Media giant IGN announced today that it has acquired Humble Bundle, the company best known for selling packs of indie games at pay-what-you-want prices. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
This is potentially a big deal for game developers, since Humble has expanded beyond its bundling business to publish games, pay devs to make games for its subscription-based monthly game club, maintain a subscription-based online game trove, and operate an online game storefront.
However, a press release confirming the deal also noted that Humble will continue to operate independently in the wake of the acquisition, with no significant business or staffing changes. It will have some degree of support from IGN (which is itself owned by digital media giant J2 Global), specifically in terms of accelerating growth and raising more money for charity.
Humble grew out of a bundle of indie games sold to raise money for charity in 2010, and in the seven years since it has raised over $100 million for charity. In a conversation today with Gamasutra, Humble cofounder John Graham and IGN executive VP Mitch Galbraith reiterated that IGN does not intend to change the way Humble does business.
“If it’s not broken, don’t fix it,” said Galbraith, who explained that IGN started looking to make a deal like this nearly a year ago. “The idea is just to feed them with the resources they need to keep doing what they’re doing.”
“We want to stick to the fundamentals in the short term. We don’t want to disrupt anything we’re doing right already,” added Graham. “Because of the shared vision and overlap of our customer bases, there’s going to be a lot of opportunities.”