IGN bought the HB, I have absolutely no trust in them anymore. I'll only buy the monthly if I think the early unlocks are worth it alone.
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monthly quality didn't decrease, though. if anything, it went up.
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They do everything for money. Whores of the industry. It's known that they accept bribes for reviews. Not always monetary though. They give all Call of Duty games around 9/10 of review score ( even Ghosts had 8.8), in return Activision invites them to all announcements & events so they can share the news first to earn more money. There are a lot more shit going on, mainly IGN scamming the gamers, but I'm too sleepy to explain.
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Preface: I'm as skeptical of IGN as any other person and I do believe that they might be taking bribes (I wouldn't put it past them). But, I've never actually seen people back their claims up, so I thought I'd do that for you. I divided the comment to "chapters". This is what I found:
A. So, I looked into your claims. The best I could find was a 5.5 year old article from a single news site, called Zelda Dungeon and that article is actually complete and utter clickbait. This is the actual quote from the "former IGN employee":
The truth is that marketing and PR and readers have a major influence on reviews. I can tell you that just about every preview and review you read spouts out a lot of marketing’s message. Journalists don’t get it, see it, realize it, or accept it. But that is the truth.
So what we have here is a person saying that they're uncomfortable with how much promotional material is being used in the review and how essentially it's lazy. Even at the worst possible interpretation, this just shows that they couldn't be bothered to write their own material.
I thought that maybe I didn't see enough info, so I looked into the author, to see who he was, whether he had more info on it or whatever else. At this moment in time, there was no more recent info available and that was my only lead. Turns out, the author was the editor-in-chief for the site and he quit over a year ago to join Nintendo Prime, where he now makes content. On multiple occasions he's actually shown that there's something weird going on in Zelda Dungeon, but from what I managed to find, he only hints at it and he seems to have never given the real story behind it. Just saying this because for one, ZD isn't a known and trustworthy site and two, their Editor-in-Chief for 9 years is discrediting them and their practices indirectly. This made me take what they said with a pinch of salt, even though their original article was already vague, misleading and sometimes off-topic.
B. So, after this, I found nothing that was actually backed up or released by a news organization. So, I thought I maybe searched for it wrong. I started looking into the huge amount of threads that shared your sentiment. So, I looked around. Everything was relatively old by now, mind you. 2007-2013 for the most part. 2015 was the most recent one, which was a thread where a user asked the same thing as LeonFowl. The most they said in response were memes or their worst reviews (stuff like the "Too much water" memes). Other threads were people slamming IGN for giving ratings that were too high for games they didn't like. Most of their reasons were also subjective. But some were reasonable and I agreed with them. Those were for the most part for every other thread and usually one out of their whole long list of reasons. But it was there and it shouldn't be ignored.
C. I widened my search. I found an article by CinemaBlend. "Publisher Admits Game Review Scores Are Heavily Influenced By Trips, Parties, Swag". Now that's genuinely an enticing article, so I went and had a look. Turns out they're referencing this article by Kotaku, but after reading it, I saw that the CinemaBlend article basically just trims out the unnecessary info, so I relied on that, since it was a solid aggregate for the necessary info. This is what the anonymous publisher said:
Reviews only have an impact if they're 90+, and then the impact is huge.
We don't take steps to get good reviews, we take steps to make good games. Then we invite reviews to fancy promotional events to warm them up on the game before they play it on their own.
I think of our launch parties as warm-up comedians for the main act. Warm-up comedians are there to get you laughing and excited, so when the star performer walks onstage, you're primed and ready to enjoy the set. Our promo events are the same way. We bring out media to a fancy location, wine and dine them, show them the best parts of our game, and generally build anticipation for release. The theory is that, once they get the game and play it privately, they already have a positive association with the game, which may influence their final score.
I get the idea behind it and it makes sense. So, I looked into the press events to see what they offered. The best idea for me was to go back to 2016, where I remember a small games journalist Randy Yasenchak making a video about visiting a press event for Tom Clancy's The Division. A game with a huge marketing budget behind it and a game that was notoriously bad on launch. This is the video, have a look for yourself. He's a small reviewer, but he does get invited to press events. I think it actually gives you a pretty clear look at how those events usually work. It's definitely elaborate to some extent, but as he said, for the most part, the events are usually smaller scale and they're usually less insane compared to this one. This isn't really as fancy as the publisher claimed them to be. And this was an example of a more elaborate press event with actual famous media people and it was made by one of the biggest publishers, pushing their most anticipated game of the year. It's not that insane, but I see why some people might get enamoured by this.
D. So, finally I went to see the AMA for Dan Stapleton. These are the things he said:
They play all kinds of mind games, and they're all hugely frustrating. Sometimes they'll deliberately give us their games late so we have to rush, sometimes they'll hold review events because they want to control the conditions (we all hate when they do that, and it makes us grumpy, so I don't think it works)... stuff like that. Also, they try to be your friend and butter you up. Once you've been doing this for a little while, it all becomes fairly obvious what PR people are up to and that they're keeping files on you. I notice them asking me about random personal things I've mentioned in passing years ago, so they've clearly read up on me.
I'd say when you're starting out it can be a little more difficult to see through, but it's not that hard.
Conclusion: I believed that IGN received bribes, but currently there's no evidence of that anywhere. Instead, they have the issues inflated numbering systems, lazy writers and strict deadlines.
The bribery accusations don't hold water, no matter what angle you look at it. But please, share why you would say what you said and how you'd back those claims up once you've slept :D
This was a quick timewaster and it's probably not as in-depth as it could be.
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Haha, might make me look like an obsessed idiot with no life, but I thought this might be interesting. When I read that comment, I just realized that accusing someone for bribery is actually quite an extreme accusation. Bribery for a review site is like a murder in the normal world. It's huge.
I was hoping to actually prove the fact that they take bribes because I remembered the Kane & Lynch fiasco with Gamespot, where Gamespot fired a reviewer for slamming a game who's publisher gave them a bunch of ad revenue.
But I couldn't find any evidence of wrongdoing on IGN's part.
I still find them to be a less than reputable outlet, but they don't seem to be that bad at least.
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Thank you :D
I was genuinely worried that I missed some simple thing that would just deflate this whole argument in a single sentence, but looking over this, it looks like it holds pretty well. :D
There's more stuff to talk about in that subject, but currently I just didn't have more time, plus I didn't think that someone would even bother to read it :D
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Now that.. is a post 👍 I liked waking up and reading that. Ty. 💙
I enjoy things that makes sense,so much more than blind slander.
Business will always be a poisonous area. But in this case.. I'll gladly keep my subscription. What IGN may, or may not be doing just doesn't bother, or surprise me.
My post below'ish is one of many reasons, as to why.
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I'm almost positive those Duelyst codes expired a long time ago.
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Sorry, didn’t notice that since I don’t play the game
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The way I think about the Monthly is if a big AAA game that I want is in the early reveal I just get it. I think about it as being a big Steam discount, if a game is $60 for 80% off it will be $12 the price of monthly. The other games at the end of the month are just extras.
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And one more thing about pause feature, you could pause as many times you want or there is a limit?
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Unlimited, it just unpauses automatically after 1 month, so you have to manually pause again if you want to skip another month
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I also noticed major changes in Humble Bundle after IGN bought them. The last time i bought a humble weekly bundle was Humble Assassins Creed Bundle 1 year ago. The bundles lost on quality because they are putting it in the monthly.
The fact that they advertise so much is also annoying. But i have to say the Monthlies are really good quality. you cant do any mistakes if you like the early unlocks. I just want more quality weekly bundles from them like they used to do.
Edit: i never had any issues with pausing. you can always check on your Billing History. Mine says skipped a month and i get an e-mail verification.
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I also noticed major changes in Humble Bundle after IGN bought them. The last time i bought a humble weekly bundle was Humble Assassins Creed Bundle 1 year ago.
then you stopped buying the weeklies long before IGN purchased HB (that was only 4 months ago). so it had nothing to do with that.
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i think the monthly is the best bundle out there - by far. most smaller bundle companies only offer complete garbage, let's be clear about that. so, those are not even close to competing with the monthly (Otaku, GoGo, for the most part IndieGala and Groupees...). so, the only real competition to the monthly is - well, the regular humble bundles. before the focus shifted more to the monthly, as you say, i was already sold on it and thought it was the best bundle out there. the regular ones are sometimes great, and sometimes not so great, and that has always been the case. the monthly was supposed to be an additional option. a bundle with higher cost, but also higher quality games. and that's great. if that means the regular bundles get less attention, that's not so great. i agree with that. i still feel the monthly is awesome and i am happy it exists. you get games you would never see in a bundle otherwise (never means for some games: not in the near future ^^). as for the RNG factor - yes, i can understand that some people might not like the idea of that. you buy something upfront and don't know what exactly you will get. on the other hand, i feel the comparison to loot boxes is unfair. it's simply not the same thing. loot boxes work off of your (possible) gambling addiction. games want you to buy as many as possible. they want to put you in some kind of purchase fever. all that is not possible with the monthly. it is a subscription. it has nothing to do with gambling. and for a subscription, it's even surprisingly fair (=>pause feature). you could compare it to magazine subscriptions. you buy them upfront without being aware what articles will be in the next one. or to services like playstation plus, maybe. you don't know what the next free game will be (i know, that one consists of more than just the free game). overall i must say i am happy with every monthly so far. there was something in it for me every time. and the high value means i can sell the rest and often actually get the cost of the bundle back. i have sold the early unlock alone for 8-10€ several times, which is already most of what the bundle costed. so yeah, i like the bundle. i have no problem with it. :)
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You got your point, I guess I just hate any way like phone contract thing, but you persuaded to buy the annual plan. I will give a try and thank you for your honest answer
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I have to agree, lately havent had any bundles that I have found in my interest.
But then again, there are bunch of people who like these bundle, so its all relative..
Monthly definitely is a business decision to earn money.. I have skipped a lot of them, too. But if there is a deal for a game I really want, Im gonna get it.. Usually havent been disappointed in other games in the bundle, too..
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I have to agree, lately havent had any bundles that I have found in my interest.
But then again, there are bunch of people who like these bundle, so its all relative..
right, it's all a matter of perspective. we here on SG are mostly gaming maniacs. we have a lot of games. we share information about sales and price glitches and all that. when we see a bundle like the recent Humble Rockstar Bundle, we shout "repeats!". ^^ and they were not, of course. most of them were unbundled. but i bet there are lots and lots of people out there who didn't have most of those and were quite happy about the bundle.
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I usually get it when I have some money to spare, like when no other bundle that month appealed to me. I only buy one month and immediately cancel it. I think I got like 3 or 4 bundles so far and I always liked at least half of the games, but my taste is also very broad imo.
But you really shouldn't pick it up if you don't want to spend that much on a random bundle. For me it's more about discovering hidden gems.
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I'm not in a place in life where I can afford to spend 50euro+ on all new AAA releases, and keep my PC completely up to date. I get my gaming needs covered by living a year or two behind.. hunting bundles and sales.
Monthly is still just fine. It is basically just as pricy as having a Pizza + Soda.
Humble Bundle is dear to me. They still hold the throne regarding high quality bundles. Followed (and sometimes shared) by Fanatical, imo.
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More like they realize the weekly bundle isn't profitable enough since most ppl who bought the bundle didn't even care about which party they gave their money to
I mean how many ppl who put Humble Tips at 100%?. heck, most ppl didn't even care about those 3 sliders between Dev, Charity, and Humble
so that's why they push the monthly. I'm not sure if the monthly also profitable tho, most ppl who know the referall reward thigny will just "try their hardest" to earn the reward
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I don't think that Humble Bundle is really worse than in the past. It's simply that bundles have become so common that it's a lot harder for a bundle site to distinguish itself. People expect the (almost) latest and greatest for very little money, and developers/publishers just aren't typically willing play along with this.
That's the reason I find book bundles more exciting. It's harder to get extremely cheap deals there. With PC games, it's so commonplace that you can build a pretty decent library for free or nearly free.
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Monthlies are good especially if you like the early unlock, and even if you don't you can usually sell or trade for games that you want, there are always different people who want different games. I'd argue against it being like loot boxes as well as someone else has already mentioned. The quality is assured that you don't get repeats and you are only supposed to buy one to "try out new games every month" rather than "gamble to win a good game". I treat it as a bunch of recommended games per month like a games magazine and can highly suggest to think like that. I used to play mmos and have indulged in well-made loot box gambling and equipment stat rolls so the gambling feeling is well known to me. Monthlies feel different, the addiction draw isn't there.
Of course the biweekly bundles is better in that it's all revealed but you're right those quality seems to vary greatly plus sometimes it costs $15 for tier 3, not the $12 for monthly.
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Monthlies are good, and nobody is forcing people into the annual deal - of course, it's cheaper than each month, you get credit and yu can still pause the unwanted months as far as I know, but take a step back : you get a ~8% off deal (1$ off each month, or 1 month being free) for you paying upfront a hefty sum.
It's an offer that's really far from the must have ones. They sweetened it with a 20$ store credit that can be awesome if you want to buy a cheaper, preferably fresh game before it would be bundled.
12 individual months cost 144 USD, a yearly sub costs 132 to pay, and with the credit you "save" 20 so let's say it's 112.
That's a 22% off deal, considering everything. Most of the people here wouldn't even look at a game with 20% off only. It's just not healthy to worry about it. If you have no trouble paying 12$ a month and feel like it's generally a good investment, you don't *need* to get the annual just to save some more, if you have a bad feeling doing so. Some people are overly obsessed about deals, historical lowest prices and they buy what they don't even need nor want. Don't stress yourself about the annual if you don't want it, the 20$ credit sounds lovely but at the price of paying upfront.. and it's basically just a single game, along with the monthly 6-8 that will surely arrive if you sub for a year.
Also IGN is the best scapegoat for every real or perceived change or drop of quality regarding HB, as you can see from the answers :P
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Monthlies either feature earlier access to games that later make it to normal bundles, or access to games that wouldn't have been bundled in the past at all. They've in no way diminished the quality of standard Humble Bundles- in fact, since Humble is less strict on adhering to a standardized schedule, the selection of low-profile bundles is really what has been most affected by the change. Those games tend to still get coverage on BundleStars and IndieGala, so overall, Bundle game selection overall across the various sites has improved since the introduction of Monthlies (despite Groupees' hardline decline).
We still get all the same Capcom, Telltale, Indie, etc bundles we've always gotten from Humble. We just now also get more emphasis from publishers like Obsidian and Bethesda, who previously didn't bundle at all, but are encouraged to commit to such due to Monthlies [even if Bethesda has so far treated it more like a promotional marketing gimmick than an actual sales offer].
Monthly brings in higher profile games due to its lootbox approach, which guarantees limited purchasing at standardized pricing. There's no indication that Monthly has done anything but improve bundle offers for us. Past that, the only person who can tell you if Monthly is worth it to you, is yourself. There are plenty of amazing games that make it to standard bundles, and with the exception of a few publishers, most games seem to eventually make it to a bundle or free promotion.
If you want to get high profile games sooner, then sticking with Monthly and only getting the most appealing months is a solid plan. As I understand it, it'll unpause you every month, so you do have to renew that each month. If it is in fact unpausing a second time within a month, you should be able to report that to Humble and get a refund off that month, assuming you haven't interacted with the keys at all. Alternatively, just purchase the monthly one month at a time, as needed.
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Yeah I've been a month to month subscriber from the start and honestly, they have stayed pretty consistent in quality, maybe even improved. I do think that their normal bundles have suffered as a result, I mean they haven't done a humble indie bundle for nearly a year, which was always their premiere bundle. It's fine though as I think the humble monthly gives good value for money, even if I don't always like all the games. If this model is the more sustainable way to get cheaper games, rather than having key resellers abusing $1 bundles, then I'm all for it. I spend less on bundles and still get so many awesome games I just couldn't buy otherwise.
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eh. I think the biggest problem with the weekly bundle is that after a while you get spoiled and your expectations get warped
At least once a month there's a quite good weekly bundle - even if it's not to everyone's taste. Just because you already own half the games doesn't make it a crappy bundle. Just because you're not into X kind of games, doesn't make it a crappy bundle.
HumbleBundle still has the best bundles in the industry.
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they are some kind of loot boxes with early reveals in my opinion
So very true. Can't wait for this to get smashed by gambling regulations, like it should have been in the first place
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So very untrue. A mystery box has nothing to do with gambling. You dislike IGN? Fair enough, but don't make up reasons to.
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(And also, I don't particularly dislike IGN. To me they're just a pretty ancient game review site that used to be popular and is now just not that popular anymore. I don't really understand all the hate they get :s)
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Nice article but irrelevant because the Humble Monthly is different from loot boxes and gambling. First off you are limited to one per month. Most gambling items have unlimited supply as long as you are ready to give Money to them. This is something which can not happen here.
Second, you can't lose anything in the Humble Monthly. When gambling there is always the chance that you receive nothing (like with a slot machine) or something with a value lower than the price you paid for the box. With the Humble Monthly this is not possible. From a monetary value you will always receive items which are in fact more valuable then the price you paid. There has not been a single exception to this so far. Granted, you might not be interested in the stuff you receive so the PERSONAL value may be low but you still got something in return. You may get something you are not interested in but you can not "lose" with the Humble Monthly which is in direct contrast to all forms of gambling.
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First off you are limited to one per month
Actually, you can subscribe several times. And I don't think rapid repeatability is a core characteristic of gambling. You get a gamble once a month, that's gambling already.
Second, you can't lose anything in the Humble Monthly.
It's the same for lootboxes. And the article talks about this:
This is wrong on many levels. While it's true that, unlike a slot machine, a loot box will always result in some form of a prize, that doesn't change the fact that the simple act of opening loot boxes is incredibly similar to gambling, and taps into all the same parts of the brain.
"[...] the rewards are delivered unpredictably [...] We know that the dopamine system, which is targeted by drugs of abuse, is also very interested in unpredictable rewards. Dopamine cells are most active when there is maximum uncertainty, and the dopamine system responds more to an uncertain reward than the same reward delivered on a predictable basis."
The key concept here is that rewards are random.
Also, as you said, you can "win" something that is worthless to you. So you can technically lose compared to, say, buying only the leftovers that are of interest to you.
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Just to be sure, when talking about gambling we are talking about the addiction, right? A symptom of addiction is the loss of control and in case of gambling just spending time and money until one is exhausted in worst case. While you can subscribe mutliple times you still have the time limitation. You can only gamble once a month. It is hard to form addictive behaviour if you have this only once a month.
And yes, you can lose value with loot boxes. If you open them and receive items worth 10 cent while the crate was worth 1 € then you have effectively lost something. In some cases there is a rather complex economy behind it determing the value but it is irrelevant. For the Humble Monthly you pay 15 € at max and receive 50 € +? There is no loss in value. It is a difference to gambling. The effects in the brain might be similar but that is not enough for something to be the same. Also, you already now at least one of the games in the bundle which is most often worth more than the price asked for it. So it is more of an investment.
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Just to be sure, when talking about gambling we are talking about the addiction, right?
No, I'm talking about how the HB monthly is similar to gambling. The addiction is called "addiction to gambling", not just "gambling".
"gambling: to risk money or possessions on the outcome of something, usually sports or a game "
-
So it is more of an investment.
Interesting that you make that comparison, as making investments is kind of similar to gambling, too. You spend money because you are betting that the market will go as you foresee, in which case you expect you'll make more money.
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Adelion already replied, but let me stress the key differences: rapid replayability may not be what defines gambling, but it certainly is a key factor; with Monthly everyone pays the same price and everyone gets the same outcome: buying multiple copies doesn't change this. While you can colloquially call buying a Monthly "a gamble", in the same way buying a game without reading reviews or videos is "a gamble", it has nothing to do with gambling.
All this said, I don't have anything strong in favor or against IGN - but I do prefer independent entities to big conglomerates.
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My point was really not against IGN, but against "blind buying" in general (be they lootboxes, "mystery" keys, etc).
But since you're mentioning it, I'm not sure IGN / Ziff Davis qualifies as a "big conglomerate" as opposed to, say, Google or just... Valve Corp 👀
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so with your definition a subscription of a magazine is gambling? you buy it in advance, you don't know what articles will be in it - gambling!
a magazine subscription is more similar to HB monthly than a slot machine, if you ask me.
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Most magazines are pretty consistent. They are X pages about topic Y written by a +/- constant team Z of writers. The HB monthly is waaaay more random.
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Ok, let's say I see a big difference between blind buying and gambling. Plus, frankly, I usually sell the early unlock of a Monthly for about the price of the bundle itself, so it's more of a blind freebie for me. :)
Speaking of IGN, I'd say it's kind of a "biggish" conglomerate. Valve is not much of a conglomerate, it just became really big (and rich). Actually, more rich than big. And Google... well, it's just shit.
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Weekly bundles are actually pretty good IMO.
Humble Classic Bundle is a killer, you might not like it only if you own majority of the games. If you own the majority, then it's probably a good bundle, especially if you were eager to buy them before they appeared in a bundle :P
Humble Brawler Bundle has almost all games with very good ratings. I'm not a fan of this kind of games but it looks like a nice bundle to those who enjoy fighting games.
Humble Hunie Sekai Bundle is something I'd never buy myslef cos I'm not interested at all in this genre but it's awesome HB creates bundles for all genres, not only RPG's and FPS's.
Humble Rockstar Bundle – do I even need to explain this? Basically the same situation as with Humble Classic Bundle.
Humble Best of 2017 Bundle is the weakest one for me, cos there are only 2 games I'd be interested in. On the other hand it includes only well-rated or very popular games.
Humble Paradox Bundle 2018 is a fantastic bundle for strategy fans. Almost every game seems to be awesome.
Even though I can understand disappointment that there's a bundle that you won't buy cos there's nothing in it for you (because you already own majority of the games or you're not interested in a specific genre), I wouldn't call them bad bundles at all :)
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Without considering the contract, the quality of the games, or anything else... Normal bundles let you choose where your money goes. Developers, Humble Bundle themselves, and charity. You can choose exactly how much goes to who, and even how much individual charities or developers get. Humble monthly has none of that, and gives 5% to charity. No idea how the other 95% is split. Humble store purchases are the same. So really, if you're wanting to support charity or particular developers, bundles are great, and store/monthly.... Not so much.
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It seems humble bundle focus more on the monthly than weekly bundle when we look back, there wasn’t any exciting bundle anymore. And all the games that might interest me seems all locked in monthly which I don’t really like the mechanic, they are some kind of loot boxes with early reveals in my opinion. And they are advertising the annual sub plan once again that reminds me of phone company, they might sounds tempting, but when I checked my billing history that I only brought 6 monthly since January 2017, that’s only 40%, and the pause feature sometimes turn off on their own, I don’t think I will make commitment to this kind deal anymore. So what do you think this kind frequented deal and where humble bundle will end up?
The Obligatory Backlog Cleanup
Duelyst - 20 Spirit Orbs d2f08fb2-296c-4617-93a7-bba7d059a905
Duelyst - Cosmetics Bundle c204a532-45bc-4f2b-b190-4f2bb74f6f63
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