I was really excited to give my money to Humble for the Team 17 bundle today. Paid my $7, and went to redeem my steam keys. Figured I’d post the ones I already had here for those who could use em, or would give em to my nephews for their steam account.
AFTER they had my money tho it now became clear you have to let Humble have access to your steam account and they will redeem all of your keys at once, and any duplicates get trashed.
Fuck that, dead to me.
Really? Dead to you? It’s still great value even if you can’t give away second copies for free.
If we’re going to start talking principles, I think this “spend $7 or more to unlock this tier with the actually interesting games” is a much more significant compromise of the original pay-what-you-want ideal.
I warned about that in the bargain thread here. Perhaps they had a really good reason to do this?
A little while ago they put in a limit of 3 or 4 bundles per purchaser due to fraud. I don’t even want to know what Steam’s black markets are like…
https://twitter.com/humble/status/396073129874702337
Hopefully this means they’re going to change their mind. The value of these bundles for me is largely placed in the fact that I can give the extra keys to friends because I’ve usually got half of the titles in them already. If they take that away I doubt I’ll make as many impulse purchases.
It’s pretty simple. Humble bundles give you great value for money. They’re not supposed to be a way for you to get a whole bunch of steam codes to give out to people who didn’t buy the bundle, thereby nullifying the values of said games. They’re supposed to be a way for you to get a special deal aka “the bundle” as a result of buying during a particular timeframe, and they’re a way for the developers to make money from extremely high volume at minimal prices.
Yeah, I’m actually pretty sure they’ve always said that you’re not allowed to give out the keys. I can’t really blame them for trying to enforce that.
It’s probably not something that Humble came up with, I can’t think of reason for that. Most likely it’s something Steam or their other partners asked them to do.
They’ve done this in the past…almost since the beginning…when it used to be a single code you had to punch into Steam to redeem all the games. The only thing new here is the bonus ability of not having to punch the code into Steam.
Again, this has happened in the past…nothing new here…move along ;)
The new thing is that I have to give them my Steam info. They always gave out one key for all the games, so I don’t know why they have to do that.
It makes it a lot less practical to resell keys.
If it is not clear before and during purchase that you will not receive a copy of a game you already own on an external distribution platform, it it potentially fraudulent. Regardless of their payment model, they cannot sell you 5 games, then post sale tell you that you are not entitled to 3 of them because you already have them on Steam. At the moment their terms of service may dictate that the bundles are for personal use only, but you don’t even have to click through those ToS during a purchase, meaning there is no indication to the consumer at time of purchase they are potentially not getting everything they are paying for. That’s not good enough.
I’ve never been a fan of the way they handle Steam distribution but I wasn’t aware they’d set up an authentication system. Literally every other game bundle distributes individual keys, and Humble Bundle’s choices, while generally excellent games, are also sufficiently high profile that I usually have half or more of their bundles already and so they don’t constitute much of a value if I can’t pass off games I already own. (This, incidentally, is why I almost never buy bundles Steam puts together - no extra copies, and a price that doesn’t reflect that I own most of it already.) That said, they’ve always explicitly said the keys are supposed to be for your use only.
Don’t be outrageous. A game with a Steam key can only be activated once. Who cares who activates it or when? It either gets activated or not.
You think you know, but you don’t. This has never happened before. Now you have to use an account via openid, to claim the games. Even when before, like you say (and that probably confuses you) there were some games that were tied together, you still got a key for the “set”. You could activate it on any account that didn’t have the games. Of course, it also meant you could “handle” the key. It is, by far, not “the same”. Not at all. And you repeat it, smugly, via a new line just to hammer it in. You’re not as clever as you think.
They did, for a time, commit fraud anyway.
For several hours the page displayed:
*Please note this bundle provides Steam keys only.
now, it shows:
*Please note this bundle requires you to redeem on your Steam account.
It’s definitely in the realm of first world problems, I realize it makes me a slightly more shitty person to complain about this. I’ll explain my frustration in 2 points tho.
-They do NOT adequately point out that their policy has changed from awesome to sucky. Until they have your money.
-They introduce a security issue by forcing themselves between me and Steam. How many other lost passwords do we have to suffer, this time if these guys fuck up m you can lose Steam access? No thanks.
The first point has apparently been addressed. I’m out until the second is fixed for sure, and will have to re-evaluate on a case by case basis in the future. I realize that with a 500+ strong Steam library I am a minority here, but I liked filling in the blanks of my library and still being able to gift off the others. I further realize that people were abusing this with massive key buy ups. They need to figure out a way to cut that off without punishing legit buyers with the removal of giftability and introduction of security issues or I’m out, others are welcome of course to continue supporting them but I pass.
Like any other app that uses Steam for verification, they don’t get to touch your credentials. You log in to Steam (and if you’re already logged in, simply verify you want to access the site) and Valve passes them an auth token that says you are who you claim to be. I don’t like the new system either, but there is no real security issue here.
I tend to think that the success of the package deals (especially considering independent titles) was in having a few games that were highly rated included in the bundle (very true when this particular system first started). The more sort after games helped the other titles that were not as well known or publicized. Over time that probably changed due to the recognition that the bundle had gained over time.
Is this really a bundle issue or an issue with the various games now included? They may not want to be included as easily as before since Indy games have grown in popularity and are having greater success of being on Steam (thus having visibility without being part of a bundle). It is probably harder to convince devs to join a bundle now than it was in the beginning when exposure was more difficult.
I think if you want to change this trend one needs to convince the various Indy publishers and not the bundle provider. Something like this starting would be a reaction to the bundle’s client’s perception. I doubt that someone at Humble said, what can we do to make consumers angry today?
Please correct me if I am mistaken, but I thought that supporting the Humble Bundle also allowed one to get some games inexpensively, and also support charities? I think that was true in the beginning at least. I would hope that would be a reason to support the deal besides extra games to give away (especially if we learn the deal’s nature was forced to change due to new market conditions).
What exactly were they abusing? Or are you calling buying low and selling high an abuse?
Exactly right. Gamers may not like the fact that they can’t skirt the rules as easily as they did before, but the extra keys were never supposed to have been shared. I’d say that a dollar for one game you want is still a good deal.
Please consider your bundle a “unit”, and not to share copies of the games or Steam keys from it.
Cry me a river guys.
If that one game is below the “beat the average” threshold, sure. If it’s above the beat the average threshold, it stops being a good deal pretty fast. And they’re nearly always above the beat the average threshold.
Then don’t buy it.