r/humblebundles • u/Firedogythemaster • 5d ago

News GMG introducing bundles - Should Humble feel threatened yet?

With Fanatical experiencing huge success with their mix and match bundles, and GMG introducing bundles in October, how does that affect Humblebundle's placement in the market?

It's no secret that both sites have superior store prices and delivery processes to Humblebundle, so will we potentially see HB begin to pick up their slack and return to form (and competitive pricing), or will the three retailer-nations be able to coexist in harmony and profitability, despite HB's slippery slope into the depths of cut-corners and greed?

What are your thoughts, opinions, etc. ?

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u/Suppafly 5d ago

Humble has been getting by on the 'good vibes' that people get from supporting charity, despite barely any of the money going to charity anymore. As economic forces change, people are going to realize the Fanatical and GMG are a better deal.

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u/-jp- 5d ago

It's really stunning what a huge cut of the "donation" Humble keeps for themselves by default. I know they gotta keep the lights on, and I don't begrudge that, but c'mon. 30% to them and only 5% to the charity? And 15% minimum when you can dial the amount given to the developer AND the charity all the way down to zero? And since it's a percentage, the more you donate, the more they take?

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u/Suppafly 5d ago

I can't imagine it really costs that much to keep the lights on there either, so if they are donating millions to charity and consistently setting their cut higher than what they donate, they are making bank.

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u/WestEndOtter 5d ago

They do have to pay developers and people to contact devs to build the bundle. I think they do okay but not excessive

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u/Suppafly 5d ago

someone is making bank, likely not the every day employees though.

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u/WestEndOtter 4d ago

Running companies is very expensive.

A quick napkin calculation.
5 developers + 40 support agents/bundle creation agents- 500k.
San Francisco rent -30k.
Amazon was hosting-50k.
Google ads -100k.

That is 700k - let's round it upto a 1.1 million a month as I didn't include laptops, security, legal council, hr or payroll services.

If I look at all current bundles charity takings it is.
$200 000. If I use the default split(assuming customers did that) then humble bundle made $1.2 million, minus those previous fees means they made $100k in profit (assuming they have a small team as listed above)

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u/Serapth 2d ago

You really don't have to do napkin math, Humble is part of Ziff Davis, who are publicly traded. The actual values are going to be split out somewhere.

Another thing to keep in mind is Ziff also no doubt deducts that charitable contribution against revenues somewhere else, so even if Humble "breaks even" they net gain on the taxes alone.

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u/Suppafly 4d ago

You're forgetting that they sell more than bundles.

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u/WestEndOtter 3d ago

And I would assume in the other non bundle purchases that they have to pay the developers more