Humble Bundle alters terms of sale: Difference between revisions

{{Wplink|Humble Bundle}}, a digital storefront offering activation keys for video games, altered their terms of service on December 24 2024 and retroactively enforced a 3 year expiration period for keys bought and not redeemed via their service.

{{Wplink|Humble Bundle, Inc.}} is an online market place that started operations in 2010, initially  offering collections of (mainly indie) game keys at a price determinded by the buyer spliting the revenue with charities and the game developer.<ref>https://web.archive.org/web/20120826233348/http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2010/05/the-greatest-indie-game-sale-ever-and-how-it-came-to-be/</ref> While they still offer these bundles their store has offered single keys for games (similar to [[Steam]]) since 2013 with a portion of the sales going to charitable foundations and developers <ref>https://web.archive.org/web/20130106004529/http://penny-arcade.com/report/editorial-article/how-the-humble-store-may-challenge-steam-the-business-of-helping-indie</ref>. Monthly subscribtions with similar revenue split schemas hav been offered since 2015.<ref>https://web.archive.org/web/20151004002851/http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/255173/Humbles_new_subscription_service_envisioned_as_a_book_club_for_games.php</ref> In 2017 the company was acquired by IGN Entertainment and has since been involved in game publishing as well via Humble Games<ref>https://web.archive.org/web/20200516005641/https://gamasutra.com/view/news/363013/Humbles_indie_game_publishing_biz_is_now_Humble_Games.php</ref>, however as of July 2024 the Humble games division is, according to the company, restructuring and all the employees have been laid off.<ref>https://www.engadget.com/humble-games-reportedly-lays-off-its-entire-staff-201923446.html</ref> Humble Bundle continues operations.

In December 2024, Humble Bundle modified their terms of service to include wording that allows them to revove unclaimed game keys from accounts after a period of 3 years with no obligation to reimburse the buyer. <ref name="new-terms>https://web.archive.org/web/20250221111253/https://www.humblebundle.com/terms</ref>. This wording was not present in the previous revision of the terms <ref name="old-terms"> https://web.archive.org/web/20241222082722/https://www.humblebundle.com/terms</ref> but have been reportedly applied to all previous purchases retroactively to all games purchased in the platform.<ref name="reddit-1">https://www.reddit.com/r/humblebundles/comments/1ioau0t/humble_expiring_keys_instead_of_replenishing/</ref><ref name="reddit-2">https://www.reddit.com/r/LouisRossmann/comments/1iomn2x/humble_expiring_keys_instead_of_replenishing/</ref>

Humble Bundle has not issued a public statement regarding the change of the terms and the possibility ofrefunding or compansating users. Users have not as of now reported on how Huble Bundle's costumer support regarding keys that are unavailable to redeem and coming lose to exiring <ref name=reddit-3>https://www.reddit.com/r/humblebundles/comments/1iu7oh1/has_anyone_gotten_a_straight_answer_about_early/</ref>