Yeah, that site's run alittle shifty.
I don't mean to say it's a questionable place to shop or that it's gonna disappear anytime soon, just that I've just had bad dealings.

Not only Humble Bundles, but Humble Store itself. 98% of the games there are DRM free, a lot of them cross-platform. When you buy a game there they give you both DRM free installers and Steam keys when available, so you can choose yourself how you want the game. It is also the DD store which gives a largest cut to the developers (95% as opposed the more normal ~75%) if supporting devs is a bonus.

The problem is that it has no frontend, it is sold through widgets on devs webpages. It is therefore not possible to browse the store. There are a few community driven sites which attempts to collect all games sold via HS, for example http://calvein.github.io/humble-games/ and http://pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Humble_Store.

If you buy a game via one of the widgets, the game and keys are stored in your Humble account, the same which is used for Humble Bundles. It is my store of choice :)

Which raises the question, why are they marketing them as DRM-free then? Or aren't the publishers supposed to see it that they are marketed as such?

But I guess it just depends on the definition. "So what if it requires authentication as you install the game? It is DRM-free from that point forward.".

They could go even further: "The game only authenticates itself in the beginning whenever you run it. But after that, you can run it completely DRM-free, even disconnect from internet if you want to! It won't try to authenticate itself anymore, until you run the game again of course. So yeah, DRM-free!".

For purchasing DRM-free games, there are two levels of acceptance to me:

1. The GamersGate/Steam way, where some titles are DRM-free "sort of", or not even marketed as one, they just happen to be (with or without some workaround).

2. GOG or DotEmu, where the DRM-free is more prominent and one of their selling points. They are not acting double-faced, as leading publishers to believe there is certain level of DRM, but letting there be loopholes so that people can still get it DRM-free with workarounds.

Buying from 1 still grants me a DRM-free version of the game, but it still sends the wrong signal to publishers, as if I am fine with their DRM (when I am not). Hence, 2 still preferred.

/me takes a bow

What are these bad dealings? Please elaborate :)

The worst was the way they backed out of their IGN Prime deal.
If you were a subscriber you'd get a permanent 15% off all purchases.
Out of the blue I received an email last November telling me that my permanent discount was coming to an end without an explanation as to why.
As far as I pieced together IGN ran free trials of their Prime which gave away codes for the GG discount, so people abused the crap out of it and instead of sorting the mess out they just gave everyone the finger and killed the discount.

So haven't given any patronage to either since

The other times were just odd billing errors that got corrected eventually.

OK, thanks for the heads up!

Wouldn't it be awesome if there was a company offering pay what you want bundles guaranteed to be DRM free and cross platform? Maybe they could go so far even as helping companies with porting games to Linux and/or Mac OSX? Consistently giving you the option to support the EFF would be very nice too.

GOG's guaranteed DRM freeness is excellent and I wish some other store or company offered that as well. Don't you think that would be a great idea? Especially if that company unlike GOG supported Linux(consistently). I think that would be a great idea.

Consistency in branding and communication is extremely importance. With GOG I know there are some ideals I can count on beeing respected with every single game they release. ALL of them will be DRM free. I don't think any other company or service comes close to that.

Well, almost every game I've ever bought from IGS came with a Linux version, and all of them had a DRM-free Windows version, so... Maybe take a look at that ? :P

I don't think such a scheme is sustainable. Indie Royale has a minimum. Indiegamestand had to mess with the auto-bta setting to make more people pay more than a cent over the average. HIB was the first, it has class, exclusivity and a highly limited window of opportunity. It can't be duplicated, and it sure as TRUE can't be expanded.

I only buy DRM-free games on GOG :)

Shiny Loot is too new and could easily go belly up.

GamersGate has terrible quality games, many of which simply don't work and, now, most of their new games require a Steam account to play.

I own around 70 games on GamersGate and at least 50 percent don't work at all or I had major problems installing them. Needless to say, I haven't bought a game there in a year.

On GOG? I now own 111 games. Only had minor problems with 2 of them and those problems were fixed in minutes.

GOG all the way for me, with the occasional purchase at Indie Game Stand -- and that's from someone who buys around 250 games a year :) No, unfortunately, they're not now.

Most of their new games require Steam. Steam is DRM. And you also cannot move the game to a different computer or even to a different hard drive on the same computer as the game simply stops working due to the installer DRM. Subject closed :)

I've also had similar 'bad dealings' :)

Many games on GG don't work correctly and, as a company, they don't give a toss once they have your money. In fact, there's no customer service to speak of as the replies you get take days and are almost always useless. Then it's up to you to find a fix on their forums -- IF someone on their forums knows how to fix it that is.

I currently have 4 games I bought from GG that won't play at all on either of my computers no matter what I try. At least 20 others gave me huge problems, and two of those would never have worked if someone on GOG hadn't given me a complicated fix that works.

GG has also now gone to just about 'Steam only, all of the time' and when I sent an email to their customer service asking why they were 'selling out' all I got back was something on the lines of "Shit happens" but more politely :)

I haven't bought anything on GG in a year and won't now. I'd also love to be able to get rid of the games I do own there and rebuy them on GOG or DotEmu but, once even attempted to download, you're stuck with them -- whether they work or not.

By the way, I used to be a HUGE GamersGate fan, even promoted them on my website and did free GamersGate giveaways. With all the problems I've had with their games and with their general We Don't Care About Our Customers As Long As We Get Your Money attitude, I wouldn't recommend them to anyone anymore. Sad as they once seemed like an extremely good viable option to GOG :(

I have an Easy way to circumvent DRM Go to your local games store or E-bay Buy The DISC version of said game and Install a No-cd / No-DVD crack for said game Problem Solved! This post will probably get me downrepped but what the hell I'm only being truthful! I bought Prey and Singularity from the UK took ages to get here Both games Installed with the No-DVD cracks work Fine!

Yep I used to be a HUGE fan of both steam and Direct 2 Drive until GameFly took over D2D I am Still FURIOUS they did this D2D was great I liked it I was able to buy games on it that were technically banned in Australia like Manhunt for example I never got manhunt I Had the money the day after they switched to gamefly I tried getting the game there it said "Product only available in the United states, Canada and Mexico Only" I got ASSED around considering I already bought the Elderscrolls 4 oblivion goty edition and Painkiller non black edition I felt totally ripped off! I call Gamefly a Pack of fly blown assholes I left and Haven't returned I was never told why I couldn't have any of those games Considering I had the money for them it was "Region locking" or "We're too fucking stuck up to sell to anyone outside our Country!" So yep I know what you are going through BloodyGoodGames!

Yep, I made the mistake of buying a couple of games on D2D. They're probably still there but I haven't been on the site in eons, not since GameFly took them over. Awful company and now-terrible site.

What Pisses me off is they are Digital downloads for Christs sake so why the Hell do they feel the need to region lock them even amazon does this it just isn't fair.