6 ms·

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 game

by devbug 9y ago

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.

tachikomagenius 9y ago
They do have more than just games like e-books https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14791255 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14791255
- jimjimjim 9y ago
  i've bought far more books than games from humble
  - khedoros1 9y ago
    Me too, but mostly because a couple of the book bundles had 50 or so titles. I've bought a lot more game bundles than book bundles.
psy-q 9y ago
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.
- Certhas 9y ago
  Completely agreed. There really isn't any confusion on the website about any of that. And the book and audiobook bundles have been fantastic, too.
- TeMPOraL 9y ago
  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 9y ago
    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 9y ago
      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 9y ago
        What happend with that PR stunt?
- maccard 9y ago
  > not counting the weekly bundles I think this was where it went downhill for me. That’s 107 bundles, plus 200 odd weekly bundles. They’re not special any more, and especially now that the bundles aren’t pay what you want, they’re pay above the average, which is higher because they hide some items behind a minimum price. It’s lost it’s allure to me, and most of my friends too.
SeanDav 9y ago
I have 1 major issue with Steam, you cannot share individual games in your library and play a different one yourself. If you have 200 games in your library and want to share one with your kids, you cannot play any other game at same time. Interested to see what other criticisms you have.
- jasminz 9y ago
  Actually, you can (I assume you use Family Sharing). Either you or your kids Steam client needs to go "offline" and you'll be able to play games from same collection simultaneously.
  - FuckOffNeemo 9y ago
    I don't believe you can, as of a few weeks ago in any case. When you drop offline, any shared library you had access to will drop off. When changing connectivity during a session, your games terminate within 5 minutes.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
- apk-d 9y ago
  This is assuming that the game opts into family sharing, or else you don't get to share nil. I've been using Steam as the main means of communication with a lot of people, but these days the chat client is slow, outdated, lacking in basic features and tends to insert annoying redirections before shared links (or remove them outright when you're using a shady site like, I dunno, Google Docs). Hence I'm trying to figure out how to get everyone to migrate to discord.
  - kerpl 9y ago
    > Steam [...] the chat client is slow > Hence I'm trying to figure out how to get everyone to migrate to discord. ouch!

by devbug 9y ago

tachikomagenius 9y ago

They do have more than just games like e-books https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14791255 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14791255

jimjimjim 9y ago
i've bought far more books than games from humble
- khedoros1 9y ago
  Me too, but mostly because a couple of the book bundles had 50 or so titles. I've bought a lot more game bundles than book bundles.

psy-q 9y ago

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.

Certhas 9y ago
Completely agreed. There really isn't any confusion on the website about any of that. And the book and audiobook bundles have been fantastic, too.
TeMPOraL 9y ago
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 9y ago
  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 9y ago
    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 9y ago
      What happend with that PR stunt?
maccard 9y ago
> not counting the weekly bundles I think this was where it went downhill for me. That’s 107 bundles, plus 200 odd weekly bundles. They’re not special any more, and especially now that the bundles aren’t pay what you want, they’re pay above the average, which is higher because they hide some items behind a minimum price. It’s lost it’s allure to me, and most of my friends too.

SeanDav 9y ago

I have 1 major issue with Steam, you cannot share individual games in your library and play a different one yourself. If you have 200 games in your library and want to share one with your kids, you cannot play any other game at same time. Interested to see what other criticisms you have.

jasminz 9y ago
Actually, you can (I assume you use Family Sharing). Either you or your kids Steam client needs to go "offline" and you'll be able to play games from same collection simultaneously.
- FuckOffNeemo 9y ago
  I don't believe you can, as of a few weeks ago in any case. When you drop offline, any shared library you had access to will drop off. When changing connectivity during a session, your games terminate within 5 minutes.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
apk-d 9y ago
This is assuming that the game opts into family sharing, or else you don't get to share nil. I've been using Steam as the main means of communication with a lot of people, but these days the chat client is slow, outdated, lacking in basic features and tends to insert annoying redirections before shared links (or remove them outright when you're using a shady site like, I dunno, Google Docs). Hence I'm trying to figure out how to get everyone to migrate to discord.
- kerpl 9y ago
  > Steam [...] the chat client is slow > Hence I'm trying to figure out how to get everyone to migrate to discord. ouch!