Humble Indie Bundle 4 abused by Scrooge-like Steam scamming

by Alexander Sliwinski on Dec 22nd 2011 1:10PM

This is how nice things like Humble Indie Bundles stop happening: the Humble Indie Bundle 4, which also supports charities like the Red Cross and Child's Play, has people abusing the system for grinchy gain. Here's how the scam worked: oogie-boogies purchased the bundle for a penny, then used the Steam codes from the bundle "to 'legitimize' automated Steam accounts in order to increase their odds of winning prizes in Valve's current raffle promotion."

"This is unfair to legitimate entrants and is definitely not what we wanted to encourage with Humble Indie Bundle 4," wrote organizers on the Humble Bundle blog. "It's a lose-lose situation for the indie developers, charities, Valve, and Humble Bundle."

New orders now have a required purchase price of $1 to obtain Steam keys. For those who can't afford the dollar (*glares at your $5 mocha*), a Steam key can be provided by contacting the support team and promising "not to resell" or "otherwise abuse it."

It's a fair compromise to a sad situation that shouldn't have happened in the first place.

Source: HumbleBundle

Tags: abuse, charity, humble-indie-bundle, humble-indie-bundle-4, pc, steam, super-meat-boy

Reader Comments (93)

How is it possible that people like this exist?

Pathetic.

Perhaps they should only give steam keys to those who beat the average.
Or if that's a bit high, half the average. That would be fair, right?

@Peffse I like this idea.

@Peffse
Neither this nor the current solution actually solve the problem - after all, someone can create a new account and get the prizes for looking at their inventory, or joining a steam group, or getting the prizes from any of the free-to-play games.

This is not a problem the HumbleBundle group can solve - only Valve can. Valve needs to only allow prizes for those accounts which own at least one non-free, non-HumbleBundle-activated game, and the problem disappears.

@BlueRajasmyk
The only way to participate in the giveaway is to have a retail game linked to the account. You can't just create a new account and join in. People are using the bundle to get cheap retail games linked and qualify for the giveaway.
Seems fair to me that people paying $0.01 get humble games by the humble website, but people paying the average get Steam availability and qualify for the giveaway.

Gross.

And so this is Christmas...
And what have you done?

@(Unverified)

Cheating a raffle,
Well you are all scum,

@oOWallaceOo Stealing from charities,
For your selfish gain,

@Hank Hill

Causing the sweet little
children such pain!

Jebus, why are people such jerks?

This is why we can't have nice things.

@Dante G

No, this is why I hate people.

If I learned anything from marathoning My Name Is Earl last week, it's that karma will totally set these guys straight.

Also, Crabman is awesome.

@NaeemTHM

Whoa, you know about Karma? So you must be a Carson Daly fan too!

Seriously tho, if you like Earl check out Raising Hope while it's still on. It takes place in roughly the same universe, with the occasional actor (though, sadly, not character) crossover. Still...very funny, very underrated.

@baby sea tuna

Will do! I saw the pilot and definitely got an Earl vibe.

@NaeemTHM

The start of the pilot actually makes reference to ending of Earl.

I heard about this earlier. such a scumbag douchey move. It's really upsetting that they feel the need to seriously gotta cheat out charity for a dumb raffle.

What a bunch of little shits. I hope they get Just Dance 3 for Christmas.

@copa

Or a Nickelback cd, Deluxe edition.

@DeadDreamer

Complete Nickelback Discography, the more songs you give them, the more painful it will be to them.

@Copybass Ah jeez zombies

I thought they only made one album? oh wait you mean...

@DeadDreamer Woah, let's not get CRAZY here folks...

@DeadDreamer
Whoa now that a little too harsh maybe a beating or two but an entire Nickleback cd Deluxe edition I mean my god.

@copa

NO! If they are the kind of people that would do something like this, they are probably huge Nickelback fans. I bet they were blasting Nickelback as they did this, actually.

I'm sure whoever did this convinced themselves that it wasn't that bad. I guess some people can rationalize almost anything. It's kind of terrifying.

@ToastyBiggins

Wars, famine, bombings, executions, rapes, murders... pffft, not interested.

People scam a raffle: MY GOD, THE SCALES HAVE FALLEN FROM MY EYES.

@Dick Socrates
You're not a dick, you're telling the truth.

So many bad things happen yet "oh NO they cheated in a raffle, call out the internet hounds"

@Dick Socrates
That's like someone slashing your tires and saying "What's the problem bra? You could be getting raped".

@Dick Socrates

It's not about scamming a raffle, it's about costing a charity money to do so. Buying dozens of keys for a cent each ends up costing a lot in processing fees to Humble.

@Undulation Poppycock!

People like this fail to understand context. This is a video game dedicated site, and while any singularly focussed 'community' site is bound to have the problem of people not having their priorities in order, there was no call for that comment.

It genuinely sickens me when gamers or *insert other 'group' here* put their hobby over real-world issues, but I'm not seeing this here. Calling out asshats for being asshats, no matter when or why or how they are going about being asshats shouldn't ever warrant a Dick like this to chastise people as if he or she is somehow better because they can't separate their political/social/spiritual/moral life from the scant amount of time the comment on a dedicated video game blog.

Barf.

@Dick Socrates

Amazing, you were able to divine my opinions on wars, famine, bombings, executions, rapes, AND murders from a comment on a gaming blog. I'm impressed.

The truth is, most people will never rape, murder, or bomb anyone, because you can be severely punished for those things. Many, many people however, will do thousands of shitty little things throughout their lives, like scamming a charity, when there is a very small chance that they'll be caught or minimal consequences if they are.

In fact, the people who did this probably thought to themselves, "With all the wars, famine, bombings, executions, rapes, and murders in the world, who cares if I bend the rules a bit to score some free games?"

@Colin

Humble's not a charity. It's a business that USES charity to make money.

Ultimately this costs a business, not charity. Furthermore, if Humble doesn't want people to abuse this, they should probably set a minimum transaction cost. Their solution is good, and what the people are doing is scummy, but it's not as if pennies are being pulled from the hands of malaria victims.

@ToastyBiggins Pretty sure his comment wasn't in reference to people calling scamming charities bad, but rather the comment 'If someone can rationalise this, it's terrifying to think what else they could rationalise' which is hilariously overselling how bad this is, though it is admittedly not cool.

This is shameful... This is worst than pirating.

@Peffse
Actually not a bad idea to get Steam keys.

I tend to double whatever linux users pay, even then i feel bad, could never pay just $0.01, that's just shameful. If any of those guys get any prize I hope Valve takes it away from them, for scamming both Steam and ripping for the fine people from Humble Indie Bundle. If they have to stop giving out Steam keys because of this I will be so CHANGRY.

I would buy Super Meat Boy alone for 15 bucks. These people are greedy scumbags *glares at their 25 dollar Affliction shirt*.

@(Unverified)

I don't like your generalizations and stereotypes, but I laughed and upvoted regardless.

@(Unverified)

hey bro, 25 for affliction is pretty good. i've paid over 60 before for a shirt.
Yeah i know, i'm paying for the brand, and the fact is the shirts have really cool designs, hence the 15 knock off brands trying to saturate the t-shirt market.

What scum.

Damn, why didn't I think of that.

@GlockXIII Oh boo, calm down, it's a joke people.

these dudes deserve a bullet to the knee

@Sc4rfac3

Then they'll become shopping center security guard?

@DeadDreamer Sounds right to me.

@Sc4rfac3

It's a Skyrim reference!

@Sc4rfac3 IN the knee!

I'd buy it if they would stop supporting charities that cater to only one specific group ( Child's Play). May not seem like a big deal to a lot of people, but children get far more focus than adults in that kind of situation. It's unfair. There are sick kids that just age above the "child" age and they don't get any attention simply because they had a birthday. It's a shame.

@Kougeru Well humble bundle ALSO goes towards the red cross... so bunk to your statment.

-someone who works at a childrens hospital

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Humble Indie Bundle 4 abused by Scrooge-like Steam scamming

Reader Comments (93)

Posted: Dec 22nd 2011 1:13PM The Pork said

Posted: Dec 22nd 2011 1:14PM Oddgirl said

Posted: Dec 22nd 2011 1:16PM Peffse said

Posted: Dec 22nd 2011 2:06PM Ghoti said

Posted: Dec 22nd 2011 2:30PM BlueRajasmyk said

Posted: Dec 22nd 2011 3:02PM Peffse said

Posted: Dec 22nd 2011 1:17PM baby sea tuna said

Posted: Dec 22nd 2011 1:17PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Dec 22nd 2011 1:27PM oOWallaceOo said

Posted: Dec 22nd 2011 2:12PM Hank Hill said

Posted: Dec 22nd 2011 6:42PM Derp Sandwich said

Posted: Dec 22nd 2011 1:18PM danhoo said

Posted: Dec 22nd 2011 1:18PM Dante G said

Posted: Dec 22nd 2011 2:38PM Uncle Jesse said

Posted: Dec 22nd 2011 1:18PM NaeemTHM said

Posted: Dec 22nd 2011 2:08PM baby sea tuna said

Posted: Dec 22nd 2011 2:56PM NaeemTHM said

Posted: Dec 22nd 2011 8:40PM This Little Man Says His Name Is said

Posted: Dec 22nd 2011 1:18PM KiDPANDA said

Posted: Dec 22nd 2011 1:19PM copa said

Posted: Dec 22nd 2011 1:20PM DeadDreamer said

Posted: Dec 22nd 2011 1:25PM Copybass Ah jeez zombies said

Posted: Dec 22nd 2011 1:44PM DeadDreamer said

Posted: Dec 22nd 2011 2:13PM Hank Hill said

Posted: Dec 22nd 2011 2:39PM Special Agent Bob said

Posted: Dec 22nd 2011 2:40PM Uncle Jesse said

Posted: Dec 22nd 2011 1:19PM ToastyBiggins said

Posted: Dec 22nd 2011 1:29PM Dick Socrates said

Posted: Dec 22nd 2011 1:32PM Undulation said

Posted: Dec 22nd 2011 1:34PM RickGhastly said

Posted: Dec 22nd 2011 1:43PM Colin said

Posted: Dec 22nd 2011 1:48PM Oddgirl said

Posted: Dec 22nd 2011 2:17PM ToastyBiggins said

Posted: Dec 23rd 2011 12:57AM MasterYogurt said

Posted: Dec 23rd 2011 4:20PM NeoNaoNeo said

Posted: Dec 22nd 2011 1:19PM DeadDreamer said

Posted: Dec 22nd 2011 1:25PM Halgrimur said

Posted: Dec 22nd 2011 1:25PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Dec 22nd 2011 1:53PM The Pork said

Posted: Dec 22nd 2011 1:57PM HighFiveJesus said

Posted: Dec 22nd 2011 1:30PM KamiKaji said

Posted: Dec 22nd 2011 1:31PM GlockXIII said

Posted: Dec 22nd 2011 3:22PM GlockXIII said

Posted: Dec 22nd 2011 1:35PM Sc4rfac3 said

Posted: Dec 22nd 2011 1:42PM DeadDreamer said

Posted: Dec 22nd 2011 1:43PM Sc4rfac3 said

Posted: Dec 22nd 2011 2:12PM HydrophobicFish PSN ID Hydrophob said

Posted: Dec 22nd 2011 5:09PM drone said

Posted: Dec 22nd 2011 1:45PM Kougeru said

Posted: Dec 22nd 2011 1:50PM ecbremner said

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