[Humble Monthly] September subscriber, you should know this

I have a ticket waiting as well, since that's what the Humble Support Ninja told me to do when I mentioned the lack of a game versus their announcement.

I know we're still getting a good value fore the money spent, but it's the principle of it. Don't market an 8-games bundle and deliver only 7. A demo is no more a game than a preview can be called a movie.

If monthly didn't had the 10% discount on the store and if it was much more then 12$ maybe i'd be inclined to take a harsh stance; right now i enjoy the games from september and got quite a few euros saved with the 10%.

Thank you for letting me know!

I think the bundles are actually improving in quality the last couple of months. The initial ones were quite good and contained many games I wanted, but then they got poor. May, June and July were complete stinkers. The only game I had wanted out of those was PA: Titans.

Their system is to make one of the two still expensive / newer games in the bundle the early unlock. So if the unlock is one I want I may take a chance and buy the bundle. Otherwise I pass, knowing that the bundle will more than likely be a bust for me. I have already purchased October.

I was a little underwhelmed, but hadn't really thought about it; you're right, though, a demo is not a game and HB should make it fair by adding another game in or at least a partial credit or something; demos are not games and it's deceitful to advertise as such. The non-rebundled bit is less of a big deal to me; The Banner Saga and Sheltered were both high tier bundles, so I'm not exactly disappointed, but Town of Salem is quite underwhelming. I put in a support request.

WWE 2k16 was disappointing enough, but being down a game? Thanks for catching that.

Coming in!

3 rebundled games (Sheltered, The Banner Saga & Town of Salem)

Sheltered was not really "bundled", you had to buy the extremely expensive Tier 4 of Team 17's The Threequel Bundle ($70) to receive it.

The Banner Saga has never been bundled. Humble Bundle's "The Banner Saga Bundle" or the Chrono.gg deal don't count. One was in HB Store ($15) and included quite a few extras. The other one was a 24h deal five months ago for the base game (I really don't remember the price/discount).

Town of Salem was bundled 2 two times on Bundle Stars. I'll give that one to you.

If it makes you feel better, two of the "rebundled" games were expensive on Humble Bundle (if they're adding rebundled games to the monthly game, let them be at least previously bundled games that were exclusive to HB and were in the highest tier).

1 demo (The Uncertain)

That one was a big surprise for me. I thought for a moment that we got the game even before it's release, which was strange because I don't think that has ever happened before on any bundle (not counting Greenlight ones :P) and the price for episode 1 is $15. I felt cheated when I found out it was just a demo. First they introduced the "Original" games (I guess almost no one care about those since they're not Steam). And now the inclusion of a demo could set a precedent, too. For everyone to remember, this is how they promoted the Monthly bundle:

A highly curated bundle of our favorite games at one fixed price. Includes everything from recent hits to hidden gems to timeless classics - every month. PC games delivered digitally to you in a monthly subscription bundle. Join for a new slate of games every month. Every bundle you get is yours to keep. Discover games that haven't been featured in other bundles.
.
What are the games playable on?
Steam for Windows. Sometimes more!

And sometimes "more" is "less". A DRM-free "original" game is definitely not "Steam for Windows and more".

On the other hand...

Which games are in the Humble Monthly Bundle?

It will contains 6 games each month. All the games will be for Steam, but in the future, the bundle may include DRM-Free games or games for other platforms too. (via IGN)

- 1 hot title - Less than one year old.
- 1 highly-acclaimed title - Between one to two years old.
- 1-2 hit indie games.
- 1-2 hidden gems from developers.

So we can assume we're still getting 6 Steam games (like promised in the beginning), and two extra garbage games, one useless for Steam users (itch.io style) and another one a beta/time limited/demo game.

What started with an exclusive monthly offer filled with quality games is slowly becoming a "surprise" bundle, with a few unbundled games (1-2 good, and one awful -this month that award goes to WWE 2K16-), a couple of HB "exclusive" well-known games (sort of) that were available before but a lot more expensive, and some trash to fill the cup.

Anyway, it's not the first time HB screws things with their monthly bundle. IIRC, there was another month were the number of games announced didn't add up (or it wasn't clear if they were including the sneak preview game in the total of games). Saints Row IV without any extra content, featuring games that don't have the option to upgrade to Special/Deluxe/Collector's Edition on Steam (Titan Souls), users receiving "Dropsy: Warm Damp Hug Edition" while others received the regular edition (this was silently -HB's modus operandi- fixed by asking customers to contact their horrible support if they got a regular key in order to replace it with the Warm Damp Hug Edition), Nova-111 being given away just after the monthly bundle was published, region locked items,... Last month was the culprit with the CoD Multiplayer Starter Pack, Random Access Murder and The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing: Final Cut.

Overall, the monthly bundles are not so bad, but HB screwing up almost every month is a bit annoying.

Contact support if you're a subscriber, even if not, because probably you participate in other last bundles.

Good luck with that. I contacted them when they (silently, again) lowered the 30 day window to increase payment for a bundle to 7 days. I just wanted to know what the new time limit was (at the time they just changed the FAQ and left how long we had to our imagination -"for a short period after the bundle has closed"- [1 [2] [3]) and to increase payment for the bundles I missed to get a higher tier. It took more than a month to get an answer, and it was "we're sorry, fuck you, thanks for your understanding", no help whatsoever was offered, and I couldn't increase the amount paid for a few bundles and I missed the highest tiers (they didn't want my money, that's okay).

If you're not happy with how Humble Bundle is handling things but you still want to purchase their bundles, I encourage you to use the (hidden) "Choose where your money goes" section under the amount to pay buttons and slide both the developers and Humble Bundle until they reach zero, giving all your money to charity. Or decrease HB's slider to zero, and distribute your money between the developers and charity as you wish. If we all did that as a protest, maybe HB/the developers would get the message (yeah, keep trying support) and we'd also make the world a better place (charity rules!). On the bad side, it could instead plumber HB into bankruptcy, forcing them to close, so I guess it would be best if not all the purchasers do that ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

That's what I do as a general rule:

• Do you feel HB screwed you in any way? Use the slider to assign $0 to them from now on.
• Is the bundle a fucking mess of region locked keys/unavailable games on some regions/one key per tier stupidity? Use the slider to assign $0 to the developers. $0 to HB might be a good idea too (if you weren't doing so already).
• In some bundles you can even assign a particular amount to a specific developer (if there are several different publishers/developers in the bundle), so if one of them is playing smart (Knights of Pen and Paper 2 base game on Tier 3 of The Humble PC & Android Bundle 14, without possibility to upgrade it to the Deluxiest Edition by purchasing a DLC -and giving a f*ck about customers complaints regarding that on the forums-), use the slider to assign $0 to that particular dev/publisher.

It is my opinion that the last two monthlies, despite containing a couple of good games each, have been poopy bum quality overall, and I think many people might agree. I would be very interested to see if the subscription numbers reflect this.

I don't know why people are complaining all that much.
What you're getting is a luck of the draw, and paying 1/4 of the total games value in the bundle.
If you wanted specific games, just wait for the sales of those and buy, and then stop buying HB Monthly.
The same with people buying GMG Mystery Bundles and complain. :)

I don't buy the Humble Monthly, but I agree that a demo is not acceptable, so I understand and support your cause.

I cancelled my subscription after that August BS they've released. I cannot file a complaint on last one as I didn't buy it but I agree Monthlys are getting worse and worse every month for some time now. I just stopped buying blinds from them, probably games from the store as well. I'll think about buying a bundle if a good one steps in but even that seems unlikely to happen as nearly any recent bundle was just rubbish.

Didn't they promise 6 games per month? You could rightfully argue that Town of Salem is a rebundle, but it's hard to complain on the 7th game being a demo since it's an extra game they didn't have to include.

Yay, people causing drama over a small, nearly meaningless thing...

Why would you ever buy into a mystery box to begin with? You are just asking to get scammed.

Let's try to contact through Twitter

Official Twitter: @Humble

With just 120 characters:

@humble @humblesupport Many people want answers, in public, not only to tell us that we need to send support tickets http://goo.gl/VVT7Wv

I'm more or less happy with the bundle I just want an answer to what happened

I agree that a demo is not a game and you should complain. I would if I had bought it.
Those who don't care just don't value their money. Even if it's 1.5 dollar per game. 8 games were promised and that's not what you got.
If people don't complain they will just keep doing this kind of stuff. They think they can throw any sh*t at us and we will agree.

Hello friends! My name is Artem Netyagin, I am PM of "The Uncertain" game. Just would like to clarify a little the situation.

September 22 our game will be released on multiple sites, including Steam and Humble Bundle. HB contacted us and offered to add exclusive demo of our game as a supplement to the September Monthly Bundle. We of course agree, and create a demo version of the game.

For us it was a surprise, as for you, when we discovered that our Demo all over the news was not formalized as an addition, and it has been a full part of the bundle, as the 8th game. We did not know that it will happen, and can not affect to it. All HB promotion campaign was done without our participation.

We are very sorry that this misunderstanding happened.

I don't see any problem. The quality of the bundles is very high all the time imo.

Bump

Whay happened in the end

You can also always voice your dissatisfaction by canceling your service before they bill you for another sub-par bundle. I think the site as a whole has gone downhill myself and the only thing I can do is to stop buying bad bundles and hope that others start doing the same, instead of jacking up BTA prices to almost 20 dollars for a bundle that didn't even include the HD remake of GK. If I'm paying for a bundle with GK in it and you want me to start buying old-school games on Steam instead of GOG, you are gonna have to do a lot better than what they did with the Sierra bundle.

i have to say that i was actually quite happy with my first humble monthly...

We tried, but it's time for requesting refunds

It has been a week since the September Monthly appear, many solutions have been asked by different methods, we have created threads like this, but nothing. Humble Bundle doesn't take action in the matter, have continued to publish other bundles without taking us into consideration.
They don't respond , don't communicate anything. It's time to ask for refunds, it is the only way we have left, we tried different methods to resolve it, and it hasn't worked .

If you don't want this to happen again, if you want to defend your rights as a consumer to this misleading advertising, you should join and ask for a refund, claim to PayPal or go to your bank and cancel the payment. Official channels don't respond .

I was pretty sure Town Of Salem was free when it first launched on steam and you could buy the 5 dollar currency pack for it as an option. I could be wrong. If Town of Salem has always been 5 bucks to play on steam then there is no issue and it's fine for counting it as a game. Meaning there are 7 games not 6.

And The Uncertain is a demo..

And as far as classic goes, they probably were referring to Banner Saga and Town Of Salem, since they were the 2 oldest.

Their customer support sucks. I had to wait two whole fucking month to get answer about non-working keys. And I have been supporting HB since 2011, it's like they don't even do their basic CRM job which is to at least prioritise the oldest or biggest supporters (from a business POV this is stupid not to manage that).

In fact I was against this whole Humble Bundle monthly which is like a high-priced Mystery Bundle (and I hate those) from which you expect quality. I mean if they are going to ask 12$ to people without telling them what they're selling which is asking for a very particular customer trust, they have to make sure not to breach that trust.

As long as the games were never bundle and have good enough value, even if you're disappointed they making the job. But when they are putting rebundled games, they not putting the number of advertised game, and they're selling you bullshit half-demos (like CoD Black Ops III multiplayer demo or The Uncertain), then they're right off screwing, insulting and scamming people.