Why The Humble THQ Bundle Sucks for Indies
This year has been a rollercoaster for indie game developers everywhere. In many ways it’s been great – an unprecedented number of independent games making their way to major outlets like Steam and the Big Three Consoles. Kickstarter projects have succeeded at enormous rates, allowing ambitious, innovative new games to make their way to market. The Wii U promises to revolutionize how Nintendo treats independent developers. There are ample examples of where things are going right.
There have been a lot of missteps too – we’re seeing a lot of those same Kickstarted projects failing to deliver on time (or in some cases, canceling outright.) Steam opened its Greenlight program, which has been at best a mixed blessing.
And now today, the Humble THQ Bundle launches to great displeasure among the indie community. As I write this mere hours into the sale, they’re already well into the tens of thousands of units sold, so there’s no question about the popularity of this bundle. People like AAA games. They like getting them cheap. This isn’t really a big deal. There are so many things wrong with this being a “Humble” bundle though, it’s hard to know where to start.
Let’s start with a bit of “history” – the Humble Bundle was invented by and made popular by independent games and independent game developers. Humble Bundle (or rather, Wolfire Games) wouldn’t have nearly the notoriety it does now without the good will of several well-known indies. Through this network they were able to reach out to other, lesser well known indies and elevate them to recognition in the public eye. It strengthened the community, and was built both by and within the rising crest of the indie game wave. It gave confidence to fledgling developers who realized their hobby could be more than just a hobby. It could be a legitimate art form, a business, a way of life.
Needless to say, THQ (at least THQ today) doesn’t fit this mould in the slightest. Most of the people who sweated blood and tears into the games offered in this bundle no longer have jobs at THQ. That’s right, they were laid off some time ago. So the THQ slider on the Humble Bundle is essentially you deciding how much the publisher gets for simply hanging in there at the expense of all their former employees. Bravo.
Well, at least these games will be DRM free, right? Nope. Humble has decided that’s not in the cards this time. You will get Steam Keys – nothing else. The whole point of the Humble Bundle was the goodwill and trust established with the community. Support indies; in return we’ll treat you like human beings that can be trusted to do the morally correct thing without needing digital shackles to keep you in line. THQ likely never would have agreed to this. They probably see piracy as their number one enemy, without realizing why the piracy exists in the first place.
Which leads to another thing that is very convenient for THQ: no Mac or Linux ports. Not more than a week ago I had espoused the benefits of enforcing Mac and Linux ports as the Humble Bundle does, in fact arguing that the Humble Bundle does the right thing. I’m not sure who had the bargaining power in this deal, but I’m guessing it wasn’t Humble. Omitting Mac and Linux ports removes a significant chunk of sales, as previous Humble Bundles have shown these two combined make up around a third of total sales.
Let’s ignore all that, somehow. Let’s ignore what made the Humble Bundle great in the past. Maybe you love THQ. Maybe you want to see another Saint’s Row or something because you haven’t got enough GTA-likes with purple dildos in them. I can sympathize with that, legitimately. Here’s the problem.
A company like THQ needs multi-millions to run for even a short while. Imagine THQ makes $3mil from this. Well, $360,000 of that is going straight into CEO Brian Farrell’s pocket this year. So 10% of that money is gone, even if all of it went to THQ. It doesn’t. Some portion of it goes to charity (great) and to Jeffrey Rosen et al (not so great at all given recent events.)
So what does a company like THQ do with a small handful of money, no prospects on the horizon, a losing business strategy? Is this actually a last-ditch effort to revive the company so they can get back to great classic games like Zombie Shooter With Marginally Better Graphics 4? My money is on THQ liquidating and shoveling out the cash to what few stakeholders are left. It’s a last ditch effort to squeeze blood from a rock. I can’t imagine how this pittance of cash even gives a glimmer of hope of sustaining THQ otherwise.
So why is this bad for indies, why all the fuss, who cares if THQ is offering their products at unsustainable breakneck prices?
It destroys the Humble Bundle reputation. The reputation that was built by indies with hopes of a brave new future ripe with interesting and unique games. It was the bundle that every indie strived for, looked forward to and dreaded launching beside. Now a good chunk of that is eroded if not erased entirely. The indie community, more and more, is showing that it hates AAA titles until enough dollar signs show up. Humility can be bought.
7 Comments
This doesn’t bother me at all. The Humble Bundle indies have the spotlight on them for a long time; I think all this means is there will be more room for a purely “indie” bundle.
“So the THQ slider on the Humble Bundle is essentially you deciding how much the publisher gets for simply hanging in there at the expense of all their former employees. Bravo.”
An alternate way of looking at it, of course, is ‘the THQ slider on the Humble Bundle is essentially you deciding how much the publisher gets to pay the few employees it can still cling to in order to keep their publishing company alive and kicking for future developers to publish with’. I understand, though, that when you want to rant about something you turn your phrase in just the right way so as to make your position sound unflappable. If you’re against something, you’ll spin your story negatively – and that’s only one side of the story.
“The whole point of the Humble Bundle was the goodwill and trust established with the community.”
And now they’re extending that good will to a struggling publisher. Shame on them! Boo, hiss!
“in return we’ll treat you like human beings that can be trusted to do the morally correct thing without needing digital shackles to keep you in line”
But as soon as you do something we don’t like we’ll abandon all of those morals and notions of good will and bitch and whine at you even though you’re still supporting charities and even though what you’re doing is helping a struggling publisher who, if saved, will be there to publish hard working developers’ future games.
“Which leads to another thing that is very convenient for THQ: no Mac or Linux ports”
Let’s conveniently ignore the fact that the reason this Humble bundle exists in the first place is to help a financially struggling company. They very clearly don’t have the money to plough into Mac and Linux ports, what with them being $50M in debt already, but screw it, this is their fault and we’ll condemn them for not sinking themselves even further into debt with their scant remaining workforce to Give Us What We Want!
“It destroys the Humble Bundle reputation.”
Only if you’re a pessimist who likes inciting drama at every turn. For everyone else, it’s Humble trying to lend a helping hand. But hell, that’s too placid to even consider. That won’t get you website hits.
I agree the bundle is perhaps not the shining beacon of hope it could be, but your alternate suggestion is pretty wacky.
It feels like a desperate act, but in a good way. They’re throwing spaghetti at the wall, and if it sticks then maybe we’ll see some drastically different pricing strategies come their next game
@WelshPixie
I feel you’ve glossed over a number of my points and are fairly guilty of the same story spinning that you’re accusing me of.
My biggest problem with the notion that this is “helping a publisher on the ropes” is that there’s just no way even several million dollars keeps THQ afloat. As you said, they’re hugely ($50m+) in debt already. I don’t see a few million dollars of injected cash as a viable solution.
Something I hadn’t considered is that they’ve already nearly hit the $2m mark, though there’s no information on how many people went 100% charity or otherwise negated THQ’s share. Then again, some people might have put the slider 100% THQ as well. I based my prediction of a few million on previous Humble Bundles, and it looks like they’re set to break that record handily. I have no problem with that, since it makes this actually a plausible recovery attempt and not just a shot at grabbing whatever they can before they shutter up for good.
I can understand forgoing the Mac and Linux ports. But again, this is the Humble Bundle I’m talking about, not a THQ Steam sale. The precedent was set and everyone respected the Humble Bundle for it. The Humble Bundle hurt its own rep by allowing this. They could easily have created a bundle that was not under the “Humble” brand.
There’s really no excuse for not offering DRM free copies. That is as simple as offering a binary download of the game without copy protection, and it was a key part of every Humble Bundle prior to this.
The nice part is that charity still benefits from this. But in absolutely every other area, Humble has backed away from its core values. There is no reason this should be called a “Humble” bundle. You can argue that Humble is doing fine because millions of dollars – sure. Fine. I respect them less, and several of the developers I know (including ones like Terry Cavanagh and Alec Holowka, who participated in the very first bundles,) respect them less as a result. I personally won’t make any waves with my dissent and I’m fine with that.
Kind of a silly and stupid aside, but the traffic to this article was totally unexpected. I write here all the time and nobody cares usually. I don’t run ads and I don’t expect hits. I just write sometimes when I feel like it. It’s nice that people showed up and spoke their mind for the first time in.. ever.
“and are fairly guilty of the same story spinning that you’re accusing me of.”
Intentionally, yes – to prove the point that it’s very easy to manipulate the situation to favour one’s personal opinion. Showing that there are two widely chasmed ways of portraying this whole thing – your interpretation is the fully negative one but it’s quite easy to go the other way and put a positive spin on it.
They’ll never get the $50M they need to bail them completely out of debt. But the agreement they’ve entered into with Wells Fargo states thusly:
“THQ is now in a forbearance agreement with Wells Fargo, valid through January 15, wherein Wells Fargo will continue to distribute loans to THQ. In a forbearance agreement, the lender (Wells Fargo, in this scenario) stops enforcing current or expected defaults, and the borrower uses the time to improve its financial situation or exit the relationship.”
The Humble Bundle is giving THQ the opportunity to ‘improve its financial situation’. It may not succeed, but it’s at least something; it at least gives them some hope of regaining some financial ground and a very slim chance that they’ll make it through this. And why shouldn’t they have that opportunity, and why is it such a terrible thing that Humble have reached out to help them with this? It is in itself a charitable act and perhaps I’m seeing the world through rose-tinted glasses, but the world I see is a far nicer place where people help each other out regardless of prejudices and moral high-grounds and abstract standards.
I like games. I like gaming; both indie and AAA. I’ll support that any way I can, even (especially?) when it involves sticking up for the underdog who’s getting flack because they aren’t indie and aren’t developers. THQ exists to publish games. The loss of *any* game publisher makes the developer’s world a little bit more difficult.
I like games and gaming too. That’s why we’re here, typing about this. I also like AAA games. My shelves have loads of PlayStation and Xbox games on them. I’m not some indie hipster who shuns AAA completely. I buy quality games when they come out, and sometimes I accidentally buy the crap ones too thanks to hype marketing.
But we’re not going to agree on the idea that THQ is an underdog. Saint’s Row 3 is approaching 6 million units in lifetime sales, which is good even for the likes of EA and Activision. Sure, they have a smattering of less popular titles, but so do the other big publishers. In terms of relative size, THQ is now easily one of the smallest, but this wasn’t always the case. It’s just how it’s fallen out over the years.
They’ve really not been particularly good for devs. The number of studios they’ve acquired and shuttered make them just as likely to end jobs as create them. Other big publishers are guilty of this too. Personally I would be very afraid if I were in a game company that got acquired by a big publisher. Chances are you’ll be jobless in a few years.
Regarding the forbearance agreement, I don’t think it makes a difference. On January 15, they have to have caught up to their payment schedule – meaning they aren’t granted any real debt relief, just a bit longer to pay the same amount they would have by January 15th anyway. A couple mill on a $50m debt won’t do it (when you also consider their operating costs.)
Keep in mind that if a company goes bankrupt, that doesn’t mean all the IP and studios that go with it die out forever. THQ wouldn’t have Volition, Inc. (makers of Red Faction and Saint’s Row) if it weren’t for Interplay falling into bankruptcy.
“And why shouldn’t they have that opportunity, and why is it such a terrible thing that Humble have reached out to help them with this? It is in itself a charitable act and perhaps I’m seeing the world through rose-tinted glasses, but the world I see is a far nicer place where people help each other out regardless of prejudices and moral high-grounds and abstract standards.”
The standards are not abstract. They are simple: The Humble Indie Bundle was established and popularized with a particular set of goals in mind. This bundle completely flies in the face of those goals, in turn harming the HIB brand.
As nice as it sounds, I’m not quite sure how you think this situation came from “moral high ground” and a disregard of prejudices. It’s not about helping or not helping THQ. It’s about the fact that THQ is cynically taking advantage of this outlet.
JP is right. There is no lasting good that could possibly come of this bundle; especially not for developers. However it will harm the HIB brand. That is nothing but a *bad* thing for developers.