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General discussionIGN acquired Humble Bundle(87 posts)(87 posts)
(87 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted October 14, 2017
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Rixasha: I think I have everything downloaded that I care about, but I suppose I need to go through it because it's surely out of date. Wish there was a tool like lgogdownloader/gogrepo.py for humble. But one would have to be rather optimistic to build one now.
There are several projects in github.
But I have not tried any of them.
Posted October 14, 2017
I guess they paid only 1 cent for it.
Posted October 14, 2017
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dtgreene: Humble Bundle was dead to me once they started selling keys for DRM service without including any DRM-free version.
'Don't worry', they said.

GOG's humble reminder:
https://twitter.com/gogcom/status/362600555320836097

- - - - - - - - -

By the way, I would still very much like an answer to this question if anyone would be so kind as to enlighten me.
Post edited October 14, 2017 by Lemon_Curry
Posted October 14, 2017
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Strijkbout: I guess they paid only 1 cent for it.
They didn't want to run the risk of having to redeem it on Steam.
Posted October 14, 2017
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Even in light of this move, I can't fathom how they could make Humble any more awful. Sure, I guess they could get rid of that direct download library page altogether...honestly, it wouldn't even make much difference at that point, since Humble is already trying its best at preventing me from accessing my legally purchased games. Every single time I have to work myself through a literal onslaught of captchas, logins, confirmation mails and more captchas.(These captchas are provided by google, so if you're in China, you basically loose access to your entire library) All their bundles are mostly Steam-exclusive now. Their store releases are mostly Steam-exclusive (even with games released DRM-free here). I recently bought a software bundle and only later found out that it came with stunningly restrictive DRM (three installs or something like that) - they did give me a refund, so at least their customer service is ok.

Gog has kinda gone downhill in some respects in recent years, but they still have a loooooong way to go until they reach the level of suck that Humble has fallen to.
Posted October 14, 2017
While this causes me great concern, there is a bit more to this than the Headlines:

". . . Humble Bundle was, in fact, acquired by Ziff Davis, LLC who also happen to own IGN, AskMen, PCMag, and other subsidiaries . . ."

Seems that Ziff Davis (of ZDNet - http://www.zdnet.com/) is the one actually in charge, and most likely not IGN.

Time will tell how this works out . . . .


EDIT:

A little deeper digging, and it is actually J2 Global (who acquired Ziff Davis also) that is the controlling entity here.
Post edited October 14, 2017 by wanderer_27
Posted October 14, 2017
as with most things, I have no opinion yet, and will wait and see how things pan out before I cast any judgement.
Posted October 14, 2017
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Shadowstalker16: The companies you said do have a better knowledge of the gaming world. Because they are in the business of selling games. Now it could be argued that IGN is also experienced in selling games, but even then, don't forget that IGN, at least legally, is a news / journalism outlet. The conflict of interest potential is huge. What if they use IGN to promote the games the store is selling? Or reverse that and promote games on HB that IGN covered? How long before all humble bundle / store games start to get higher ratings? Or IGN stops reviewing non HB/store games?
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Ricky_Bobby: Steam/EA/'other publisher' buys Humble => cannibalizing Humble. Valve would not allow Humble to exist, EA/'other publisher' would push other publishers to leave Humble. Either way, no Humble in the future.

Project Red uses GOG to promote the games they are making: Witcher ? Gwent? nobody questions that.
Humble is also a game publisher, nobody questioned the confilict of interest when that happened.
Valve is also a publisher. When Half-life 3 comes out nobody will question their confilict of interest.

IGN, GameSpot, EuroGamer, RockPaperShotgun, Polygon, PC Gamer ... they all promote Humble already: 'get this on Humble Monthly', 'get this Humble package' and so on.

IGN competes with GameSpot, and what GameSpot covers so must IGN, and vice versa. They all copy each other.
IGN cannot afford to ignore covering games that its competitors are covering.

If anything the conflict of interest is greater with IGN's competitors, GameSpot/GiantBomb, Polygon etc. Will they stop covering Humble bundles and monthly games?
If they wanted to destroy it, they would probably be able to without buying it. Valve could just impose code time restrictions and the key selling market would collapse in a day. And EA will probably find some reason to sue them out of business, again, if they wanted it gone.

There's nothing wrong with EA selling on Origin or CDPR selling on GOG. On the other hand, IGN doing undisclosed promotion of HB games? The FTC and other bodies have advertising guidelines for a reason.

IGN can't afford to not cover those games, but their coverage will be marred by that conflict of interest. Whatever they say about a game, it will always be over the fact that they stand to benefit from being positive about a game on the humble store or bundles.
Posted October 14, 2017
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Shadowstalker16: Expect more console bundles and less good indie games, and more shitty bundles with games like Gone Home.
:( Being both a console and PC gamer, I see that good for me, but yeah, the site quality might decay a bit.

REDVWIN
Posted October 14, 2017
So I was mostly indifferent about this. IGN is a site I hven't really looked at since ... say around 2001 ish?
There is one thing I've seen some people bring up that makes me a bit wary.

Its come to my attention that Humble has started dabbling in games publishing. (I guess the new Hat in Time is published by Humble.) IGN is in the business of games reviewing.

Anyone else see the problem there? I hope you do.
Imagine if CD project stared a games review website, and made sure to do reviews of the Witcher games.

Granted, the individual game reviewer probably won't give a shit that its a sister company publishing the game, but someone higher up will care, and will be putting pressure on things whether they realize they're doing it or not, whether they're doing it explicitly or implicitly. The pressure will be there.
Posted October 14, 2017
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Shadowstalker16: IGN can't afford to not cover those games, but their coverage will be marred by that conflict of interest. Whatever they say about a game, it will always be over the fact that they stand to benefit from being positive about a game on the humble store or bundles.
In some cases we're talking about subsidiaries of global mega corporations. Surely when IGN was owned by News Corp it must have been reviewing and promoting products made by other companies News Corp owned on a weekly basis.
Posted October 15, 2017
Well, it looks like even the folks at HB can be bought : /
Posted October 15, 2017
Hum, if they go Steam-only they'll no longer be relevant to me ( and to most other people, I figure ), but until then I'll keep buying DRM-free games at Humble. And I'll make sure to download them asap, and keep local back-ups... just in case.
Posted October 15, 2017
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CharlesGrey: Hum, if they go Steam-only they'll no longer be relevant to me ( and to most other people, I figure )[...]
because no one uses steam?
Posted October 15, 2017
To be honest I find Humble's implementation of DRM severely lacking and mostly buy dirt cheap Steam keys there when the prices are basically too good to pass up.
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This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussionIGN acquired Humble Bundle(87 posts)(87 posts)
(87 posts)