Humble Bundle has significantly cut down on its charity contributions, one of the key reasons to buy from the digital marketplace. Humble Bundle has always been a great place for gamers to shop, as it not only allows consumers to pick where their money goes, but it gives great deals on games for PC as well. It's a win/win for virtually everyone involved, but now things are changing.
Humble Bundle has always featured incredible deals, bundling together tons of iconic games at low prices. Humble Bundle even allows players to name their own price, which can determine what they get. If a user spends a dollar, they'll likely just get one game from a bundle. If they spend $10, they might get 4 or 5. It's a great value and a great way to support charities, but fans will now be incredibly limited in how supportive they can be.
Humble Bundle revealed in a blog post that it would only allow charity splits of up to 15% starting in May. Previously, if someone wanted to, they could move a slider that allowed 100% of the money to go to a charity, but now it seems publishers and Humble Bundle will be taking a larger fee. There's really no clear reason why this choice was made, but some have speculated that it's because Humble Bundle is "owned" by IGN. This speculation spread like wildfire on social media as people looked for someone to blame, but it's likely not true. Although it was previously announced several years ago that IGN was playing a key role in an acquisition of Humble Bundle, it's not really that cut and dry.
IGN reporter Rebekah Valentine confirmed on Twitter that the two companies are owned by the same parent company, Ziff-Davis. The two have no other actual influences on each other beyond that and they largely remain separate. It's possible that Ziff-Davis made this call, but IGN was not involved in any capacity. Regardless, the move has led to plenty of controversy online and could likely lead to fans abandoning the digital retailer altogether, citing the apparent greed of the people running it.
Humble Bundle has supported plenty of great causes over the years and will likely continue to do so, but it's disheartening to see how much it is reeling back on that support. As others have noted, having a store with the word "humble" in it and then making a move like this does not reflect well on the company, and will likely result in plenty of backlash. Whether or not Humble Bundle will reverse this move after enough noise has been made remains to be seen.
Source: Humble Bundle, Rebekah Valentine
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April 25, 2021 at 05:15AM
