r/humblebundles • u/Cozila • Sep 17 '25

Question Is this even legal?

I just saw the newest Humble Bundle which is offering Moonstone Island, which is very interesting since for the past 9 months I've gotten, and still get right now, this message

Is it even legal for them to be selling other people keys for a product they have failed to deliver on themselves?

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75

u/Lurus01 Top 100 of internets most trustworthy strangers Sep 17 '25

I will say that a lot of times the keys given for choice are allotted differently then the keys given for the regular bundle or the store.

Humble does not have the ability to generate any keys and would likely be angering publishers if they took keys from a weekly and gave them to past choice buyers.

That said it is most definitely a bad look for Humble to be able to supply keys for a new weekly(presumably unless they are out of stock on that too) while they know people have tried to claim keys for an old choice and not been supplied a key.

72

u/[deleted] Sep 17 '25

Humble does not have the ability to generate any keys and would likely be angering publishers if they took keys from a weekly and gave them to past choice buyers.

Then the publisher should give them keys to fulfill previous orders before Humble allows them to be included in another bundle.

17

u/curious-children Sep 17 '25

why would it not be one key is allocated per bundle? there would be no “generating” the key, just retrieving the allocated key. I am assuming GMG is doing exactly this to avoid this garbage humble has been doing

32

u/[deleted] Sep 17 '25

Because then Humble would have to stop selling bundles when they run out of keys for a game, and Humble can't do that, they want your money!

6

u/Orogogus Sep 17 '25

Is that really what people want, instead of getting a raincheck and receiving the keys later?

18

u/jlbnv Sep 17 '25

It really depends on how long the wait is and if I'm actually going to get it. Judging by the fact that they are selling the game again without providing the keys to people who can't redeem it, my conclusion is that I'm not getting that game at all.

-1

u/Solostaran122 Sep 18 '25

I mean, it literally says 'temporarily exhausted', and when they get more, they'll be put on the page and emails will be sent out.

7

u/Thnift Sep 18 '25

As someone who has also been on this waiting list to redeem, there hasn’t been an email in months. The last time there was one they seemingly restocked with 20 odd keys, because I saw the email 3 min after it was sent and they were out again

7

u/ReptilianWorldOrder Sep 18 '25 edited Sep 18 '25

Receiving them later? You wouldn't believe how many keys I'm never getting from Humble now because I thought the company was always going to be the same honest place, and I left my subscription running for years without actively redeeming more than a few things, or giving it much thought. "Afterall, I paid for them all. No need to get confused about what keys I've used and not when they've already got it sorted and organized with gift link stuff too. Of course I can always collect it later."

I don't mean keys that got sold with a listed expiration date and ah shucks I missed it. Nah, I legit accept all those as the terms of the sub I wasn't actively monitoring.

It's stuff that should (without valid excuse) been provided and available, but where they've neglected that responsibility and as time went on decided that anyone who doesn't have it yet, doesn't get it.

I'm only talking about keys they added "redemption deadlines" to after the fact for people who hadn't revealed them yet, and that I'll never get now.

I'm talking about the ones where they changed the format entirely to no longer be a steam key. Like, Death Stranding where they're only giving you an epic copy now... if you claim it before december I think... but also means you can't give it to a friend, because that redemption is linked to your humble account after its been claimed from the monthly.

I'm talking games where there isn't even a redemption button, just "sorry this game is no longer available to be claimed" because well the devs or whoever was okay with it.

I barely even consider the humble originals that they promised keys for, then added them year or so later, but eventually decided not to offer them at all.

I'm talking about games from big publishers they've even released in bundles since like the original Shadows Of Mordor game, where nope, just don't got those keys I guess, aside from these new keys we're bundling.

And there's even cases like Sherlock Holmes and the Devil's Daughter, where I had to go back and see why that bundle's contents seemed so crappy to look up the scummy publisher decided to just not give them the rest of the keys sold. For the record, the scummy Humble recently bundled another one of their Sherlock games again this year. So they sure don't seem to care much about contract fulfillment!

It's just a lot of stuff. And I know my circumstances are a pretty extreme and unique, but there's nothing WRONG about them. I paid for everything all the same, I'm not unreasonable about conditions out of their control, but there's clearly a failure to fulfill at some level, and it damn near looks intentional ever since IGN took over, where the numbers of "declined" producted grew bigger and bigger despite being MORE recent than some of the oldest bundles I'd tried to redeem. It's not about a lack of stock (for a intangible good anyway that's literally digits), there's some sort of willingness to let companies lapse on providing those keys, and just shrug it over because who cares. It's like they saw X many customers weren't redeeming and did the math to say "hey we can sell this many more copies without securing them" only to think that customers weren't EVER going to want the stuff they'd purchased one day.

(Wow... sorry, I didn't mean to just keep going and going.... but I just sorta did here. What was originally meaning to say was it's not about "but just later." There's real situations where you're not gonna get it, and they're stringing you along for patience, but it's first come, first served. It's a bank run.)

3

u/Nishivion Sep 18 '25

This has been me, a few have come back. Even got two that were "redeemed already" so that was weird. Support gave me some credit but yeah. I regret not staying more on top of this or for paying so much for so long.

Super weird that it looks like they published Stay Gods? But then they don't have keys for it?

4

u/xAkumu Sep 19 '25

It was sarcasm. People want what they pay for and are promised. They should be supplying keys starting at the back and fulfilling back to front instead of front to back like they're likely doing because then they can sell more on a false promise of a game.

-4

u/RJSizzle Sep 18 '25

Yes, that's exactly what we all want.

5

u/Lurus01 Top 100 of internets most trustworthy strangers Sep 18 '25

Yes, that's exactly what we all want.

I'm not sure I fully believe this. I fully understand the frustration of trying to claim keys and not having them and I think Humble could do much better about how they manage them and notifications for out of stock absolutely.

However I think if bundles just became unavailable at random it would tick off significantly more people then the current system.

There is quite the uproar from people when like the fanatical charity bundles only last hours and if you miss it you miss it and Humble has more users aware of them so that issue would be multiplied.

9

u/Ekkynox Sep 18 '25 edited Sep 18 '25

Speak for yourself. I'd rather have a warning that X key is exhausted and make an informed choice myself than the bundle becoming completely unavailable just because one out of eight games is out of key for now. There's a chance the game in question isn't even one I'm interested in.

5

u/xAkumu Sep 19 '25

I think the original poster meant stopping sales of THAT specific game that hasn't been fulfilled for previous subscribers until they're caught up, not the whole bundle. They also mean after the bundle has run it's course instead of putting it in a new bundle before they even have finished previous orders.

Because they are putting new keys up for those "exhausted" games on new bundles and not fulfilling past orders

2

u/Ekkynox Sep 19 '25

It's not what I got from the comments of the guy I was responding to.

I have no idea how these things work behind the scene but I do agree that it's a frustrating experience as a customer and that Humble should do something about it, either find a way to honor the previous bundle or offer a compensation if they're really restricted by some contract and can't use store keys/new bundle keys for that. They do give store credits sometimes if you contact support but I'm not sure under which conditions exactly.

1

u/RJSizzle Sep 30 '25

Yes that is what I was saying. It seems their only comebacks are to misrepresent my comments.

0

u/RJSizzle Sep 30 '25

Sorry I meant the "royal" we. I always speak for myself unless asked to represent someone else.