
IGN acquires Humble Bundle - doppp
https://techcrunch.com/2017/10/13/ign-acquires-pay-what-you-want-game-shop-humble-bundle/
======
baddox
My gut reaction any time a beloved company/product is bought by a “big” or
“old” company, particularly in gaming or media or tech, is “oh no, they sold
out” or “uh oh, that’s the beginning of the end.” This type of reaction seems
to be the dominant “hot take” in online communities as well. I don’t think
this is necessarily a reasonable reflex, but I confess I feel it here, even
when the buyer (IGN) is a company I trusted and enjoyed for _many_ years for
video game reviews and news (in this case, from about 2002-2012).

I welcome interesting arguments for why my reaction is inappropriate, or for
that matter, appropriate. It’s pretty easy to enumerate acquisitions that went
well and others that went poorly, but I certainly wouldn’t claim to have
sufficient data to make a reasoned prediction about how this will go.

~~~
rkachowski
The humble bundle concept sold out a long time ago. The first incarnation was
"The Humble Indie Bundle" \- which raised an unexpectedly large amount of
money for independent game developers (in a time long before 'indie games' was
a valid genre).

After seeing that this was a successful formula, they went on to raise funding
in 2011 and pushed for larger publishers / developers to target with their
acquired audience of heavily engaged gaming fans (mostly indie people). There
was quite a strong note of sourness at the commercial interests being spun out
of what was originally a charity + grassroots initiative.

Now, as many other people have mentioned in this thread, they've largely
fallen into another same again steam sale outlet.

My attitude is more of indifference - they sold out long before being acquired
by some big old company. I feel they put too much emphasis on aggressively
acquiring new sales at the expense of their old customers.

~~~
fsloth
Uh, they sell games. They continue selling games. That's the value
proposition. I fail to see how they are not serving their old customers.

~~~
city41
Most gamers distinguish games made by a small indie team and those made by
Ubisoft, THQ, etc. Had the Ubisoft bundle been Humble Bundle's first ever
bundle, they would have came across as a very different organization.

~~~
djur
The Humble Indie Bundle also once only included cross-platform (Windows, Mac,
and Linux) and DRM-free games. It was a huge impetus for a lot of Linux ports
of indie games.

~~~
boomboomsubban
Every game in the latest Indie bundle had Linux support.

[http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2017/05/humble-indie-
bundle-18](http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2017/05/humble-indie-bundle-18)

~~~
cannonedhamster
The Indie Bundles sure, but most of their bundles now are strictly not cross-
platform.

~~~
icc97
So they still do indie bundles, they still do pay what you want pricing, they
still do DRM free, they still have support for charities.

But on top of that they've added a lot of sales that breaks any of those
principles.

I think they did well to keep the core of the platform there but at the same
time offering other things less noble that keeps them afloat.

------
schlipity
I have purchased a fair amount from Humble bundle, and have been a subscriber
to the humble monthly bundle since it's inception. Suffice it to say, I have a
great appreciation and admiration for the way Humble Bundle works (worked?).

Meanwhile, IGN has been around a lot longer, and has earned a terrible
reputation for selling reviews and generally being shameless. I lost all
respect for IGN long ago, and I absolutely refuse to contribute to it in any
way, so I've cancelled my humble bundle monthly subscription.

Is there a name for the feeling you feel when you're watching a movie and the
bad guy wins? That's what I feel now.

~~~
eropple
_> has earned a terrible reputation for selling reviews_

IGN editorial is separated from the rest of the company like just about every
other media outlet and those extraordinary claims require extraordinary
evidence. One or two anonymous allegations does not a "reputation" make. When
someone puts their name to it and brings evidence to back it up, we'll talk.
As-is, this is just a meme among the angrier gamer community.

(n.b.: I don't read IGN or care about the company, but I do care about
mendacity a little bit.)

~~~
gggdvnkhmbgjvbn
Its got the reputation, calling that reputation a meme is you going out of
your way to use a term other than reputation. Whether or not its true is a
separate thing.

~~~
eropple
I think that you failed to pick up what I was putting down, and that is that
the important bit of that sentence is not _meme_ , but rather the _angrier
gamer community_ \--the side of the community that is so very worried about
ethics in games journalism except only when women or black people are involved
and who are so very mad at Bethesda for making a game about shooting Nazis--
who are the source of that _meme_.

It is not credible and it should be roundly shot through when it pops up
because of that incredibility.

------
minimaxir
It's worth noting that Humble Bundle is YC W11 and raised $4.7M in venture
capital in 2011.

I am assuming this is not a 10x exit.

~~~
patio11
That's a curious way to phrase "Congratulations on making a company which has
sold several hundred million dollars of software."

I don't get why HN, of all the places in the world, would seek to tear down
software companies, literally started on HN, which produce a service that
people love and which achieve a successful outcome for all concerned.

I also don't think we should teach people that a middlebrow dismissal passes
for financial analysis, so some toy math using their public data: they report
~$106 million in charity. Their users probably don't alter their split
materially, so if one models their bundles as their main revenue source
(which, knowing nothing about the internals of the business, I would), that
implies $106M / .15 = $700M in gross sales. Their cut of that is 20%, or
~$140M over the lifetime of the company. I model them as being a rather
briskly growing business, so I'd estimate last year's revenues in the ~$30
million range. I'd also estimate probably ~60% margins.

You want the lower on a $47 million acquisition price on a quickly growing
software company with $30 million a year in revenue? Yeah, I'll take the
upper. Not a hard call. This was clearly a _very successful outcome_ for all
concerned.

[Edit to add: Above paragraph is incorrect because I misread the parent as
raising at a valuation of $4.7M. If they raised $4.7 million the valuation was
probably ~$20M. Do I still think 10x is plausible on that? Plausible, not
nearly a given.]

Disclaimers: no non-public information used above, no commercial relationship,
although I did pitch them on a consulting gig once. I have paid them a few
hundred dollars over the years for video games.

~~~
TeMPOraL
I didn't read GP's comment as tearing down. Also, I learned something new -
didn't realize HB went through YC, or that it even was VC-funded.

> _I don 't get why HN, of all the places in the world, would seek to tear
> down software companies, literally started on HN, which produce a service
> that people love and which achieve a successful outcome for all concerned._

Well, the company got bought by a third party with dubious reputation, which
will most likely lead to "service that people love" deteriorating and possibly
getting cancelled. This is _not_ a good news for people who were fans of the
service. It definitely doesn't look like a success for _all_ concerned.

Basically, HB is seen by many (myself included) as a great service to have,
not as a great trick for some people to get rich.

------
jchw
To be honest, I haven't cared for Humble Bundle for a very long time. The
first few were amazing: all cross platform, great stuff. Since then they've
branched out... Into becoming a glorified Steam sale. It may be a viable
business model, but I don't find it terribly enticing.

~~~
devbug
Same here.

They've not been humble, indie, or a bundle for a long time.

Par for the course. Similar disingenuous commercialization is rampant through
the games industry: see what Valve has done to Steam, and what major
publishers have done to their titles vis monetization.

Unfortunately the games industry is floating in too much money for another
crash to clean house.

~~~
psy-q
I think that's not really fair, only a few bundles a year are actually labeled
"Humble Indie Bundle", and those do usually fit the bill and check all three
boxes.

There were 13 Humble Indie Bundles since 2010 and 94 other types of bundles
(not counting the Weekly Bundles). And those other types often include
audiobooks, ebooks, comics etc. that one could claim are at least indie, or
some indie games sprinkled in with the AAA titles.

There was also extremely commercial stuff such as the 2K bundles, but hey,
it's always labeled as such.

~~~
TeMPOraL
I think this feeling is due to evolution. Humble Bundle _started_ as Humble
Indie Bundle, only later it turned into a brand.

It's kind of similar as with GOG, on which games are neither exclusively Good
nor Old anymore ;).

~~~
jasonkostempski
As long as GOG keeps it DRM free, they will remain the only distributor that
gets any more of my money, aside from direct, DRM-free sales by creators.
Steam destroyed all rationalization I was using to be ok with DRM by locking
my account for 3 weeks shortly after I opened an account.

~~~
TillE
I still don't really trust GOG after the whole "we're shutting down, too bad"
PR stunt several years ago, but it's true they're a reliable distributor of
DRM-free games which you can simply download and keep forever.

~~~
atesti
What happend with that PR stunt?

------
Avshalom
N.B. Humble has been as much a traditional retailer as it has been a charity
focused pwyw shop for quite a while.

As well as no longer caring if games are cross platform.

I mean I still shop there because it's as good a retailer as any but they are
no longer significantantly different than GOG or Steam.

~~~
Freak_NL
> As well as no longer caring if games are cross platform.

As a Linux gamer, the fact that some of the non-Humble Indie Bundles contain
games I can't run is annoying (I am fine with these being offered, just don't
mail me about them unless I can run them), but the _Humble Indie Bundles_ tend
to contain exclusively or nearly exclusively cross-platform games, like they
always have.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
Steam too annoys me in this respect, would be nice to have the option to hide
all promotions (and indeed content) about games one can't run.

------
k_sh
Did Humble Bundle let IGN name their own price?

~~~
TeMPOraL
Better question: how much of that did IGN decide to give to charities?

------
Deimorz
The official blog post from Humble Bundle is here:
[http://blog.humblebundle.com/post/166366386976/humble-
bundle...](http://blog.humblebundle.com/post/166366386976/humble-bundle-is-
joining-forces-with-ign)

It was posted earlier today but didn't get much attention (possibly because
the title didn't make it clear it was an acquisition):
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15468583](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15468583)

~~~
minimaxir
That HN submission was softkilled almost immediately (it fell of the front
page near immediately, presumably by flags by people who aren't interested in
random gamer stuff). And now the story is #1 on Hacker News.

This is a case where HN's rule of original titles can be somewhat annoying.

------
drumhead
Whats the actual strategic thinking behind this? IGN expanding into retail?
Why? They're effectively media company. I dont see any sense in this
acquisition. And that worries me. Do they understand what made HB so
successful, are they going to give it managerial autonomy, what are their
plans?

------
schwede
Does this mean that they will only stick to game bundles? I really like the
e-book bundles they do.

~~~
minimaxir
IGN covers a lot more than just games nowadays. (Movies, etc.)

------
wildpeaks
Damn, I hope they won't close the section that lets you buy (most) Steam games
all year round. Unlike regular Steam, it doesn't have the frustrating
"geolocation-locked" limitation the Steam store has in Germany (which is very
frustrating when you're not German, just an expat).

At least Apple's AppStore lets you buy from your own country's store instead
of assuming the country from geolocation.

------
ryanpcmcquen
This makes me apprehensive, but as long as I can still move that slider to
100% charity, it's probably not too big of a deal.

------
coworkerblues
Is there any possible way to make all my Humble Bundle e-mail and information
not be shared with IGN database ?

------
penguinUzer
I bought several indie game bundles when they were for Linux and/or DRM free.
Sadly I had trouble getting most of the Linux games running, at least on
Debian (thanks multiarch). I have also bought a few titles off their web
store, all you get there is a Steam key. However, I have bought games from the
store specificaly hoping that Valve gets less of the cut (PUBG being the
latest).

However, I just bought two book bundles over the past month. They are still
fantastic. 10-15 books DRM free for about dollar or so each, and a portion of
that money I specified to be donated to FSF.

Hopefully post IGN aquisition the book bundles will continue.

PS. I bought Cuphead week of release on GOG to show my support. It may be
Windows only but it was DRM free at launch.

~~~
elrobinto
Valve get nothing when you purchase a steam key from another sales platform.
They allow the free use of their drm and content delivery platform to acquire
new customers, and keep existing customers locked in.

~~~
penguinUzer
Interesting. This is the closest source I found with a quick search:
[https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/features/keys](https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/features/keys)

Phil Fish who created the indie game Fez (which I also purchased) stated Steam
& GOG take a 30% cut whereas Humble only took 5%.
[http://www.pcgamer.com/steam-and-gog-take-30-revenue-cut-
sug...](http://www.pcgamer.com/steam-and-gog-take-30-revenue-cut-suggests-fez-
creator-phil-fish/)

Personally DRM free takes precident. I haven't bought a AAA game through steam
since Portal 2. I buy games through GOG to get a DRM version - for example I
bought Firewatch from GOG and played it in Linux. DRM free Humble Bundles
next. Humble store steam keys as a last resort.

------
shostack
I wonder how much of this is IGN wanting to get into a SaaS business and see
this as a way to acquire there way there, and take on Steam?

That could add a nice revenue stream and help let them diversify from the
advertising model which is increasingly facing downward pressure on RPMs from
companies like FB and Google.

Interestingly enough, if built up sufficiently, it lets them better align
their interests with their users. Instead of making the experience slower and
more cluttered with additional display ads, they can focus on creating an
awesome UX (if you become a subscriber of course).

As a gamer, I have my doubts about this happening given IGNs history, but one
can always be hopeful.

------
wallabie
In the words of Adam Jensen - what a shame.

Though HB says: "We will stay the same", I'm sure practically everyone knows
that that won't be the case. IGN, the go-to place to get sponsored reviews of
AAA games.

------
gedrap
I'm a monthly bundle subscriber since inception. I don't check the monthly
bundles regularly (more like two-three-four times a year), but always find
games that I enjoy and wouldn't have discovered otherwise. For $150/year,
that's a pretty good value for a very casual gamer like me, i.e. someone who
doesn't follow the gaming industry and just spontaneously decides to play
something from time to time.

Best of luck to them.

------
JepZ
Actually, over the pas month I was hoping Humble would return to the old days,
not in terms of qantity but in therms of quality. The first bundles had some
great titles like Braid and World of Goo, but later on there were some gems
(like Stardew Valley), but in general there were a lot more mediocre games.

Sadly, I doubt that IGN has increasing the quality as the prime target in
mind.

------
damian2000
I just bought their crypto book humble bundle - first for a long time - decent
price for 11 ebooks... about 1.50 each if you want all 11.

------
lightedman
I can't wait for IGN to put their name all over stuff like they own it, like
they did with almost everybody's cheat codes submitted to the old cheat codes
site that they bought, including codes I had submitted. Any they've never
bothered to fix them even after notification, either.

Just wait and see. The garbage self-marketing begins now.

------
shoefly
I doubt this will be good for the little guys. Personal experience in the
games industry here. Maybe I am wrong. Maybe.

------
j_s
I collect my bargain-basement digital library, $1 at a time.

Wish I could pay for multiple bundles at once.

------
JepZ
If someone wants to create a new bundle store:

How about bundeling every Feral Interactive release (AAA cross platform) with
about 5 indie cross platform titles?

------
jimjimjim
well it was a good run.

for a while it will be ok due to them wanting to have good pr.

but slowly over time it will get worse and crappier. eventually paid
placement, advertising, spin and death by blandness.

------
ekianjo
I guess we can say goodbye to any kind of Linux support then.

------
abiox
a (imo sketchy) media company that reviews games will now own a retail outlet
that sells them. i wonder how that will impact their behavior.

------
oh_sigh
Wasn't IGN almost Steam in a previous life?

~~~
vanadium
You mean GameSpy? Yes, that merged with IGN and subsequently went into
oblivion.

------
jknoepfler
It was good while it lasted.

------
Joof
GG

------
thaumasiotes
"Pay-what-you-want" isn't exactly how I'd describe "pay what you want, but
unless it's at least X, we won't give you the merchandise". That's more
"ordinary commercial transactions".

~~~
Karunamon
IIRC, it’s always pay what you want (even a penny) in the bundles, but paying
more gets you more games.

~~~
wazanator
They had to add a dollar minimum because of abuse.

~~~
nottorp
The OP may be talking about the bundles that have "pay what you want, get 3
titles, pay more than the average, get 3 more etc".

Which is not exactly pay what you want. Especially since "pay more than the
average" will actually bring the average up across the life of the bundle.

I used to pay significantly more than the average for a bundle when they were
new and truly pay what you want. Now I happily get the lower tier of games for
$1. If I bother.

~~~
PhasmaFelis
So, if you can get a bunch of games for $1 you'll happily pay $5, but if you
can get a bunch of games for $1 and even more games for $5, you'll pay $1 and
gripe about it?

I'm not sure I follow your logic.

