Guys,
Honestly, I could not believe you guys did this when I read the news on Slashdot. I thought no way, get outta here, this is some kind of joke..
The Humble Bundle has always had the tag-line “Pay what you want, DRM free cross-platform and support charity” yet you’ve made the decision to abandon 3 of those 4 core values to your brand.
I don’t game any more under Windows, I do care a lot about DRM, and as if all this wasn’t already bad enough you have also dropped the ability to support the EFF – my preferred charity.
My wife and I have purchased many bundles in the past. I’ve always told my friends and colleagues to check out the awesome bundles you have put together, but this will happen no longer. I will make sure that all the people I have recommended the Humble Bundle to are aware of what has happened today.
Even if you appear to go back to your previous-style bundles, you have lost my trust. I can’t promote or support a brand that isn’t true to the ideals and values that attracted me in the first place.
In case you haven’t seen it yet:
http://forums.wolfire.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=17110&p=182338#p182338
Imo not a very good reaction on David’s part and it actually lowered my opinion of him. Crucial quote:
“Sorry, THQ. Sorry, Red Cross. Sorry, sick children, Sorry, poor gamers. We just can’t budge on the Linux thing.”
Yeah. Because it’s partly for *one* arguably questionable charity and because it’s bailing out a company whether they deserve it or not (SOPA), it’s fine.
Thanks for the link – I hadn’t seen it.
David says “You have to convince every single middleware developer to port it themselves, or give you source code access so you can do it in-house.” but I wonder if WINE wouldn’t help here? We can run many of the latest games under WINE as my blog shows, so it sounds like they aren’t even prepared to look into it.
Throughout this controversy, the hardest thing to comprehend is why the games were ever allowed in a Humble Bundle with DRM? The games can be had for a buck. How much can DRM possibly help? How hard would it have been for the developers to remove it?
If the Humble Bundle guys so badly wanted a THQ sale, they should have come up with a new name. “Windows Mega Sale” or something distinct – with completely different mailing lists, website and everything. They didn’t.