- cross-posted to:
- gaming@lemmy.ml
- gaming@lemmy.zip
- cross-posted to:
- gaming@lemmy.ml
- gaming@lemmy.zip
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/19627558
The entire team from publisher Humble Games has reportedly been laid off, according to now former employees posts on Twitter and LinkedIn. 36 developers are reportedly impacted by the cuts.
Remember when Humble Bundle was actually a charity and not just a charity-themed storefront owned by IGN?
Well, technically owned by IGN, a subsidiary of Ziff-Davis, formerly J2 Global, formerly Ziff-Davis.
I’m sure firing what was left of the employees with any commitment to the concept of HB and folding the brand under the rest of your e-commerce verticle will have no further adverse effects on the quality or usability of HB as a service.
Do charities normally get buy-out offers from for-profit businesses?
Vulture capitalism at its finest. Yeah, eventually you’ve picked the carcass clean. But you just turn those profits over into another buyout and begin the feast anew.
Fair point, although actually… 🤔 I mean non-profits do get bought out (and/or abused) for their good optics. See "Open"AI.
It’s just sad, looking up the company on Wikipedia (to get the buyout history right) reminded me of the very first humble indie bundles (which I participated in) and what a nice feeling it was to directly support indie studios and a good charitable cause. We could get into “consumer-activism” and what a joke/paradox that is, and maybe we should because look at what Humble Bundle is today but I still think it started out as something good.
About a century ago, there was a reaction to the industrial revolution via the Arts and Crafts Movement that inspired a lot of the modern artistic styles. That kind of anti-industrialism and peer collaboration echoed through the original indie gaming scene and still kinda exists today. Its a much more pleasant vision of consumerism than the soulless corporate shit we’re deluged with advertisements by.
I don’t begrudge anyone who feels sad about Humble Bundle’s collapse. But I just feel like we’re being inundated by video games, particularly post-COVID. The market is so over-saturated and I don’t really feel like I’m being charitable when my email is full to bursting with these promotions. I just don’t think the thing we’re lacking right now is more cheap video games.
“Perceived”.
While it is being enshittified, I think humble will always be a great way to get cheap games. Ignoring the fact that IGN profits from it, it gives money to devs and charities, unlike the grey market (cdkeys/G2A)
It’s fair to continue to consider them in competition with other store fronts. Don’t be fooled into thinking it will always be a great way to get cheap games, though. That brand, is EXACTLY what IGN paid for when they bought them: for the faith they built up in people like yourself, that they are and will always continue to be a trusted company. And part of the amortization of that purchase, is converting that belief into money, by enshittifying it. By taking advantage that they can make less valuable offers, raise prices, and fail to keep up with competitors innovations, on the backs of people remembering the good experiences they had with the company based on its original ownership.
Shit I better start giving out the huge amount of bundled keys I never used
Just reveal the codes, they can’t be taken back then. Some are worth a lot now by the way, if you have stuff from older bundles.
Do you know any particular ones worth looking for? I remember swearing I had a code for Pico 8 and it was such a pain to wade through to find it. Might be worth the slog again to see if I had some valuable keys, been buying these things for awhile.
There is a search function… Rocket League is worth hundreds, as is Dark Souls Prepare to Die Edition. There are some which go up and down, I’ll have a gander at my lists (I buy and sell on the side) and let you know. Oh, and Poker Night.
I got a Rocket League key from 2016, why in the world would anyone want that? Can I see if it’s redeemed without using it? If you want to broker for a cut send me a DM and we can start figuring out what’s in here, I probably have other things too.
Probably because Rocket League was removed from Steam after Epic bought the developer, and your key may still be usable on Steam.
deleted by creator
Because it’s the only way to get it on Steam now… Bonkers I know. Sure, can do. But, no way to see if it has been redeemed aside from messaging Steam. Did you reveal it yet? If not, no worries.
Yeah I’m looking at it. And I found my receipt for the game from a year earlier so I couldn’t have used it. But it’s been so long and that’s not a trivial amount of money I’d want to be sure somehow before I wasted anybody’s time.
Unless you have used it, it will still be active/usable. If you haven’t gifted any games away (either with their gift feature or by giving codes away), cross-reference with your Steam library to make sure. There’s also a script to show all the games you have unrevealed on HB: https://www.reddit.com/r/humblebundles/comments/inm60w/meta_how_to_easily_pull_a_list_of_all_your/
Yeah, check out how much a Wolfenstein CD goes for…!
Bummer, redeemed the key but I’ve still yet to play rocket League, I could use a couple hundred…
I’ve been making a spreadsheet of my unused keys from humble bundles going right back to the very beginning. There are over a thousand of them.
To be honest, I’m not entirely sure what to do. Give them way to friends and family?
Private equity comes for all.
i stopped using humble when ign bought them. didn’t regret it at all.
I used Humble Bundle many times years ago when it was an actual charity. In the past few years I used them once and my game code didn’t work, and they told me to pound dirt. Fuck Humble Bundle.