Why We Buy Charity Bundles/Games

[Corven]

Humble bundle isn't a charity bundle program, the charity thing is something you can pay extra for for fuzzy feelings, humble bundle was started to increase the profits of indie games that were doing poorly sales wise.

That is how it started and that is how I treat it when I purchase any bundle they offer.

 

[Yopaz]

I generally do an even split between Humble Bundle, Developers and charities and I always pay more than average (never less than 25). Some times I can't even bring myself to care about the games and do it for the charity, but more often than not I do it for the games. The charity is just a nice little bonus.

I really don't care where the money goes. Hell, they could support whalers with it, I'd buy them anyway.

Spending a dollar on four or more games (and six when it's really worth it, like the WB or EA bundles) is better than pirating stuff in my book.

The funny thing is that it's not better. Paying 1 dollar most likely mean you're paying less than what processing your order and bandwidth is costing the companies. Pirating wouldn't have cost them anything.

 

[Yopaz]

The funny thing is that it's not better. Paying 1 dollar most likely mean you're paying less than what processing your order and bandwidth is costing the companies. Pirating wouldn't have cost them anything.

I only take the Steam keys, so bandwith is not an issue. And while PayPal does take quite a bite, it doesn't charge more for transfer than the sum that's being transfered.

And it's funny how things changed. First it was piracy that ruinded the industry, then it was used games and now someone says that buying games too cheap is worse than pirating them. It's this kind of inconsistency that made me stop caring about right and wrong when it comes to getting my stuff at the lowest cost possible.

Captcha: dollar signs

Ka-ching!

Downloading from Steam, the site processing the order, sending out a confirmation for your order. All of that actually takes bandwidth and 1 dollar is not enough to cover it. Where did I say it was ruining the industry though? All I said is that receiving 0 dollars is better than the cost of bandwidth which isn't covered by 1 dollar coming in. I'm not telling you to stop doing it, it's people like you who make it easy for the rest of us to buy for more than average and get the extra stuff. It's your right to choose and you should do so. The CEO of any company won't care about your financial issues and it's not like it's our responsibility to care about them. I'm simply saying it's not necessarily better than piracy.

In fact by pirating you interfere with the bandwidth of pirates making them unable to keep up their speed and it drives up their costs so we should all pirate in order to fight piracy (that last part is obviously a joke).

In conclusion I do agree with your attitude though, but not your reasoning. How about simply saying that unlike piracy it's legal to buy your games at these prices.

 

[Yopaz]

Where did I say it was ruining the industry though?

The entire discussion is as old as web 2.0.

Piracy, used games, Steam sales and Humble Bundles; someone is always complaining about someone else not getting his share. Or not enough.

It'd be interesting to see how much processing one transaction really costs and how much of the money ends up where. And I wouldn't give too much about the average, some folks pay a thousand dollars and more simply because they wanna show up in the top donators list. It's usually commercial websites that consider it relatively cheap advertisement.

Silly discussion though, but some people really believe companies when they cry about how much money they're losing I guess. Also paying above average is something you do because it generally comes with its own rewards such as a few extra games and soundtracks.

As for how much the transaction costs I'm not sure, but I know there have been a few incidents over here where processing and billing has actually been more expensive than the goods/services they're selling.

 

[antidonkey]

I see it as a way to get cheap games. The fact that some of the money goes to charity is just a bonus. However, I'm not going to buy them if they are games I have no interest in. I usually do an even split among the three when I do purchase though. I figure humble deserves something for organizing the whole thing, the developers for taking part, and the charities because they're charities.

 

[raichu845]

Where did I say it was ruining the industry though?

The entire discussion is as old as web 2.0.

Piracy, used games, Steam sales and Humble Bundles; someone is always complaining about someone else not getting his share. Or not enough.

It'd be interesting to see how much processing one transaction really costs and how much of the money ends up where. And I wouldn't give too much about the average, some folks pay a thousand dollars and more simply because they wanna show up in the top donators list. It's usually commercial websites that consider it relatively cheap advertisement.

Silly discussion though, but some people really believe companies when they cry about how much money they're losing I guess. Also paying above average is something you do because it generally comes with its own rewards such as a few extra games and soundtracks.

As for how much the transaction costs I'm not sure, but I know there have been a few incidents over here where processing and billing has actually been more expensive than the goods/services they're selling.

I'm not trying to bring down your argument, however I think they have some other sort of funding for the thing in case an extreme was reached that everyone paid 1$. Apart from that there are some people such as the Humble Brony Bundly (it's the one that is usually on the top donators list on Humble Bundle) who make up for it. But there is definitely funding involved from somewhere else with regards to the services used by the website itself. Now be it a sweet benefactor who just wants to see young 'ins play games or by the CEO of the charity websites performing some impressive heists before he started it and everything in between they're getting the money somewhere

 

[Yopaz]

Where did I say it was ruining the industry though?

The entire discussion is as old as web 2.0.

Piracy, used games, Steam sales and Humble Bundles; someone is always complaining about someone else not getting his share. Or not enough.

It'd be interesting to see how much processing one transaction really costs and how much of the money ends up where. And I wouldn't give too much about the average, some folks pay a thousand dollars and more simply because they wanna show up in the top donators list. It's usually commercial websites that consider it relatively cheap advertisement.

Silly discussion though, but some people really believe companies when they cry about how much money they're losing I guess. Also paying above average is something you do because it generally comes with its own rewards such as a few extra games and soundtracks.

As for how much the transaction costs I'm not sure, but I know there have been a few incidents over here where processing and billing has actually been more expensive than the goods/services they're selling.

I'm not trying to bring down your argument, however I think they have some other sort of funding for the thing in case an extreme was reached that everyone paid 1$. Apart from that there are some people such as the Humble Brony Bundly (it's the one that is usually on the top donators list on Humble Bundle) who make up for it. But there is definitely funding involved from somewhere else with regards to the services used by the website itself. Now be it a sweet benefactor who just wants to see young 'ins play games or by the CEO of the charity websites performing some impressive heists before he started it and everything in between they're getting the money somewhere

You missed my point entirely. Regardless of them getting funding there's actually loss involved with the 1 dollar bundles getting sold. They are obviously able to get by because some people use it as marketing. Notch is often one of the top contributors and it provides a lot of goodwill. I am aware of that, it doesn't change the fact that the process of processing an order, the cost of a transaction and the bandwidth costs more than 1 dollar though.