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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.
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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.
Remember when Humble Bundle was actually a charity and not just a charity-themed storefront owned by IGN?
Do charities normally get buy-out offers from for-profit businesses?
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.
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.
Do charities normally get buy-out offers from for-profit businesses?
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.
Initiated in reaction against the perceived impoverishment of the decorative arts and the conditions in which they were produced,[3] the movement flourished in Europe and North America between about 1880 and 1920.
“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.
I got a Rocket League key from 2016, why in the world would anyone want that?
Probably because Rocket League was removed from Steam after Epic bought the developer, and your key may still be usable on Steam.
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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.
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.
difficult economic times
code for the parent company investors were not able to scrape their cut off the top without cutting pay role. companies like that have one single product - not games or software or widgets - but the quarterly profit cell within accounting’s excel spreadsheet
It’s okay though because they didn’t make this decision lightly.🙄
Thoughts and prayers (for the owner’s bank accounts)
they are owned by J2 Global. Check out their holdings on Wikipedia. it’s a random hodge podge of tech companies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J2_Global
Correct - this was always going to be the case the moment IGN bought humble bundle. Any delay in getting to this point was a conscious decision about how fast to boil the frog - but IGN didn’t buy Humble Bundle because they believed in the mission of helping charities and indie game developers, they bought it because they believed they could make more money than they spent on it.
“We have looked at these difficult economic times and decided to make them more difficult for our employees by firing them all.” Nice. Always a great move. Also, I don’t see how they can say with a straight face that none of their ongoing projects or releases are going to be impacted by laying off the entire team. Even if they are just a publisher firing everyone and “restructuring” the company is going to have some kind of impact.
Also, I don’t see how they can say with a straight face that none of their ongoing projects or releases are going to be impacted by laying off the entire team.
Layoffs are rarely immediate - perhaps the contract lasts until release?
What? You can’t “lay off” your entire team. That’s not what that word means.
Maybe not in some countries. It’s certainly a way that term gets used in the US. See also, reduction in force (RIF), downsize, reorg, shifting priorities, etc. The way labor laws are written, companies are encouraged to do this, because it circumvents protections against firing someone on leave, pregnant, or in a minority. When an individual is let go, there’s risk of litigation or claims that it’s because of some protected status: and correct or not, we’re a very litigious country with a lot of lawyers looking for a payday. So more and more, companies have normalized layoffs even when they’re doing very well, because its a way to “clean out” the company of less productive employees with much less risk of getting sued: and they can always rehire or shift exceptional employees they want to keep.
why not just say “humble bundle has decided to leave the indie game development market and refocus on selling game as a core” stating that they laid off the entire game development team but are still planning on staying in the market is very weird to me
One thing makes people rage more than the other.
…because one of these things is a fact and the other is speculation?
Yeah I’m sure it was an urge to keep to the most strictly factual reporting possible, and not because one headline drives a lot more clicks and thus increased revenue.
Does IGN own them as well, or are they just over the site/store?
Thank you so much for the info! I was out and about and unable to look for myself. My phone will run Lemmy but the browser is beyond miserable
Edit: forgot to actually reply to the content. Unfortunately this really felt inevitable after the purchase and changes to Choice
Its heartbreaking. I always wanted to make games as my dream job (even in my mid-30s as a devops lackey) and they’re collectively fucking over my passion for a fucking percentage. And the products coming out are fucking terrible.
Don’t ever have a dream, kids. You’ll be disappointed.
I guess its the right moment to redeem all keys and download all DRM free games.
We are going to see a new case of “you don’t own digital purchases” articles soon
Humble Games is the publishing arm, not the Humble Bundle storefront.
“Somebody bought that thing you love and destroyed it.”
Weak. I just fell in love with Slay the Spire. Hope this doesn’t cause massive problems for the sequel.
I don’t know Humble Games’ involvement, only that their logo is in the opening.
