Humble Bundle, Inc. is a website that sells video games. It started with selling bundles of games, where buyers decided how much to pay. Part of the money went to charity, and the rest was shared with the game creators. Humble Bundle still offers these limited-time bundles but has also created a larger online store for selling games. The idea for Humble Bundle began with Wolfire Games in 2010. After the second bundle, the company became a separate business to handle selling, paying, and sharing the games. In October 2017, the company was bought by Ziff Davis through its IGN Entertainment division.
Early bundles often included games made by independent developers. These games worked on multiple platforms, such as Microsoft Windows, macOS, and Linux, and did not use digital rights management (DRM). The bundles were sold every few months for two weeks and received media attention, with some bundles earning over $1 million. Later, the bundles became more frequent and included games from well-known developers, AAA publishers, Android devices, game jams, and even digital copies of music, books, and comics. Today, bundles are sold more regularly, and the company has a permanent online store for individual games.
Humble Bundle supports several charities, including Action Against Hunger, Child's Play, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, charity: water, the American Red Cross, WaterAid, and the Wikimedia Foundation. By October 2014, game developers had earned over $100 million from bundles. By September 2021, more than $200 million had been donated to 50 different charities. The success of Humble Bundle inspired other companies to offer similar "pay what you want" bundles for smaller games, such as IndieGala and Indie Royale.
Humble Bundle now includes a dedicated online store called the Humble Store and a publishing division, Humble Games, to help indie game developers. The company is based in San Francisco, California, and has about 60 employees.
History
The idea for the Bundle came from Jeff Rosen of Wolfire Games. He was inspired by similar sales of game bundles on the Steam platform. Rosen noticed that these sales helped spread word-of-mouth messages quickly online. He was also influenced by a previous "pay-what-you-want" sale for the game World of Goo on its first anniversary. During this sale, more than 57,000 copies of the game were sold, raising over US$117,000 after fees. At this time, Rosen had strong connections with other independent game developers. For example, his brother David worked as a game tester for the Penumbra series, and the Penumbra composer, Mikko Tarmia, helped create a game called Overgrowth for Wolfire Games. Wolfire also partnered with Unknown Worlds Entertainment to offer a bundle based on their game Natural Selection 2. Ryan C. Gordon, who helped make Lugaru and Aquaria work on Linux, was involved in the project. With his connections to these developers and Ron Carmel of 2D Boy, Rosen was able to create the Bundle. He used payment systems from PayPal, Amazon Payments, and Google Checkout to reduce costs for transactions and distribution. Later, the site added an option to pay with Bitcoin through Coinbase. As of 2025, this option is no longer available.
Rosen believed that making the purchase process simple was important for the Bundle’s success. He avoided steps like requiring users to create accounts or use extra software, which might have stopped people from buying. He also included charities in the Bundle, letting buyers decide how to split money between developers and charities. Rosen supported Child's Play, which brings video games to hospitalized children, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which works against digital rights management (DRM). The "pay-what-you-want" model allowed buyers to give money directly to charities, which Rosen considered a success. Rosen and Wolfire employee John Graham helped manage the sales, answering thousands of questions during long nights of email and chat sessions.
Rosen and Graham planned a second Humble Indie Bundle, which started in December 2010 and raised $1.8 million. They saw value in continuing this model and created Humble Bundle as its own company after the second Bundle. Rosen and Graham were the founders. By April 2011, Sequoia Capital invested $4.7 million in venture capital to help Humble Bundle grow and hire more staff.
On October 13, 2017, Humble Bundle announced it had been bought by IGN Entertainment, a part of Ziff Davis. Humble Bundle would continue to operate separately, with no immediate changes to its business. Graham said the deal with IGN offered new opportunities to serve both companies’ customers. He believed IGN’s resources would help Humble Bundle improve its sales and charity efforts. Mitch Galbraith, an executive at IGN, said Humble Bundle was a good fit for IGN and would help IGN support charitable causes. He also addressed concerns about conflicts of interest, stating that IGN would keep its editorial team separate from Humble Bundle and follow policies to report ownership when covering games sold through Humble Bundle.
In March 2019, Rosen and Graham stepped down as CEO and COO of Humble Bundle, respectively. Alan Patmore took over as the company’s leader. Rosen said the company had become stable and had many growth opportunities, but it was no longer focused on starting new businesses. He and Graham planned to stay as advisors for the rest of the year.
In April 2022, 10 employees were laid off in engineering and customer support as part of a restructuring effort. In November 2023, an unknown number of Humble Games employees were laid off. In July 2024, all Humble Games employees were reportedly laid off. The company said it was restructuring, but Humble Bundle itself would not be affected.
Business activities
Since the start of the Humble Indie Bundle program, each bundle typically lasts for two weeks and includes three to five games. Buyers can choose how much to pay for the bundle. Many bundles include special bonuses announced halfway through the sale to encourage purchases. Previous buyers automatically receive these bonuses, except after the ninth bundle, when these bonuses were only given to buyers who paid more than the average price. Some bundles also offer a "beat-the-average" bonus if a buyer pays more than the current average price. Other bundles include game soundtracks as part of the bundle or as extra rewards. Because the games are sold without digital rights management restrictions, some bundles also include the source code for the games.
Humble Bundle works with game developers to decide which games to include in bundles and when they will be available. Employees consider whether a game will be exciting for gamers. Arrangements with developers are usually finalized one month before a bundle is released. Humble Bundle keeps about 15% of the total money raised from each bundle.
Buyers can choose any price for the bundle. The website lets users decide how to split their payment between the developers, charities, and a "Humble tip" that covers hosting costs. Buyers can choose to give all or none of their payment to any group or any combination. Later bundles allowed buyers to purchase the bundle as a gift for others. Games are usually available for Microsoft Windows, macOS, and Linux-based systems. Many bundles mark the first time a game is released on macOS or Linux.
Buyers may also receive redeemable codes for games on services like Steam, Desura, or Origin. To prevent misuse, later bundles required a minimum purchase price of $1. Starting in October 2013, Steam keys were automatically added to a user's Steam account when redeemed, to stop key resale. Later, users could gift Steam keys from bundles to others through a unique link.
Android-based bundles were first offered in January 2012. These bundles do not include codes for the Google Play Store but instead let users download Android app files directly to their devices. Some bundles included games available for both Android and Windows. In May 2015, the Humble Nindie Bundle was introduced, featuring games from Nintendo's eShop on the Wii U and 3DS. This bundle was initially limited to North America but may expand to other regions in the future. In August 2016, Capcom offered PlayStation 3 and 4 games through a Humble Bundle using PlayStation Network codes, also limited to North America.
In April 2021, Humble Bundle removed the charity slider, limiting charity donations to 5% or 15%. After feedback, this change was reversed, and the charity slider was restored. In July 2021, Humble announced a cap on charity donations, ensuring at least 15-30% of sales would go to charities, while allowing users to customize the split within this range.
The Humble Store is a separate service that lets developers sell their games directly. It provides tools for developers to sell games on their own websites and offers buyers a simple purchasing experience. Developers can use the Humble Store to offer tiered rewards during crowdfunding campaigns. Once purchased, buyers can access all games from the store at any time. The Humble Store also sells single games daily, with 10% of sales going to charities. In 2014, the store added sections for eBooks, audiobooks, and digital comics. By 2016, the Humble Store had raised over $4 million for charities.
In 2019, the Humble Store added support for Nintendo Switch and 3DS games. Humble also partnered with Epic Games to sell redeemable keys for the Epic Games Store.
After the fifth Android bundle in March 2013, Humble introduced weekly sales featuring a single game with a pay-what-you-want price. These sales last one week and often focus on a specific theme, such as games from a particular developer. They work similarly to regular bundles.
In 2014, the first Flash Bundle was launched, inspired by the "Humble Daily Bundle" promotion. These bundles last 24 hours and may repeat previous bundles or sales. They appear as often as once a week or once a month.
In 2015, Humble launched its Humble Monthly subscription service, offering a curated selection of games each month. Five percent of subscription fees go to charity. The service is compared to a book club, allowing Humble to choose games based on themes or related ideas. This service also provides developers with a larger incentive to participate.
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The first promotion was considered very successful. Rosen said that they saw the million-dollar goal as a best-case scenario, but once the sale started, "it was immediately clear that we were on to something." Rosen later said that part of the success was due to Ars Technica writer Mike Thompson, who "immediately saw the potential" of the Bundle in an article he wrote just before the sale period. Brandon Boyer of Boing Boing believed that the Bundle provided a model that "seems it could and should be repeated." Offering games in a price and manner that consumers were willing to buy was different from larger software publishers that place artificial limits on their content. Mike Masnick of Techdirt believed the Humble Bundle promotion worked because it "focused on giving people real reasons to buy, rather than just feeling entitled to define the terms under which they buy and looking for ways to limit those who want to interact with you in a different manner." Rosen said that the source for the promotion's website has been requested by several other groups. He continues to believe that many similar charitable sales can be seen in the future because of the success of the Humble Bundle. For future Bundles, Rosen wants to include lesser-known games instead of World of Goo and Braid, but he has already had to reject some developers' requests to be included in a Bundle, saying that the games' quality may damage the Humble Indie Bundle brand. Instead, he believes smaller games with no wide profile and that are "legitimately good" would be ideal for inclusion in future Bundles.
Because of the success of the Bundle, other groups have started similar pay-what-you-want plans for other indie games, including IndieGala, Indie Royale, and LittleBigBunch.
PC Gamer named the Wolfire team as founders of the Humble Indie Bundle as their 2011 community heroes for their support of the indie game development market. Forbes listed John Graham in its 2013 "30 Under 30" leaders in the field of games for the success of Humble Bundle, while Rosen was recognized for the same in 2015.
After the end of the Humble eBook Bundle, John Scalzi noted that various factors, such as brand name recognition, a lack of DRM, a focus on charity, the uniqueness of the bundle and its format, and the variety of included authors, all made the Humble eBook Bundle a success. Scalzi said that while people who participate in Humble Bundles will get less in net profit than they would have without the bundle (because of the variable percentages patrons can donate and publishers taking their cut of proceeds), they receive greater volume (the Humble Bundle sold 42,000 copies of eBooks in two weeks, almost as much as the average monthly bestseller). In conclusion, Scalzi praised the idea of the Humble Bundle and said that while the bundle is low-margin, it is also low-risk. Novelist Cory Doctorow, who organized both eBook bundles, noted that while no publisher aside from Tor Books would participate in the bundle because of the no-DRM stipulations, they still raised around $2 million for books whose circulations were earning their authors little to no money.
Terence Lee of Hitbox Team also said that the Humble Bundle was a success for their game Dustforce, even after the bundle ended. When Humble Bundle first called the team and asked if they could port the game to Linux and bundle it, the game sold about ten copies on Steam daily. The day the Humble Indie Bundle 6 came out with Dustforce in it, sales through the Humble Bundle skyrocketed to over 50,000 copies per day. While Hitbox Team only received $178,000 out of the $2 million Humble Bundle made, the increased number of players caused daily sales of the game to jump from less than a dozen to around 50–60 copies per day.
On the other hand, Binding of Isaac and Super Meat Boy developer Edmund McMillen noted in a Tumblr post that the bundles are "not as successful as many would think." While the Humble Bundles are an excellent way for popular games to get a final boost in sales as well as to help lesser-known games get more attention, statistics have shown that sales dipped more in the years when Binding of Isaac and Super Meat Boy were in bundles than they were in following years. Ultimately, according to McMillen, Humble Bundles neither hurt nor help in the long run and now seem more of a tradition than anything else.
Despite the ability to get the games at nearly zero cost, Wolfire Games estimate that 25% of the traceable downloads for the first Bundle have come from software piracy by links provided in some forums that bypass the payment screen to access the games; Wolfire further surmises additional piracy occurred through BitTorrent-type peer-to-peer sharing services. Rosen said they purposely removed much of the DRM associated with games to appeal to those who would otherwise engage in software piracy, through both having the games ship without DRM and by having only limited copy protection on their website. Rosen also said that for about ten users that emailed Wolfire about being unable to pay for the software, he personally donated on their behalf. Rosen comments that there may be legitimate reasons for those who appear to be pirating the game, including the inability to use the payment methods provided or that they had made a single large donation for multiple copies. Rosen also considered that there are players that would simply forward the download links to "take pleasure in spreading the pirated links to their friends or anonymous buddies for fun." Wolfire Games did take action to stop predatory sites, such as the closely named "wollfire.com," from selling illegal copies of the bundle.
While aware of the presumed software piracy, Rosen says that Wolfire will take no steps to limit it, believing that "making the download experience worse for generous contributors in the name of punishing pirates doesn't really fit with the spirit of the bundle." Rosen noted that by offering the source code of the games as an incentive, they would hope that "the community will help build them up with the same vigor that crackers tear DRM down."
In preparing for the second Humble Indie Bundle sale, John Graham acknowledged that some may still download the game through illegal means, but also said that the organizers of the bundle gave their best effort to make the process of purchasing the games simple, and they also wished to create a social impact with the sales by including contributions to Child's Play and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. An anonymous survey conducted by Wolfire for those who felt it necessary to acquire the second Bundle from other illegitimate sources showed that some preferred the option of using peer-to-peer sharing services like BitTorrent to improve the speed and reliability of the download; as a result, Wolfire added the option to download the games through BitTorrent, hoping to entice more people to acquire the game legitimately.
Several games in the Humble Indie Bundles have been released as open-source software as a result of the Bundles reaching certain sales levels. One such game was Wolfire's own Lugaru HD, where they released the engine under the GNU General Public License, and also included the various art assets, level designs, and other creative elements under a freely redistributable license for personal use. Their intent was to allow programmers to experiment and improve the game's engine using the associated assets. Wolfire later began selling the title Lugaru HD on the Mac App Store for $9.99. A company called iCoder used the open-source resources to recreate the same game for the App Store, charging only $0.99 for their version of Lugaru. iCoder claims they have the right to recreate and charge for the game under the GNU license, but Jeffery Rosen notes that this did not apply to the art assets. Also, Apple