Humble Bundle is one of the pillars of PC gaming, as so many Steam libraries are stacked with titles due to their affordable bundles. Over the years, the online store has become rather popular, even publishing a handful of indie games. Many gamers have an attachment to the Humble Bundle brand, so when reviewing giant, IGN announced they acquired the site, fans automatically assumed the worst.
It could be argued there is a conflict of interest by a reviewing site and a gaming store being under the same company. Is it really as bad as it seems though?
Announcement
Jeffrey Rosen, co-founder and chief executive officer of Humble Bundle, explained that "Humble Bundle is proudly joining the IGN family! We will continue to bring you all of our humble products, but with more resources and help from IGN." The executive continued to express excitement at working with a company that understands the gaming store's vision and dedication to charity.
IGN is kind of a joke among the community, mostly due to a few scores they handed out for some games. While they have not done anything particularly controversial, it does seem like a conflict of interest for a review site also to sell games. Would a bad score not adversely affect the games' potential sales figures?
Video game journalism is already controversial due to the theories that publishers paysites to dish out favorable scores, and these types of acquisitions are unlikely to influence that criticism positively.
Why?
Why some fans are undoubtfully blasting Humble Bundle for selling their soul to the man, the store has gotten so big that eventually, they needed to expand.
The bigger a company gets, the more resources are required to maintain the quality of their service. It must be expensive to put together the bundles offered by the site, and having deeper pockets could potentially lead to better offers. IGN does not benefit from changing the way the store functions, especially with the monthly subscription, as ruining Humble Bundle's positive reputation will inadvertently affect themselves.
The two company were not exactly in competition with each other, so the question remains whether this leads to any change in the way they function. While it is easy to assume the worst, it is still too early to declare the death of the online store. Who knows, in a years time, we might be talking about the improvements seen since Humble Bundle's acquisition by IGN.