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Comment by meritt | Hacker News Reader

At this point I'm not entirely certain what/how the Humble Store differentiates from Steam itself? Do they just have some sort of affiliate relationship with Steam to offer games at different prices and then control of the revenues so they can donate to charity?

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From Humble Bundle's FAQ:

Q: How will the Humble Store be different from Steam and other game stores?

A: We think that every store is great for gaming. When we built the first Humble Bundle, we saw not only an opportunity to support gamers and game developers, we also wanted to make a difference to greater causes by supporting EFF and Child’s Play. We continue to see that many of our customers appreciate this unique business model. Charity will continue to be an important part of everything we bring to Humble customers.

http://support.humblebundle.com/customer/portal/articles/136...

The ability to choose how the money is distributed amongst charities, the developers, and the Humble Store may be the big differentiator in this case, just as GOG's is their DRM-free stance.

The Humble Store doesn't seem to let you tailor the distribution. Click on "What is the Humble Store?" and you'll see:

Get your games and contribute to awesome causes. Here’s where your Humble Store dollars go: 10% Charity, 75% Creator, 15% Humble Tip.

Dang, missed that part. Still, that transparency may be a differentiator, as well as the charity.

Ugh. Most of my buys would skew 75% charity. With 10% for charity and 15% for admin this is little more than "greenwashing".

Actually, I never give a penny for charity in my bundles. :-) Maybe that's because I'm non-us so I don't see and understand what they do.

Child's Play is frequently a charity that HB will include. The very general description is that they help donate games and gaming systems to kids in hospitals:

>Child’s Play works in two ways. With the help of hospital staff, we set up gift wish lists full of video games, toys, books, and other fun stuff for kids. By clicking on a hospital location on our map, you can view that hospital’s wish list and send a gift.

>Child’s Play also receives cash donations throughout the year. With those cash donations, we purchase new consoles, peripherals, games, and more for hospitals and therapy facilities. These donations allow for children to enjoy age-appropriate entertainment, interact with their peers, friends, and family, and can provide vital distraction from an otherwise generally unpleasant experience.

(from http://www.childsplaycharity.org/about)

edit: I am having a really hard time blockquoting this. Sorry. Working on fixing this :)

The US drives a lot of global internet policy - supporting the EFF helps there.

10% seems like a significant amount to me, considering the potential scale involved.

I'm sure the charities involved would take notice of the results.

I personally always put 100% into the charities, so I certainly won't be using the store at all. If they continue to do bundles I'll stick with that, but this makes it clear why the store came about.

> At this point I'm not entirely certain what/how the Humble Store differentiates from Steam itself?

They still sell DRM free games. I buy them from HB when they are available. But lately HB became more and more like a Steam proxy, selling Steam keys, which is useless for me, since I'm not using Steam. It's a good time for GOG to start supporting all these Linux DRM free titles, then I'll probably stop using HB.

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