profit and didn't make any money but claiming they're only motivated by greed? Sounds a little like sour grapes because people don't like the new things they're trying.
You can't blame Humble for people not changing the sliders. It's always there and it's easy to use. As a consumer you have to speak with your dollars and if you can't be bothered to change the sliders then that's your vote.
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Steam provides a service that is not just selling you the game.. and their basic cut is 30% not 35% and yes they do get a cut even when the game is sold thru HB or any other store. They provide lifetime access to the game and it's updates with all the side things that can be attached to it, Forums, Workshop, Cards, etc.. They're a business and they don't claim to act for the benefit of Charity.
I never claimed Humble were only motivated by greed and can't blame them for people not changing the sliders but they're responsible for the original split and they still push forward the idea that all this is done for charity (they can't push the DRM-Free part since they abandoned that a long time ago now). Humble Bundle is a business making millions of dollars each year.. Charity or not they're in it for the money..
And anyway you're twisting the thread over my last comment that HB might be getting more greedy. The point was that the double BTA has the nasty effect of raising and raising and raising the BTA where it previously had a certain limit that couldn't be passed. Why should you have to jump on the bundle on the first few minutes to get the best deal on it.. most people have other things to attend to. When they get to check the page for the new bundle they can end up having to pay a good sum more to get the same 'bundle' deal even though they're willing to get the highest tier.
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Well. I just want them to provide better bundles in the future at unbeatable prices. I don't care what they do with the money tbh, I have never purchased from them because I want to donate to charity, I just want cheap games.
BTW, I'm not trying to defend HB, because I honestly don't care about what anyone thinks about them as long as I get cheap games, but you failed to point that HB allows users to download DRM free games through their service even if they pay just 1cent (which actually makes them lose money to their payment processors).
Also, why don't you post a source that indicates that HB is the company which actually sets the price to their bundles? that would be good to know, I always thought the owners of the content set it.
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as far as i know steam doesn't get a cut from other stores or bundles.i guess they are getting a small cut from official resellers.that's all.any developeer can generate for free as many keys he want.where did you read that they are getting a cut?i am asking because i think it's innacurate but i am not 100% sure either.
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"Are Humble Bundle becoming too greedy ?" -OP
I don't think this discussion is divergent at all.
Steam takes 30% at a minimum but up to 40% so 35% seems a fair average for this conversation. Regardless, at 30% it's still a better deal for everyone except the reseller to buy through Humble.
This has to be the first time someone has used Trading Cards as an argument against Steam's "greed" (quotes because I don't think any of these companies are actually greedy. They're businesses, if you're not trying to make money you're an awful business.) Those cards make Steam a hefty stack of cash at little cost since devs have to provide the art work. Soon Steam sill be making money off of community developed mods turning the Workshop into a profitable venture (This is an entirely different topic but you have to be blind to not see paid mods coming back in some form in the future). Sure Steams opperating costs are higher but so are their volumes and they're taking 2x as much, giving less to devs, and giving nothing to charity (on a per sale basis. As a private company there's no way to know if they do charitable giving on their own). If you want we can compare to all the other bundle sites that popped up after the successes of Humble that give nothing or very little to charity all while providing lesser content and worse service instead.
I've never gotten the idea that Humble is pushing this as "All for charity". The charity part of their store is pretty subtle and even on the bundles it's never seemed "in your face" to me. The part telling about the chosen charities is below the games and much smaller. At the same time their pretty transparent about the giving (more so then they legally have to be) and allow 100% of bundle purchases to go to charity. No one else does that and if you ask experts "Should I allow the consumer to choose my cut of a sale?" they're going to laugh you out of the room.
$50 million going to charities is significant, just ask the charities involved.
The argument that Steam is less greedy because they don't give anything to charity versus Humble which says it's going to, does, and still can manage to make some money makes me want to quit the internet. What's the logical basis for that stance?
You want my opinion on the new tier system they're trying? I think it's fine. The current system makes the middle tier useless when the top one is desirable since the prices essentially meet. Personally I think they should increase the min price for the entry tier (or at least to unlock keys) but if I'm honest part of that is just to hear all the people that have come to believe they deserve this content for nearly squat dissolve into petulant whining and crying.
The moving BTA has always been about getting in relatively early and now they've applied this to the top tier. Like I said before, the consumer votes with their pesos and if the new system sticks around you can be sure it's because it worked and sales weren't impacted enough to offset any gains from the, possibly, increased price.
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Ok .. you got way too much time on your hands to build a case like this. You keep attributing me with things I never said.. Where did I say Steam was less greedy because they don't give to charity ?? All I said is they provide more than just a sale for their cut. And trading Cards against Steam being Greedy ?? Yes the Devs/Publishers provide the cards but they never have to touch them again afterwards and receive 2 times what Steam gets for them, but who handles all of those then .. that's what I meant by "Forums, Workshop, Cards, etc" .. You're reading whatever you want between the lines and answering in 2 paragraphs for 1 word I mentioned. We're not having a debate here.. I asked what people though of the 2 tiers pushing prices up instead of the one we were used to.
Yes I had the 1 line saying Humble might be getting more greedy, just compare their philosophy now compared to their early days, don't come and tell me it wasn't different. Thanks for your opinion.. moving on.
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Another intention to increase prices of their bundles.
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I actually really want Nemo: River of Ghosts, but the way the top tier is going I'll just go to the comic book store. I'll have to leave my house and that isn't how humble bundle is supposed to work - but I'll get a physical copy for less and I can hit on the goth chick.
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I don't think they are greedy, I think it's their way to motivate people to help charity with more money (because let's face it, 5$ it's not much help)
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Are you really going to do that? Look at a Humble bundle decide that $20 is too much for the top tier and send $15 to charity and get nothing in return? No, no one does that and besides you can choose to have your entire purchase price sent to charity so why go through the hassle of dealing directly with the charity.
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Okay, sorry best word is called hypocrite... spending to charity without getting something in return? Oh well, awful...besides when you spend directly you know for sure the money is getting where it belongs...and actually its quite simple, what do you mean with hassle of dealing directly with charity? You even know what you're talking about? Another point is, that when you spend directly the money goes to the charity you prefer.
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Not saying you should expect something in return... you know what? I can see this isn't worth the time. Have a good day.
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I don't know why people still get the warm-and-fuzzies over bundles and bundle vendors; the bundles are largely comprised of the same rehashed, 70%-negative-rating cash-grab turds that can't make sales any other way, and the various bundle vendors - especially Humble Bundle - haven't been oriented toward charity or helping deserving indie devs for a while now. At this point, they're just another ploy to manufacture hype and milk gamers of their money, complete with preorders, false advertising and licensing squabbles.
The recent Bloom County bundle was, IMO, priced way beyond what a bunch of eBook versions of '80s comic strips should be priced at - so I simply "acquired" them from an "alternate venue" instead. There is no room for greedy publishers in the age of freely reproducible electronic work.
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So.... I'm not seeing where the "2x BTA" is?? It's $5 more right now for the IDW book bundle. Doesn't seem so bad. There could be a lot of people who can bring the price down or raise it up even more.
Humble too greedy?? Too greedy to me would be taking a larger split. I guess making the price higher no matter what could be greedy. But I think there was one time where the BTA price actually surpassed the "pay more than $XX.xx" top tier price.
Overall bundles have tended to be at least 50% discounts on all the things in it so I have no idea what the fuss is all about.
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The whole point of BTA is that it keeps driving itself up in a self-sustaining way. (since everyone who beats the average drives it up by a bit).
Capping the potential by saying "get everything for fixed amount X" goes against that. Sure, there's a few people who will pay more anyway, but most people won't go above X. (Since in the end, most people care about their own wallet a bit more than about charity).
That's probably what Humble saw happening, and why they're changing things around again.
Not really sure if this is the best way of doing things though, but if it doesn't work out I'd guess they'll switch over to having the lower tiers at fixed price, and the top tier pay-what-you-want-but-above-average on top of that. (In which case, also expect the top tier to have the most content, not the middle tier as it is now).
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They had their "premium tier" for a while now but I found those games were mostly ripoffs and you would have been better off buying them just like that.
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HB got worse since the last months, i bought the good bundles, like the SEGA bundle or the Awesome games done quick bundle, but since then, most games aren't worth it, or i already own them from other great bundles... atm i buy most of my bundley at DailyIndieGala
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I don't know if it's the first time they use it but for me it is the first time I see it..
linky
There's the BTA tier and then the 3rd Tier is based on BTA + 5$. So many time there has been unbalanced Tiers where the only logical option was to go Top Tier to really get the most, for example a Top Tier that was 12$ and a middle-tier BTA that was 11$ after some time. If such an unbalanced Bundle happens with this new 2x BTA system.. it will only keep rising until the top-tier isn't worth it anymore, and the middle-BTA will keep rising with it too..
Are Humble Bundle becoming too greedy ?
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