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Humble Bundle Launches Online Store For Games
sfcrazy writes "Humble Bundle has opened an online store called Humble Store, an extension of the sales system developed for managing the Humble Bundles. That puts Humble Bundle in the same league of Valve's Steam which sells works online via Steam Store. Humble Store, will continue the organization’s legacy of supporting causes. 'The Humble Store is a permanent addition to our Humble site that will allow our customers to buy great games at great prices 24/7 and support charity with every purchase. Ten percent of all purchases will go to vital causes like American Red Cross, Child’s Play, Electronic Frontier Foundation, World Land Trust and charity:water.'"
The Humble Store is not competing with Steam. Most games that it sells can/have to be activated on Steam.
I must have over one hundred games in my Steam library that come from the Humble Bundle.
Goodbye Slashdot. You've changed.
Pls lern 2 rite sumari guise.
The thing I hate about Steam is that the Steam client itself takes more time to load than World of Warcraft. This is on a 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo Mac mini with 8GB of RAM, I don't know if Steam is like that on Windows and Linux.
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
Can confirm Steam starting up in 9 seconds here. Go prefetch!
It will be interesting to see if this move will impact future bundles. I am curious if they will be willing to cannibalize their own store sales, and if other vendors might be less willing to work with them now that they have a permanent store (and might be viewed as a competitor).
Sadly, PS/2 was yet another victim of USB, which doesn't care what you plug into it, the electrical slut.
Only the store is donating to Red Cross. You can continue buying bundles, since they tell you exactly who it's going to for each sale.
Your link says in no uncertain terms: "Unfortunately, documentary evidence is incomplete and leaves room for uncertainty"
That's not really persecution there... Being able to skip-out on blood drives and ditch military conscription seem like POSITIVES to me.
Now, if they wouldn't give TRANSFUSIONS *to* gay men, that would be something different entirely.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Funny, Steam loads well enough on a modern system that has a CPU that isn't 4 generations old paired with a hard drive that isn't a 5400 RPM, low buffer, SATA 1 snail.
The Core2 used in that Mac Mini is a Penryn (I'm being generous here, it could be an older Merom) from the 2007/2008 timeframe. Intel has released Nehalem, Sandy Bridge, and Haswell since then (with their accompanying mid-lifecycle refreshes).
The drive wedged into that tiny case is probably also a 5400 RPM laptop drive, with maybe an 8 MB buffer. It hangs off of a good ol' SATA-1 bus, only capable of (theoretically) 1.5 Gbps. Compare that to a decent 7200 RPM drive with a 64 MB buffer on a SATA-3 (6.0 Gbps) bus, or better yet, an SSD that can actually use most of that bus speed.
Steam isn't terribly speedy on any platform, but your hardware ain't helping it any.
No Steam/Valve doesn't get a cut from steam keys, but they still get first place for advestising their store when using steam, so I wouldn't worry about them.
the current justification by the FDA is that removing this barrier and allowing those groups to donate blood would result in an increase in HIV-positive transfusions in .0000000016% of the blood supply. You be the judge there.
Ok.
There's a statistically higher number of gay men and africans with AIDS.
There's a percentage of blood that slips through quality control and doesn't get tested.
Globally around 85 million units of red blood cells are transfused in a given year.
Cite the 0.0000000016%, otherwise I believe you're pulling a number out of your ass.
Hey, did you know that, in the past and currently, there were complete asshats that did asshat-like things who were part of the gay community, the church, open-source movement, BSA, childsplay, England, AnimalAid, academia, and/or $YOURFAVORITEORGANIZATION?
What exactly do you expect them to have done? Send one of their armored divisions to overthrow Hitler?
Because federal law won't let them.
There is a lot more wrong with the group than just that. And I'm not too crazy about the other groups either. Quite frankly, I would be willing to pay more if I knew that none of the money was going to these "charities". That doesn't seem to be an option, but not buying is.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Well, that *is* a chip that came out nearly 5 1/2 years ago (assuming the mid-2010 Mac Mini that used a mid-2008 CPU), and the drive is an older laptop form factor drive.
Replace the 5400RPM drive with something snappier (SSD, or at least a 7200rpm platter drive), and you'll get better load times.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
currently humblebundle.com/store doesn't load in my linux distro using firefox (24.1.0 esr) and for the past few weeks the weekly and bundle pages haven't worked properly either, i can see the advertised games but the javascript for selecting the payment amount doesn't work, once purchased (using firefox on windows vm) the download page won't respond to clicks to show steam keys or select bittorrent, merely scrolling to the top of the page if not already there. i emailed support, they recommend using a different browser, well konqueror doesn't work either (always used to along with firefox) and i'm not installing a browser specially for one web site
snake
Also from the WHO site:
25 countries are not able to screen all donated blood for one or more of the above infections. [HIV, hepatitis B, hepatitis C and syphilis]
24% blood donations in low-income countries are not screened following basic quality procedures which include documented standard operating procedures and participation in an external quality assurance scheme.
The prevalence of transfusion-transmissible infections (TTIs) in blood donations in high-income countries is considerably lower than in low- and middle-income countries. The prevalence of HIV in blood donations in high-income countries is 0.003% (median), in comparison with 0.1% and 0.6% in middle- and low-income countries respectively.
With those things in mind, I don't have a problem of disallowing donations from certain countries, in theory. In practice, it depends on exactly which countries are on the "no-fly list", and the safety statistics of those countries.
Also, the American Red Cross has called for an end to the lifetime male homosexual donation ban.
I'd prefer to give to other charities with lower administrative overhead, but none of the information you've provided argues compellingly for a boycott of Humble Bundle...then again, that's your choice to make for yourself.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
Every bundle has had the option to change how the money you pay is divided. You can give it all to charity, all to developers, or for whatever silly reason, all to the Humble Tip option if you want. You can also customize which charity, which developer, gets how much of the alloted portion of the total. Personally, what with all the things happening lately, I've been favoring the EFF heavily in my purchases.
Goddammit just when I get my first +5 the Beta rolls out and kills everything
The Red Cross knew about the concentration camps in Germany during WWII, but did nothing to help them.
What exactly do you expect them to have done? Send one of their armored divisions to overthrow Hitler?
No, I expect them to have gone to the allied powers, who did have armored divisions and tell them what was going on. The allies arrived in Germany weeks after the landing to find bodies rotting in open air, where the Germans had simply locked all the gates and abandoned them to fate. They could have saved those lives -- and they didn't. They made a choice not to. At no point during the war, until the pictures were on the front pages of all the newspapers and the true horror of what had been going on inside Germany's borders had been revealed, did they pop their head in at Geneva and say "oh yeah, we totally knew about that."
they also won't accept [harbus.org] blood donations from gay men.
Because federal law won't let them.
And I see they're fighting real hard to end that discrimination right now too. Oh wait, they aren't. In fact, they petitioned the FDA to continue it; As it is FDA guideline not federal law that is the administrative body behind the rule.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
Indeed. If this is just another store selling steam keys, don't bother creating it in the first place.
Do you know what a "sentence" is? I ask because I definitely quoted it in it's entirety, with the sole exception of omitting the period...
Let's try another quote:
In 1942: " Burckhardt added that since there was no place where they could be resettled, this could only mean one thing."
Except that really wasn't true, until Madagascar was recaptured by the British in November 1942:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madagascar_Plan
That doesn't change the fact that being excluded from responsibilities is hardly persecution.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Out of curiosity, do you think that Red Cross employees are aliens from another planet, or do you think that Red Cross employees in Germany might've been Germans and that they might've sympathized with the Nazis? It just seems like a strange argument to make - that German Red Cross employees should be impervious to being swept up in the ideas of "normal" Germans, and that the International Red Cross is responsible for the behavior of their German employees during the Second World War.
I'm actually thinking that IBM (a non-German company who helped Germany) and BMW (a German company who built weapons for the Nazis) are actually more culpable for harm done during WW2 than the Red Cross is. (I assume you're still boycotting them.)
Personally, I was pretty annoyed that the Red Cross was offering first aid to Jihadi fighters in Afghanistan/Pakistan. Though, in their defense, they have a policy of taking no sides in a conflict, and I would suppose that it might help protect them from being killed by those reprehensible Jihadis.
1. The allies were perfectly aware of what was going on in the concentration camps. They just did not consider dealing it to be a priority. So your proposed course of action would have absolutely zero effect on what happened.
2. The Red Cross (along with the AMA and AABB) has been against the ban on MSM blood donation since 2006.
Out of curiosity, do you think that Red Cross employees are aliens from another planet, or do you think that Red Cross employees in Germany might've been Germans and that they might've sympathized with the Nazis?
If you read the link, you'd know that headquarters knew; They were in Switzerland. They remained silent. It wasn't just those "evil germans".
I'm actually thinking that IBM (a non-German company who helped Germany) and BMW (a German company who built weapons for the Nazis) are actually more culpable for harm done during WW2 than the Red Cross is. (I assume you're still boycotting them.)
Yes, actually.
ersonally, I was pretty annoyed that the Red Cross was offering first aid to Jihadi fighters in Afghanistan/Pakistan.
Well, the same could be said about Doctors Without Borders; A life is a life. Unless, apparently, you were Jewish or gay. And that's what I have a problem with; Selective application of ideals. Yeah, they say they've learned their lesson... but have they? The Red Cross has been getting caught in too many controversies even recently... google their hatchet job on the 9/11 donations.
It's just irritating that Slashdot collectively missed the point when they modbombed me, which is this: Let me choose which charities get my money... don't shove it down my throat. It's just poor marketing; A good idea but a bad implimentation. It would be trivial to select which charity at checkout and eliminate the problem... but nobody thought of it.
And apparently, if Slashdot is any indication, there's actually resistance to the idea that someone could object to certain charities. I mean, they're all good, right? :/
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
That's how Humble Bundles work. The Humble Store is different. It has fixed prices and the customer has no control over how their money is used. It is possible developers have a say but this has not yet been made clear.
+0 Meh
Except it's sorta completely illegal to pay someone for blood, tissue, or organ donations.
To be fair, there are some loop-holes, allowing "gifts" to donors, like so:
http://www.idle.slashdot.org/story/10/01/12/1713201/Bloodmobile-Offers-Beer-To-Blood-Donors
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
I should also mention that, yes, Plasma is one of those loop-hole cases, where most donors get a tiny amount of cash for their time. But any number of other factors can disqualify anyone from doing that.
And there's a good FDA write-up quite intelligently explaining the policy:
http://www.fda.gov/BiologicsBloodVaccines/BloodBloodProducts/QuestionsaboutBlood/ucm108186.htm
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
but it's for teh sharities! non profit!
(= all company share of the profit goes to staff).
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
It looks like they all require Steam too. What is the point?
I just had a look, and of the nine games listed on the front page, five of them had a DRM-free sign. Just because they have Steam keys available doesn't preclude a direct download version too. Not all of the games were on GOG either, and those that are there are currently at full price (though GOG has had some pretty aggressive sales lately so it may be worth waiting).
Don't get me wrong, I'd like to see viable competition to Steam (monopolies are not good for consumers in the long run) - but you're missing the whole point. Steam's position has never been stronger.
It doesn't matter to Valve that you can pick up old and low-budget games for cheaper elsewhere most of them time. There have been intermittent cases of GoG being cheaper than Steam on certain for a couple of years now. But it's irrelevant. Why?
First, these titles are a pretty small part of Steam's market. Steam is primarily about the higher end commercial market. Sure, the classic games are one of its income streams, but most people on there are either playing full-sized commercial games or monetised free to play titles like DoTA2. And in the former market in particular, Steam remains well ahead of the competition. Origin's pricing is better than it used to be on many titles, but it still struggles to match Steam on either variety or price point.
Second, Steam has a very, very aggressive and very potent flash sales model. Let's say Indie Game X is $9.99 on Steam and $8.99 on GoG or another competitor. Now, you could save a dollar by going for the GoG version. Or, if you're not desperate for the title, you could wait. Because come the summer sale, the Christmas sale or just one of the regular midweek, weekend or daily sales, you might be able to get that game off Steam for just $2.99.
Third, Steam is a lot more than just a storefront. It's also a fairly comprehensive suite of back-end functions, on a par with those offered by Xbox Live or the Playstation Network. Given a choice between a DRM-free version of a game and a Steam DRMed version, you'd expect most people to go for the former, right?
Wrong.
If you read articles like this you can see pretty clearly that Steam copies of games are more sought-after than DRM free versions. People actually value the friends-list, messaging and other back-end services that go with Steam and they value them much more than they value concepts like the freedom to do what they want with software they've bought. That may be an unpopular sentiment on slashdot, but it is the way things are moving out there in the market.
Whether or not you agree with Steam's business practices, we are a long way from even starting to see signs of its decline.
A big differentiator for me is that GoG (as great as they are) do not, despite many requests, support Linux.
Humble Store gives a nice place to purchase Linux indie games without going through Steam.
What is the reasoning behind that?
Wow, I should not post when knackered.
As one of those people that love and hate steam, I must say it is nice to not have to deal with physical media and DRM. After all, most modern DRM is a phone-home that breaks onces the servers die. Steam, while still being an internet-connected application, can be run in offline mode and isn't incredibly intrusive. I have it running on my arcade cabinet that I keep disconnected from WiFi unless I need to update or download something. While I get a nag screen for being unable to connect (anyone know how to turn that off?), I'm able to play the games I legally bought for months without a connection, and updating them is as simple as activating WiFi.
Now if only Capcom would pull their heads out of their asses and stop with the GFWL AND Steam on their titles.....
Haven't tried that in a long time, but it used to be:
The admittedly weird and counter-intuitive thing is to be online to go offline ...
The Red Cross is strictly apolitical. Only this allows them to go and help everywhere. As soon as they would take sides in a conflict, they're out of (their) business. The more lunatic a leader is (think e.g. Assad/Syria these days), the more likely he would deny the RC to enter his country and help. And most of the time (the people in) these countries need help the most.
Lizzie Cuevas, Director of Communications at Humble Bundle Inc. says:
"The charity split is and always will be a fixed 10% of Humble Store purchases. The charity list will change with time and giving both developers and customers the option to choose charities is something we will consider in the future."
http://indiestatik.com/2013/11/12/humble-store/
+0 Meh