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[Schwiggy]

THEIGForums
The Humble Elite Indie Gamer Forums

But on topic can we confirm that at this point all we know is that it's attached to the Humble Bundle, has no single gateway to all its contents, and requires developers (us) to make a popular,  cross-platform game that includes Linux, Mac, and Windows at least?

[Klaim]

Well apparently if you are THQ you don't need it to be cross platform.


I guess they have rules that fit their..."agenda".

[Schwiggy]

Yeah, this is pretty surprising.

But it is worth mentioning that those games are only redeemable on Steam and can't be downloaded from the HumbleBundle site. So they aren't really in the HB store, but we can safely attribute that to THQ requiring DRM.

[Falsen]

A new article regarding the Humble Store.

http://penny-arcade.com/report/editorial-article/how-the-humble-store-may-challenge-steam-the-business-of-helping-indie

[Klaim]

As others around here, I wonder if they will accept submissions from less known developers.

[TeeGee]

As others around here, I wonder if they will accept submissions from less known developers.

From what I know, they started being a bit more open, as they are preparing for the public launch. A friend managed to get through to them with little past record. 5% fee is also pretty good.

But -- umm -- how is Humble Store suddenly "challenging Steam and helping the small guy" when all the other e-commerce services have been doing the same thing since years and actually have more features? I know it's just marketing, but such bullshit always makes me a bit jaded. Giving people something they already had access to since forever, and pretending it's a brand new service that's going to revolutionize everything.  

[Klaim]

I think it's more journalistic sensationalism than marketing. They needed to have a big title so...

Anyway, it's true that it fills a need in a more efficient way than classic payment processors solution does, for video games at least (and music apparently...and video too?)

We'll see how it goes but clearly if it's possible to use it instead of FastSpring or BTMicro I would try to get there. The reason is mostly because of the choice of payment processors that I think are clearly more encouraging people to buy.

However, they are in the same position than Steam before Greenlight: how to they aprove projects?

FastSpring, BTMicro and equivalent don't really care what you sell...
Steam is far from being just a payment processor...
How will Humble Store place itself exactly?...

[TeeGee]

The reason is mostly because of the choice of payment processors that I think are clearly more encouraging people to buy.

Most e-commerce providers have PayPal/Amazon/Google Checkout available as payment processors, and also without the need for the customer to input all their data when they opt for them.

Services like BMT also allow for a simple credit card use, which is around 40% of our sales. Humble makes it possible through PayPal. But from my experience, most customers who don't have a PayPal account won't even click it to see if they can make the purchase anyway.

There are also some other drawbacks. Like the lack of affiliates and split-pay, and the necessity to send builds to Humble rather than upload them yourself (sucks if you need to make a quick bug fix).

The main draws, and those are pretty significant draws, are:

- Flat 5% with no minimum charge. BMT takes 9.5% and $1.25 minimum. It's a big difference, especially with cheaper games.

- Humble uses a neat little widget that's a part of your website instead of a separate webstore on the e-commerce provider's domain.

[Ant]

Isn't the main advantage of the Humble Store that it keeps your library of freely-updatable games online ala Steam? I'm not familiar with e-commerce providers but I gathered the way they work is when you buy a game you get an email with a download link to a particular version and the link has an expiration date.

[TeeGee]

You can set the link to never expire and it always links to the latest uploaded version, so not really. Of course, it's not as handy, as if the customer loses the link, they have to email you or your e-commerce provider for another one.