The difference is that mine is a realistic scenario while the others are naive scenarios.

nope, yours is completely unrealistic and only exist in your imagination. Any discussions and negotiations would not be proceeding in this way. If you seriously think so, then I do not know... never try to go to business school.

Hey, would you be offended if I start referring to you as the Dakari-King?

Your seriously think developers are just gonna pretend this didn't happen and let it slide? How in the world is it unrealistic to expect people to want to be treated fairly and equally? Of course devs will bring this up. Negotiations 101, the Humble Bundle guys now lack the leverage to demand this since they have shown it is an empty thread Developers are gonna call their bluff with THQ as an example.

The reason Humble Bundle used to be able to demand cross-platform and DRM free games is that combination of their popularity and the fact that they enforced that rule. If they are not willing or able to walk away from the negotiations when the developers demand being able to have Steam only, Windows only games then they have lost their ability to enforce that rule. They have now shown their unwillingness to walk away.

Making assumptions is fun!

negotiations 101 - when the opponent makes first counter demand, the negotiations fail. There is now no point try to negotiate any further.

Y'know, I think I'm the only one who sees only two of the games in the bundle that could be sold DRM-Free (Darksiders and Metro 2033) as they are single-player only.

Saint's Row: The Third and Red Faction: Armageddon both use Steamworks for multiplayer, it would take quite a bit of work to set up a completely different system for DRM-free users to use. It would also segment the multiplayer community into Steam users and non-Steam users, which is bad. Imagine the influx of people asking why they can't play Saint's Row 3 with their non-Steam copy with people who own the Steam versions of the game.

Company of Heroes requires a Relic account to register and play the game on multiplayer (singleplayer as well, I believe). I haven't really played that game in a while, but I think if it worked like how Frozen Synapse did in previous bundles, that could probably be offered DRM-Free with a multiplayer key.

So yeah, I don't think THQ has the resources to set up an entirely new multiplayer system and offer all their games DRM-free when they're very much in the red. I would have liked for them to offer the singleplayer games as DRM-free, though. But who knows? Maybe if THQ manages to climb out from their current financial rut, they may begin offering game downloads that do not require Steam activation or any other bits of "We're making sure you actually bought the game" software.

I have never claimed that EVERYONE has the required negotiation power to pull it off, but that some fence sitters/bigger developers that prior to this deal would have been persuadable are no longer persuadable. Even 1 game that would otherwise have come to Linux is too high of a price for this bundle existing as a Humble Bundle.

Edit:

Gyrocoptor, you are taking the content of this bundle as a given. An alternative would have been for Humble Bundle and THQ to agree on releasing a different set of games DRM free and cross-platform.

Blaming Humble Bundle for the censorship in Germany is kind of stupid.

I have read several Germans say online that the uncensored version is perfectly legal in Germany. Although this is the one that Humble Bundle is probably not guilty of(aside from accepting a Steam only Bundle in the first place) this is more on THQ and Valve being overly zealous with German law.

Fence sitter/Bigger developers WOULD have been persuadable and now they aren't. I'm just curious, where are you pulling this crap out of? You really seem sure of it.

Right, so THQ just dropping a load of their games DRM-Free plus adding cross-platforms even if they weren't in such a shithole as they are now, so that's an alternative, yet you dismiss alternatives less crazy than this.

If i recall correctly, it's perfectly legal to own these games that were refused rating, but it's forbidden to sell them in retail. Please someone from Germany correct me if i'm wrong. ANyway, i think Humble Bundle are not the ones to be blamed.

EDIT: Are my eyes deceiving me or something? Are there people actually bitching about this great bundle just because it offers Steam-keys only? The amount of selfentitlement in the gamer community amazes me. If you don't like DRM just don't buy it. It's that simple, you don't have to bitch all over the forums.

In my opinion it's the best bundle ever, and i wish more AAA publishers followed this action. But i can't believe that there are people complaining about a pay what you want bundle for 5 amazing games (not counting SR3 as a beat the average bonus). I own all these games already, but i'll buy it just to show my support to such an awesome bundle.

Can someone please bookmark this thread so they can give Kristian a massive I TOLD YOU SO when the next multi platform DRM free indie bundle comes out?

I can't be bothered with people like this.

(and for the record, i too am disappointed that this particular bundle isn't multi platform and drm free, but i have a huge backlog and a less crazy view of the universe so I realise it isn't a big deal)

Speaking of SR3, what exactly is censored for you, German fellas?