Humble Bundle apologize and bring back charitable donation sliders
But they still want to explore "different approaches to the sliders and how splits work"
Late last month, Humble Bundle announced that they would be removing the sliders from their store that let customers choose how much of a purchase would go to charity. It effectively capped the possible charitable percentage to 15%, which was certainly an odd choice for a storefront whose main appeal is giving to charity. Customers and developers promptly expressed disapproval of that decision, so now Humble are rolling back that change and will be "exploring different approaches to the sliders and how splits work".
Previously, Humble Bundle customers were able to manually change how much of their purchase went to Humble, a selected charity, and the game's publisher. That system allowed a user to give their entire purchace to charity, for instance, or at least tweak the amounts to a split they wanted. Humble's previous announcement explained that they would be removing the split sliders in favor of two defined split options, the default being 5% to charity. They got plenty of criticism for that choice when it was announced.
"We’ve heard everyone loud and clear and apologize for the way these changes were rolled out," Humble say in a new announcement post today. "Today, we’ll be turning sliders back on for all customers on our bundle pages while we take more time to review feedback and consider sliders and the importance of customization for purchases on bundle pages in the long term."
Humble will still be redesigning their bundle pages, but the new design will now include charitable donation sliders as they've worked in the past, though they will continue iterating on the new design.
"Part of that future development will include exploring different approaches to the sliders and how splits work, along with new ways to incorporate charity into other parts of the user experience," Humble say. "We’re just as committed to supporting charity as we were when we launched Humble Bundle."
The core attraction of Humble Bundles as a way to get games has always been the charitable donation angle. It remains to be seen how Humble will change their approach to charity in the future, though they do say that they plan to "be more transparent about the path forward".
Disclosure: The RPS supporter program uses a Humble widget to handle payments. According to Graham, RPS have been working on replacing it for a while.