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Humble Indie Bundle only giving Steam keys to people who paid $1 or more
This doesn't bug me (I think it's quite reasonable), but I just want to see some discussion about this.
FYI: The reason they did it was because people were buying the basic bundle for $0.01, then using it to activate a Steam account (to paid status, or whatever it's called) in order to take part in the Holiday Great Gift Pile giveaways. They did this to Humble Bundle #4 starting 20 December 2011.
Here's the Humble Bundle blog post about this move: http://blog.humblebundle.com/post/14549340777/1-min-price-for-getting-steam-keys
Good idea? Bad idea? Best way of dealing with a problem, or are there better ways? Does this go against the site's philosophy/promise, and if so, does that matter? What about transaction costs? Should they instead switch to a different pricing scheme? Is this too heavy or too light of a "penalty"?
Discuss.
Comments
I want to headbutt anyone who paid less than a dollar.
^Nah, what really pisses me off is people who pirate it. Because they won't give a penny to charity to get games.
Someone pointed out (in the very long comments section) that paying $0.01 is actually worse than pirating it, from the perspective of the Humble Bundle's finances, since they have to pay transaction fees. As well as guaranteed data hosting.
For what it's worth, I found out about this while researching whether Steam charges developers for Steamworks integration (which another Steam user I asked says is "100% free") or "indie bundle" keys.
It would make sense that Steam would charge developers or bundle organizers for Steam keys, though I'm not sure whether they do. However, the motivation for putting this $1 minimum on getting Steam keys could have come from either the bundle organizers and developers not getting the revenue they needed to cover Steam key costs (as well as other costs), or from Valve itself.
Now, given this comment, I'm more inclined to believe you do have to pay to distribute Steam keys like this.
Holy crap I forgot how much comment sections sucked. Then I remembered.
You know, when ever I see something like this where you get the item by paying "what ever you feel it's worth" I always try to pay what I would have paid normally.
I ended up paying a little less than what it was worth to me, but more than the average. But considering that if it wasn't cheap I wouldn't have bothered to buy it, I didn't know how good the games would be until I bought them- other than Cave Story which I already beat- and the sale was hailed as a success with that average price...
Actually, I think I got in on it early enough so that the above average price I paid became less than the average later.
I think part of the reason it's hailed as a success is due to selling so damn many copies in bulk. The server bandwidth to give you the downloads probably doesn't cost...well, actually, I don't know how much bandwidth costs, at small amounts, moderate amounts, and in large bulk amounts.
I also don't know what Paypal or credit cards do for transaction fees in bulk, or what Valve charges for Steam keys in bulk.
I've paid only barely above the average for both bundles I've gotten, and it does make me feel a bit guilty. A bit less guilty when I know that I actually bought two instances of the first bundle I got, one for me and one immediately after that for a friend.
The average bundle prices do feel quite deeply discounted, in my opinion. Now I would never pay like $60 for a full game, and for many of these games, I'm getting them not so much because I want them but because they happened to come with the bundle. So in effect it's like getting a free sample of something. As a result, I think it's fair to set my pricing model based on only the games I want.
You can choose how to split your money between the different developers (I think) and charity donations and Humble Bundle tip, so you can just choose to pay the developer of the game you wanted all $4 of your money or whatever.
At least, I would think you can do this. I know you could for Humble Introversion Bundle.
I know you can't do this for Indie Gala, which is like a wannable Humble Indie Bundle site; you can only change broad categories of developers, charity, and tip. But their average was just so low (around $1.75 to $1.85) that it didn't really matter.
But yeah, incidentally, that's why I assume that the Humble Bundle people or the devs have to pay beforehand for a bunch of Steam keys.
I never pay less than $3 or $4 anyways.