

The Humble THQ Bundle - leddt
https://www.humblebundle.com/?thq

======
lambda
This seems to be completely against the spirit of the Humble Bundles. They are
normally creative games from independent publishers, available cross platform
and DRM free. These are some generic mass-market games from a failing major
publisher, available only on Windows, and delivered via Steam rather than DRM-
free.

The excessive numbers of "Humble X Bundles" that have been coming out recently
have been kind of killing my interest in them. When it was an occasional thing
with some really good games in the bundle, and I was able to support cross-
platform DRM-free game development, I would buy pretty much every one, even if
I didn't play many of the games. Now that they've diluted the brand so much,
I'm a lot less likely to look when they announce a new bundle.

~~~
moistgorilla
I thought the point of humble bundles was supporting charities, not giving
away games for cheap.

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mkenyon
By letting you, the purchaser, decide where your dollars go, the point of a
Humble /.?*/ Bundle is exactly what you make of it.

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mcherm
Not exactly an "independent" publisher, only available for Steam, only for
Windows, no contributions to the EFF? But when you add in that there is no
DRM-free version, it's just not "Humble Bundle" anymore.

~~~
leddt
Maybe they should have dropped "Humble" from the name and replaced it with
"Save"

~~~
marvin
It's certainly a bundle.

~~~
weisser
A bundle of SOMETHING alright!

I'm really disappointed. I know the site has been doing very well monetarily
with their format but stuff like this discredits them to me.

For most people I think Humble Bundle was about doing good while also building
awareness of indie developers. I've tried so many games I would never have
heard of let alone purchased because of the site.

Hopefully their next release won't be Disappointing Bundle 2.

~~~
homosaur
So you'd rather them sell NOTHING than THQ games? These games are stellar.
Company of Heroes is one of the best tactical RTS games of all time. Red
Faction Armageddon is very good. Metro 2033 is very good. Saints Row and
Darksiders are very good. These are not crap mainstream games thrown together
with a Humble Bundle tag, these are brilliant pieces of software.

And anyway, you don't have to worry about this for long, there's not a lot of
mainstream publishers out there that are going to give you a bunch of triple A
titles to sell for donations. The money is still going where it used to go. I
see no problem with this.

~~~
ekianjo
Yeah, I would rather they abstain from doing things that all other platforms
can do. That's part of keeping your focus on your core values. This is NOTHING
like the previous bundles and this is a clear regression to me.

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djcapelis
Not crossplatform, no EFF donation, not indie and DRM all at once?

That's a large shift.

I generally liked supporting humble bundles on principle. Seems hard to keep
feeling good about that now.

~~~
vidyesh
This seems more like helping THQ get back on their feet.

~~~
djcapelis
I don't mean to be mean or thoughtless, but why should a community originally
formed to support DRM free cross platform indie games support a failing
corporation (that needs a lot more help than a humble bundle sale could ever
do for it) which isn't _any_ of those things?

Do they intend to be any of those things if they do get back on their feet?

Aren't they publishers themselves? Why can't they just run a sale? It seems
like using the humble bundle is purely a marketing thing.

I didn't support the previous humble bundles as a marketing tactic, I
supported them because of their _goals_.

~~~
arcatek
> I didn't support the previous humble bundles as a marketing tactic, I
> supported them because of their goals.

Couldn't you just give your money to the EFF, then ?

My first reason for buying Humble Bundles is the very low price. The goal is
the nice side effect.

~~~
djcapelis
I _do_ give money to the EFF directly as well.

If I was after low prices there'd be no reason for me to pay more than a
dollar or two for a bundle. I pay what I pay because I want to support good
art, good code and a good platform for that with good goals.

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achompas
There's so much sanctimony in this thread. "Ohh, I support the Humble team on
principle!! This bundle destroys the Humble spirit!!"

Do you support open, DRM-free software? Skip this release and wait for Humble
Indie Bundle 7, like they suggest on the landing page.

Are you worried Humble is losing their platform-agnostic magic? Well, they've
released two Android-only bundles before.

Do you want to hook up indie devs? Their games are still available on Steam,
XBLA, or Kickstarter.

If you're against these releases, why not sit this one out? There will be
another indie bundle soon enough.

EDIT: forgot one. Are you really concerned about the social good? Well, the
EFF and Child's Play always accept donations on their websites:

<http://www.childsplaycharity.org/>

<http://www.eff.org/>

~~~
AceJohnny2
Not that I particularly mind this bundle, but note that the two previous
"Android" bundles were also available on other platforms. It's just that they
were also available on Android and they focused on that.

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achompas
Those Android bundles netted you Android games, if I recall correctly--they
didn't get you the Linux/Mac/Win versions too. Is that right?

~~~
stordoff
You got all four (OS X/Linux/Android/Windows) platforms where they were
available (might be for all games; I haven't checked). This is my purchase
page: <http://i.imgur.com/IN58e.png>

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dkhenry
Very disappointed this isn't about THQ making some of these games available
for Linux, also "Requires Steam to Play". I still have half a mind to purchase
it as the Company of Heroes games are excellent, but I really dislike buying
games that I have to use wine to play.

~~~
cowkingdeluxe
Don't expect them to anytime soon, they are on the verge of bankruptcy.
Negative equity and they technically defaulted on a 50m loan.
<http://www.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ%3ATHQI>

~~~
dkhenry
I wonder where the good studios in THQ will wind up. I hope Relic doesn't end
up in the hands of EA like so many other promising Studios have.

~~~
potatolicious
Unlikely. Much of the game industry in Vancouver is staffed by ex-EA refugees
(hey, I guess EA is good for something after all) - it's unlikely any one of
them would ever willingly sell themselves back to the company they fled.

And if they did, their staff won't keep.

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aw3c2
If Humble Bundles are not DRM free anymore I will not bother anymore. This is
a disgrace to the brand they created.

~~~
kevingadd
Between compromising on DRM free and multiplatform I'm pretty ticked,
especially because Humble Bundle has told indie devs I know to take a hike
_specifically_ because of not having a Linux port. The double standard is kind
of offensive given that this money will likely get entirely devoured by THQ-
the-publisher instead of the worthy studios that built the games being sold.

~~~
tiglionabbit
This bundle doesn't have "indie" in the name. I'm pretty sure they've done
similar bundles in the past. I think it's a good thing that they are
introducing more traditional publishers to this pricing model, and I hope the
experiment is a success.

~~~
Flimm
They haven't done similar bundles in the past, hence the surprise everyone is
expressing.

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sergiotapia
It was never about principles, or being cross-platform, or even for charity
for me. Personally, I just wanted cool games for a low price. And this
particular Humble Bundle delivers.

Three of the four games are ones that I very nearly purchased in the past, so
I'm thrilled. This is a great deal for me!

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RyanZAG
Interesting note. If you change the custom value to under $1 you get the
following message:

"Warning! Please note that orders under $1.00 will ONLY receive the
soundtracks and will NOT receive the games! "

This seems to go against the spirit of "pay what you want"? Not that $1.00 is
really different from $0.01, but I'm pretty sure that for indy bundles before
you could go as low as you wanted? I didn't think to try before though, I
guess. Can anybody confirm?

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benaiah
You have _always_ had to pay at least a dollar to get Steam keys, no matter
the bundle. I think it has something to do with Steam's requirements, but I
don't know that.

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leddt
No, the first few bundles gave away keys for any price. They changed it during
a bundle where this was a big problem with a contest that Steam was holding at
the same time.

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brown9-2
The text says "Windows-only" but after I added the Steam keys on my Mac
client, it seems to be downloading the games to my Mac just fine.

edit: After downloading the 9GB game the Mac Steam client just tells me that I
cannot play it on my platform.

~~~
unsignedint
That's by design of Steam. You can still download games that are not supported
on your platform that is running Steam. It's actually convenient as you can
utilize faster connection other than where you play the game, and then export
and haul the data on your thumb drive to be installed on the machine you play
the game.

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atmz
I thought the point of these bundles was to support indie game studios? Still,
money goes to charity, decent set of games.. it just feels a bit incongruous.

~~~
leddt
I have the feeling it's a last ditch effort from THQ to gain some goodwill.
They are doing pretty bad financially and they probably hope this might help
them going forward.

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pdknsk
It's interesting that THQ stock is +20% since the bundle went live, in
addition to about +20% earlier today, before the bundle. It's climbing sharply
now.

<http://www.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ%3ATHQI>

~~~
teamonkey
The reason for the stock climb is rumors of a buyout, not this bundle.

~~~
skeletonjelly
Wow 37%! Yeah I can't see that much share price increase coming from a "choose
your own price" when the games have already been out for a while. Buyouts are
typically the cause for ~10%+ increases I suppose?

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jiggy2011
Warning about Metro 2033. It's actually a pretty good game with great
atmosphere despite it's faults but there is a part quite near they end that is
almost guaranteed to make you rage-quit even on easy skill settings.

Edit: Requires Steam and Windows. I though the biggest point of the bundle was
proving the market for DRM free cross platform games? They may as well have
just made this a steam sale.

~~~
dkersten
_Warning about Metro 2033. It's actually a pretty good game with great
atmosphere despite it's faults but there is a part quite near they end that is
almost guaranteed to make you rage-quit even on easy skill settings._

Huh? I played Metro from start to finish over the space of about a week during
the summer of last year and its a fantastic game. While it was quite difficult
at times, I didn't find it so difficult that I would rage quit at any point.

~~~
jiggy2011
I was referring to this part: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0BSa75Cw_s>

At about 1:40 in.

YMMV of course, I'm certainly not the best FPS player but I found this
significantly more frustrating than any other point in the game by a large
margin mainly because I kept losing because of a dumb NPC.

When I was googling around I found a lot of people frustrated by this part. I
did most of the game on hard but struggled with this part on easy.

~~~
dkersten
Ok, yeah, that bit was HARD

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moistgorilla
I have to admit, while desperate by THQ, this isn't a dumb move. Notice how
they give away three games with sequels out or coming out and Saints Row 3
which has a ton of dlc. It seems like they are betting the bank on the new
titles that are coming out. I hope this works for them because I like the
titles produced by this company.

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geetee
Instead of complaining about the man and DRM, customize your purchase to give
it all to charity. Have a nice day.

~~~
JulianWasTaken
Your comment seems to presume that complaints are meant for venting
dissatisfaction rather than encouraging HiB not to do this again.

~~~
geetee
With the amount of money being raised, I hope this encourages them to do it
all the time.

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venomsnake
Well - look from the point of THQ - they are fighting for their life. Maybe
they really don't have the resources for stripping DRM, let alone porting. So
they are throwing steam keys around for promo purposes. But I would really
like for the both companies to better communicate the reasons for the breaking
of the bundle rules. And the bundle is amazing value anyway.

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totallymike
This is in no way against the spirit of the bundles. The spirit of the bundles
is that you pay however much you please, allocating how you choose between
charities, devs and the humble crew.

Unfortunately the games THQ offers are only available on Steam, but that's the
way it shakes. However you look at it, they are still sharing a high-quality
selection of games that you don't have to pay them ANYTHING for. You can put
100% of your payment toward charity and THQ still happily gives you the games.

I don't see how that's against the spirit of the bundles.

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homosaur
Why is THQ failing so hard? Is it simply because of how poorly the company was
run for decades beginning with the Nintendo era where they foisted tons of
licensed crap games on kids? I know I still kind of have negative associations
with the THQ brand, even though I know for a fact that they've been releasing
very good games for more than a decade now.

Is it just a matter of spending too much money on games like Saints Row that
are huge money losers?

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totallymike
It's a shame if Saint's Row is losing them money. The Third one is actually
pretty great. I thought it was a lot more fun than Grand Theft Auto 4.

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pdknsk
With the bundle already at $1M, it could go up to $10M, which is the current
THQ market capitalisation.

<http://www.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ%3ATHQI>

So instead of purchasing some games, gamers could've purchased THQ, and
released the games for free and without DRM.

~~~
romnempire
what how god how do you think corporations work? do they have magic money
trees?

we, in conglomerate, purchase THQ, give their games away for free and then
what, fire all their developers, close all their studios and sell all the
buildings, revelling in our destruction of the future of gaming so everyone
can gave some games today for free?

there was much better discussion on this topic on reddit.

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baq
even if you give 100% to THQ, you're pretty much giving it all to charity,
since they're not exactly business at the moment.

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cynest
Thq is getting desperate it seems. Really hoping they're able get their next
wave of games out before they go under.

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tomdeal
Be aware that the key for saints row does not work when you are in Germany.
Luckily, the humble bundle support is good and will help you out if you have
problems, at least they helped me very fast :) It would be even nicer though
if they would mention this on the official page.

~~~
salzig
support, which kind?

~~~
a_bonobo
The Humble Bundle support:

[http://support.humblebundle.com/customer/portal/articles/867...](http://support.humblebundle.com/customer/portal/articles/867217-germany
---saints-row-the-third)

>We are aware of the issue going on with Saints Row: The Third Steam keys for
German customers who purchased the bundle prior to 23:00 CET on November 29th.

>Please email us at contact@humblebundle.com with your Transaction ID and the
subject "Saints Row Steam Key", and we can get you a Steam key for the German
version of Saint's Row: The Third.

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skeletonjelly
Interesting seeing the different comments in this thread and reddit:
[http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/1405fo/the_humble_th...](http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/1405fo/the_humble_thq_bundle/)

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incision
Shame I already own all but one of these games via three years of isolating
any game purchases to Steam sales.

Still, I bought into this one for the soundtracks and put the majority to
charity.

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pfisch
They should call this the THQ bankruptcy bundle

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jmcantrell
This really rubbed me the wrong way. It feels like they're taking advantage of
my generosity.

~~~
homosaur
Oh please, don't buy it then. I'm sure you can find another charity online you
can send $5 to.

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Le_SDT
bought in less than a second, thanks to paypal

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jenius
Shit, they got me with the rick roll (short link end of video)

