Humble Bundle rethinks the unpopular charity division

Two weeks ago, Humble Bundle announced a controversial plan to remove cursors that allow users to customize the percentage of their game purchases going to charity. Today, Humble announced that she is rethinking that plan.

“We heard everyone loud and clear and apologized for the way these changes were implemented,” the company wrote in a blog post. “We are now taking a moment to pause, gather constructive feedback, and be more transparent about the way forward.”

Under the old Humble model, people who bought games could use sliders to adjust the percentage of their game purchase that went to the developers, Humble, and the charity supported by a particular bundle; this allowed buyers to donate their entire purchase price to the charity. Humble’s original plan would have replaced those sliders with buttons that only allow fixed amounts of charitable giving, capped at 15% of total purchase. Low-income users were angry with the change and the limits they felt it placed on donations.

Notably, today’s announcement does not indicate that Humble is simply going to leave the flexible division in place. Humble writes that while he gets back to cursors for now, he will “continue to iterate” over them, taking user feedback into account. “Part of this future development will include exploring different approaches to sliders and how splits work, as well as new ways to incorporate charity into other parts of the user experience,” Humble wrote. “[W]We are committed to sharing our plans and getting feedback from this amazing community up front to make sure any changes we make live up to our mission and values.

It’s good to see the company rethink its unpopular plan, even if the blog post doesn’t clearly indicate a complete change of course. At the very least, the company seems to have heard complaints from users, many of whom believed the change was not just a UI change, but a betrayal of Humble’s dedication to charity.

“We’re just as committed to supporting charity as we were when we launched the Humble Bundle,” Humble concluded. Time will tell us.