Humble Monthly is a new project by the Humble Bundle people that has just seen it’s first bundle. The idea is very simple: you pay $12 a month for an unknown bundle that gets released the first week of every month. As opposed to the usual Humble Bundles, you do not know what you’re getting when you pay. It works in a very similar way to the popular Loot Crate, and other such services, but with digital games and other goodies instead of physical crates. The question is: is it worth it?
The first month was certainly worth it and anyone who did not subscribe for the month might be feeling a bit foolish. Since the first month was their debut, it was almost certain that Humble Bundle was going to bring us a pretty insane bundle so that people would be more inclined to buy next month’s bundle. Anyone who took the risk – like myself – was kindly rewarded with $103.93 worth of games (not taking into account any deals Steam might have).
Since you only pay $12 for each month’s Humble Monthly, this is equivalent to an 88% discount on some pretty new and amazing games. In terms of raw value, this sounds like a great deal, but here is the catch: Humble Bundle or monthly games are not allowed to be resold. I mean, you can try using G2A or something of the sort to sell your keys but if you are found out your account is revoked. In other words, buying this bundle for the sake of making money is not the best idea and thus raw monetary value is not a good measurement of how worthy this bundle is. On top of that, we know that the first month’s bundle is going to be better, even if only slightly, than the following months so judging the value of this bundle by the objective quality of the games (through review scores and whatnot) is also not a good way to go along with this either. What do we do then?
The only way to analyze the value of Humble Monthly is through a subjective analysis of what the bundle’s aura feels like. Yes, this sounds stupid, but hear me out. The games given in the this subscription bundle are amazing games but they are also, for the most part, not triple-A titles (depends on what you might consider Saints Row). There wasn’t much hype built around them, and most of the games sound familiar but are relatively unknown to the majority of the community. This is exactly what Humble Monthly should be like.
The biggest issue in a blind bundle is that players may already own some, if not all, games in the bundle (like I did with Valkyria Chronicles). Alternatively, if they don’t own them, they might have a reason to not own the games. What the Humble Staff did is pick a variety of games that are either not well known – yet still have positive reviews or a cult following – or pick games that you might already have a reason not to buy, which has nothing to do with the quality of the game.
What does this mean? Well, take Besiege, for example. The game has been streamed by many, is pretty well known, and many people on Steam already own it. However, a large chunk of the people that don’t own the game have not bought it yet because it is an early access title. Thus, people would love to play the game but can’t because something is stopping them. Similarly, Lethal League is an indie multiplayer game that has been revered by many. However, the issue with games such as Lethal League or Dive Kick is that since the community is considerably smaller, people might just buy a dead game. If you include it in a blind bundle, however, people will at least give it a go and this will also help revitalize the community, thus improving the quality of the game.
All in all, the bundle is superb and very ingeniously made. This type of offer may not be for everyone but if you’re the kind of gamer that likes trying new, innovative games or enjoys the “blindfold experience” of playing a game without knowing anything about it, then this bundle is for you. If, however, game diversity is not your thing or you look for very specific kind of games, look elsewhere as Humble Monthly is too dangerous a risk. If this bundle has seemed at all appealing to you, please click the link to check it out.
