The latest Humble bundle has something really shady going on. [Up: It does not]

Deleted member 1849 · Jan 13, 2018

https://medium.com/@themasterofcube...-on-with-humble-bundle-right-now-b79c7e1d30a3

Hey guys! There was a thread here a few hours ago about how shady the latest Humble Bundle is, and the evidence that the charity being supported isn't legitimate. I spent a while collecting the evidence we found and writing it up and I emailed it to Laura and Jim so that hopefully one of them can publish something about this unacceptable situation and try to make Humble answer for themselves. (I might put this together more nicely with some extra research on my own YouTube channel) I'm looking for other games journalists who I can email this to, and I'll also post the entire body of it here for anybody who missed the last post or didn't see just how shady it gets (the worst part is at the end). Also, feel free to just copy this and send it wherever you want ofc...

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

Essentially, there's a real chance the Orphan charity chosen for the Humble Hope for The Orphans bundle is not legitimate.

This was brought to my attention through the Steam thread:

AHA-Lambda said:
Eh... So apparently the latest humble bundle is shady??

https://medium.com/@themasterofcube...-on-with-humble-bundle-right-now-b79c7e1d30a3

Edit: From evidence posted in this thread, the charity does seem to be legitimate. However, I still feel that the religious ties within the organisation should be better highlighted. Helping orphans "find Jesus Christ" is not what many would think of when trying to actually help orphans. This is their main mission statement:

The mission of Change30 is to inspire purpose in Russian orphans by providing them with the love, guidance & critical resources they need to lead fulfilling lives & develop a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

That's not to say religious organisations shouldn't get money from Humble, but I feel this is something people should be aware of before donating. For comparison, here is the statement compared to the statement on the Humble website:

Our mission is to inspire purpose in Russian orphans by providing them with the love, guidance & resources they need to lead fulfilling lives. Our heart is for the orphans of Russia to not only survive, but thrive.

For the post in the thread which clarified that they are a licensed charity:

Wapcaplet said:
The charity description listed on Humble is the same as on the landing page of the charity's web site, but Humble probably got it from Paypal's site, since donations to Humble go through Paypal:

https://www.paypal.com/fundraiser/charity/1214373

The EIN on that Paypal page shows that it is a properly registered IRS 501(c)(3) nonprofit, albeit under the other name of Fund Pchyolka:

https://apps.irs.gov/app/eos/pub78S...patchMethod=searchCharities&submitName=Search

You can research their past tax returns via ProPublica (which doesn't require a login, unlike Guidestar):

https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/261112685

The tax returns show the complete list of directors. Here's their 2015 return:

https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/download-filing?path=2016_08_EO/26-1112685_990_201512.pdf

So far, the only thing that looks a little shady is that the charity doesn't trumpet its Christian roots, but they are legitimate in the eyes of the IRS, and they've been around for nearly 10 years.

The use of this charity with a bundle that includes shooters may just be an unfortunate coincidence.

Edit 2:

themasterofcubes said:
Hi everybody! I'm the author of the Medium article that this thread is about. The last few posts seem to have gone to the concept of charities in general, but I made an account here to respond to some posts.

Firstly, I'm not a journalist, just a guy who makes game reviews on YouTube sometimes. Medium is a website where anyone can post an essay, it's just Twitter but for long-form writing more or less. This was just supposed to be a Facebook post for a group I'm active in that was already talking about this, but someone asked if I could copy it to a shareable format, and here we are.

Secondly, thank you all for calling me out on not linking to the Facebook page in the article. As soon as I finish writing this post, I will make that edit. I saw the Facebook page but wasn't sure what to make of it: on the one hand, they have clearly done events, but the posts were vague about the actual work they claim to do, and I didn't know how to check whether or not those were stock photos. I simply forgot to include it when I was writing up the post. And yes, I did make many different searches with "Change30" in the terms on Google and did find that site. My point with the "Change30 Charity" search was that you would expect a real, business-minded charity to have done the SEO optimization on their website to make it come up when people are looking for charities to donate to.

Thirdly, there's been an update where people have shared with me enough evidence to show that they are a real charity. I am glad about this! The questions left to be resolved are why Change30 seems to try to hide that they are the English face of a charity called Fund Pchyolka, and why their Russian website doesn't disclose who their chairman, Daniel Plox, is.

Finally, I just want to note that I don't want to defame Humble or anything. I've spent a *lot* of money on that site. I also am not really looking for an apology. My point is that I want Humble to explain how they got in contact with this charity, how they vet their partners, and, most importantly, why they don't include any real information about the charity anywhere on the Humble Bundle site. if we don't call this stuff out and expect companies to be transparent and give us a basic amount of information about what we're spending money on, there could be worse misconduct.

Thank you all for helping this article reach as many people as it has, I only posted it publicly for one guy! Thanks to this attention we have confirmed that it is a real charity, and that is a great thing which was only possible from signal boosting the issue and having these conversations.

Brandon · Jan 13, 2018

Make sure to pass this along to IGN, they'll surely cover it!

Deleted member 36578 · Jan 13, 2018

When I give to any charity I do my research to make sure it's going to the right hands. I'm sure there are lots of charities out there where someone is taking a larger piece of the pie and just obtaining money from the unassuming. Or even completely fake charities. That said, even though I've bought plenty of humble bundles, I actually never have followed the trail to see if the charity portion of them is legitimate. That would be terrible if true.

chadskin · Jan 13, 2018

Good detective work. Humble's got some 'splainin to do.

Shedinja · Jan 13, 2018

So, best case scenario would be that this was a mistake...

...which would mean that they don't vet all the charities they work with.

benzopil · Jan 13, 2018

This organisation doesn't even have a community on our biggest Russian social network. Definitely seems suspitious.

jtb · Jan 13, 2018

edit: my original post was a little much. The whole thing is weird and shady and I wouldn't personally donate to it. I wish Humble had better disclosure and transparency into what these charities are doing.

TangoAlphaLima · Jan 13, 2018

Xater · Jan 13, 2018

I really hope we will here something from Humble about this...

Deleted member 19813 · Jan 13, 2018

Xater said:
I really hope we will here something from Humble about this...

As do I. This is some shit.

Cocaloch · Jan 13, 2018

jtb said:
Even giving every actor in this story benefit of the doubt, it's fucking appalling that they would pair an "orphans" charity with some violent shooting games. That was a big, fat red flag that something was off from the start.

That's before you even get into the choice of Russian orphans (I could be wrong, but isn't this a huge political sticking point with the Magnitsky act?) and the potemkin charity they've got going here.

Very disappointing... at the very least Humble owes some kind of public explanation and /or apology

Not being transparent certainly isn't a good thing, but I don't know why they should apologize for the rest of it. And I'm saying that as the sibling of someone who was a Russian orphan.

banefirelord · Jan 13, 2018

This is very, very weird. Can't help but feel like there's something bigger going on here.

Deleted member 19739 · Jan 13, 2018

hmmm, that is some shady stuff

Chairmanchuck (另一个我) · Jan 13, 2018

Cocaloch said:
Not being transparent certainly isn't a good thing, but I don't know why they should apologize for the rest of it. And I'm saying that as the sibling of someone who was a Russian orphan.

Its not even a charity as it seems. Its not listed in any of the charity listings. It could easily be that the money is going to that one guy listed there.

jtb · Jan 13, 2018

Cocaloch said:
Not being transparent certainly isn't a good thing, but I don't know why they should apologize for the rest of it. And I'm saying that as the sibling of someone who was a Russian orphan.

Because it's tasteless and, like you say, they should be transparent. Apology is only needed if it ends up that there's something shady. They're giving them a platform, they should at least be providing consumers some confidence and transparency into where they're money is going.

Deleted member 1849 · Jan 13, 2018

Shedinja said:
So, best case scenario would be that this was a mistake...

...which would mean that they don't vet all the charities they work with.

Essentially... yes. Unless something else comes up which puts this evidence in doubt.

They really need to make sure they do a proper fact check of any charity they agree to do a bundle with.

shinken · Jan 13, 2018

When I google Change30 I do get their official website and facebook page and their vimeo channel.

ItIsOkBro · Jan 13, 2018

well, they have this vimeo channel
:https://vimeo.com/change30

even if they're legit, don't think I want to donate to a religious organization.

psychrage · Jan 13, 2018

shinken said:
When I google Change30 I do get their official website and facebook page and their vimeo channel.

Yup, Same. Maybe the journalist was looking for "Hope for Orphans", thinking that was the charity name?

Jacob LeBeau · Jan 13, 2018

Screw Humble Bundles

erpg · Jan 13, 2018

Russian orphans? Maybe this is all linked back to the Trump campaign.

LinkStrikesBack · Jan 13, 2018

Shedinja said:
So, best case scenario would be that this was a mistake...

...which would mean that they don't vet all the charities they work with.

To be fair, they may have used to, who knows what changes IGN introduced when they took over.

SirNinja · Jan 13, 2018

Are you telling me there's something suspicious about the Super Fun Happy Orphan-Helping Sunshine & Rainbows Bundle featuring Killing Floor, Red Orchestra, Homefront, and Rising Star Vietnam?

Jebusman · Jan 13, 2018

From the medium article:

As such, that poster did the research and found their website (which isn't easy by the way, it doesn't come up in a Google search for the charity)

I literally opened a new tab, typed in "Change30", and the first result was the website.

I feel like not a lot of effort was put into this.

shinken · Jan 13, 2018

psychrage said:
Yup, Same. Maybe the journalist was looking for "Hope for Orphans", thinking that was the charity name?

Nah, the article specifically mentions googling "Change30 charity".

Secondly information on this charity is virtually nonexistent. Googling "change30 charity" only results in completely unrelated results, articles about the Humble Bundle (which clearly have not looked into the charity being supported)

The Change30 facebook page also is filled with tons of posts, seems like an awful lot of work to be a scam, but i'm not a detective, so who knows....

Cocaloch · Jan 13, 2018

Chairmanchuck said:
Its not even a charity as it seems. Its not listed in any of the charity listings. It could easily be that the money is going to that one guy listed there.

jtb said:
Because it's tasteless and, like you say, they should be transparent. Apology is only needed if it ends up that there's something shady. They're giving them a platform, they should at least be providing consumers some confidence and transparency into where they're money is going.

Yeah I agree with that, I just don't think they need to apologize for it being tasteless. The charity being shady is the real problem.

Deleted member 1055 · Jan 13, 2018

This is really disappointing, even if only because of the sectarian purpose of the charity.

shinken said:
When I google Change30 I do get their official website and facebook page and their vimeo channel.

The author seemingly only googled "change30 charity".
Change30 does not appear to describe itself as a charity anywhere, which explains why the author did not find anything.

shinken · Jan 13, 2018

Exzyleph said:
This is really disappointing, even if only for the sectarian purpose of the charity.

The author seemingly only googled "change30 charity".
Change30 does not appear to describe itself as a charity anywhere, which explains why the author did not find anything.

Googling change30 charity still gets you the facebook page. Just scrolled through the official page and they don't seem to use the word "charity" at all. If you google "change30 donate" or just "change30" you'll find it. The writer is supposed to do research on an organization, not sure why he would give up by only googling "change30 charity" and nothing else. Even so, like I said, he would still have seen the facebook page. Not like he says totally unrelated results.
Aside from the Facebook page, they also have a Twitter account, registered back in 2010 and an Instagram page. Both have tons of posts.

SeacatsAndCicadas · Jan 13, 2018

Exzyleph said:
This is really disappointing, even if only because of the sectarian purpose of the charity.

The author seemingly only googled "change30 charity".
Change30 does not appear to describe itself as a charity anywhere, which explains why the author did not find anything.

"Charity organization in Conway, Arkansas"

Jebusman · Jan 13, 2018

I mean from about 5 minutes of research, aka, doing a whois on the change30 domain name, they're a christian mission teaching russian orphans to love jesus.

FYG Services (company who registered the domain) looks to be related to Farmington Church of Christ, based out of Kansas/Arkansas (the church itself on the Kansas side, the charity on the Arkansas side).

If I had to guess, FYG stands for Farmington Youth Group, part of the youth ministry.

I wouldn't call them a charity, but they likely do accept donations to "aid" their mission.

And by "aid" their mission I mean pay for the fancy houses they all likely live in back in AR.

So it's not that it's "not legit" as an organization, just that Humble did a real poor job of being transparent of what they are.

Adree · Jan 13, 2018

It being a religious charity sucks but I flipped through their Facebook and it seems legit.

Deleted member 1055 · Jan 13, 2018

shinken said:
Googling change30 charity still gets you the facebook page. Just scrolled through the official page and they don't seem to use the word "charity" at all. If you google "change30 donate" or just "change30" you'll find it. The writer is supposed to do research on an organization, not sure why he would give up by only googling "change30 charity" and nothing else. Even so, like I said, he would still have seen the facebook page. Not like he says totally unrelated results.
Aside from the Facebook page, they also have a Twitter account, registered back in 2010 and an Instagram page. Both have tons of posts.

SeacatsAndCicadas said:
"Charity organization in Conway, Arkansas"

You are right.
I somehow overlooked the 3rd hit on the Google search results for "change30 charity", which was a link to their FB profile.

My bad.

Drayco21 · Jan 13, 2018

Exzyleph said:
This is really disappointing, even if only because of the sectarian purpose of the charity.

The author seemingly only googled "change30 charity".
Change30 does not appear to describe itself as a charity anywhere, which explains why the author did not find anything.

Their website describes themselves as

Change30's mission is to inspire purpose in the lives of Russian orphans by providing them with the love, support & resources they need to lead fulfilled lives.

Sounds like a charity to me. I'm only doing a cursory look tho; not denying it might have layers of shady underneath.

Deleted member 1055 · Jan 13, 2018

Drayco21 said:
Their website describes themselves as

Sounds like a charity to me. I'm only doing a cursory look tho; not denying it might have layers of shady underneath.

I simply meant that they did not use the word "charity":
https://www.google.com/search?q=site:change30.org+charity

That was, however, a mistake on my part. See above.

KonradLaw · Jan 13, 2018

Shame about the charity's legitimacy if true. That said, the complains about violent games in the bundle are pretty damn funny.

Deleted member 2171 · Jan 13, 2018

Meanwhile, Child's Play, which is a charity that literally only buys new games, meaning you're just raising money that goes back to Amazon/Activision/EA/Nintendo/Microsoft/Sony/Ubisoft ....

Wapcaplet · Jan 13, 2018

The charity description listed on Humble is the same as on the landing page of the charity's web site, but Humble probably got it from Paypal's site, since donations to Humble go through Paypal:

https://www.paypal.com/fundraiser/charity/1214373

The EIN on that Paypal page shows that it is a properly registered IRS 501(c)(3) nonprofit, albeit under the other name of Fund Pchyolka:

https://apps.irs.gov/app/eos/pub78S...patchMethod=searchCharities&submitName=Search

You can research their past tax returns via ProPublica (which doesn't require a login, unlike Guidestar):

https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/261112685

The tax returns show the complete list of directors. Here's their 2015 return:

https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/download-filing?path=2016_08_EO/26-1112685_990_201512.pdf

So far, the only thing that looks a little shady is that the charity doesn't trumpet its Christian roots, but they are legitimate in the eyes of the IRS, and they've been around for nearly 10 years.

The use of this charity with a bundle that includes shooters may just be an unfortunate coincidence.

strudelkuchen · Jan 13, 2018

Wapcaplet said:
The charity description listed on Humble is the same as on the landing page of the charity's web site, but Humble probably got it from Paypal's site, since donations to Humble go through Paypal:

https://www.paypal.com/fundraiser/charity/1214373

The EIN on that Paypal page shows that it is a properly registered IRS 501(c)(3) nonprofit, albeit under the other name of Fund Pchyolka:

https://apps.irs.gov/app/eos/pub78S...patchMethod=searchCharities&submitName=Search

You can research their past tax returns via ProPublica (which doesn't require a login, unlike Guidestar):

https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/261112685

The tax returns show the complete list of directors. Here's their 2015 return:

https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/download-filing?path=2016_08_EO/26-1112685_990_201512.pdf

So far, the only thing that looks a little shady is that the charity doesn't trumpet its Christian roots, but they are legitimate in the eyes of the IRS, and they've been around for nearly 10 years.

The use of this charity with a bundle that includes shooters may just be a poor coincidence.

You should post on medium, people believe everything they read there.

Rembrandt · Jan 13, 2018

FyreWulff said:
Meanwhile, Child's Play, which is a charity that literally only buys new games, meaning you're just raising money that goes back to Amazon/Activision/EA/Nintendo/Microsoft/Sony/Ubisoft...

that's a dumb way of saying what child play does.

ItIsOkBro · Jan 13, 2018

Wapcaplet said:
The charity description listed on Humble is the same as on the landing page of the charity's web site, but Humble probably got it from Paypal's site, since donations to Humble go through Paypal:

https://www.paypal.com/fundraiser/charity/1214373

The EIN on that Paypal page shows that it is a properly registered IRS 501(c)(3) nonprofit, albeit under the other name of Fund Pchyolka:

https://apps.irs.gov/app/eos/pub78S...patchMethod=searchCharities&submitName=Search

You can research their past tax returns via ProPublica (which doesn't require a login, unlike Guidestar):

https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/261112685

The tax returns show the complete list of directors. Here's their 2015 return:

https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/download-filing?path=2016_08_EO/26-1112685_990_201512.pdf

So far, the only thing that looks a little shady is that the charity doesn't trumpet its Christian roots, but they are legitimate in the eyes of the IRS, and they've been around for nearly 10 years.

The use of this charity with a bundle that includes shooters may just be an unfortunate coincidence.

overall the author's research efforts are incredibly lacking.

Deleted member 8106 · Jan 13, 2018

So this dude wrote an article trying to unleash a shitstorm without actually spending literally one minute on Google to prove what he is trying to achieve? Well, very professional. Maybe Humble did it wrong on not stating the religious aspect of this charity, but if you call yourself a journalist and you can't find the very first article reported on Google, in the future I won' t take seriously your articles for sure.

NewDust · Jan 13, 2018

Luckily Humble let's you choose where your money should go towards. Seems they now even added per game options. I'm almost always inclined to give the entirety of the money towards the devs.

In regards to this case, it all seems really weird. The bundling of these games with an orphan charity. Humble not specifying the charity operates through the Christian religion.

thistooshallpass · Jan 13, 2018

I don't trust any charities at all. As far as I'm concerned, they're all scams. I don't even trust the big well-known ones like Red Cross.

Deleted member 11413 · Jan 13, 2018

FyreWulff said:
Meanwhile, Child's Play, which is a charity that literally only buys new games, meaning you're just raising money that goes back to Amazon/Activision/EA/Nintendo/Microsoft/Sony/Ubisoft ....

They buy them for sick or underprivileged kids, right? Not sure how that's a bad thing, plenty of charities just buy things for people in need and distribute them.

Jebusman · Jan 13, 2018

PunishedSnake said:
So this dude wrote an article trying to unleash a shitstorm without actually spending literally one minute on Google to prove what he is trying to achieve? Well, very professional. Maybe Humble did it wrong on not stating the religious aspect of this charity, but if you call yourself a journalist and you can't find the very first article reported on Google, in the future I won' t take seriously your articles for sure.

Calling the person a journalist is a stretch.

Can't just about anybody sign up and post on Medium? Looking at the history of this person's posts (This and a Samus Returns review), I doubt he is much of one.

This looks like some people who did hot takes on the word "Russia" and then failed to do even the most cursory research.

Deleted member 7450 · Jan 13, 2018

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Waiting for more developments.

.exe · Jan 13, 2018

For what it's worth, Russian orphans have miserable fucking lives and the orphanages are horrendous. Even if it's a buncha Christian people helping out, that's a net good regardless of your religious convictions. Hope these people are legit.

The games listed in the HB (such as Red Orchestra/Rising Storm) are games that are very popular in Russia. Don't really get the skepticism from this angle of all things, but whatever.

Nosgotham · Jan 13, 2018

Grab your pitchforks everyone! Let's all jump to conclusions and burn the whole thing down!!

SteveWinwood · Jan 13, 2018

thistooshallpass said:
I don't trust any charities at all. As far as I'm concerned, they're all scams. I don't even trust the big well-known ones like Red Cross.

okay come the hell on

ShinUltramanJ · Jan 13, 2018

A thread from an article that was copied from a Facebook group related to a podcast.

Sounds like some legit detective work going on here! Is the goal to smear Humble Bundle when the article is trying to get people to run with this "story"?

Just by looking a Change30's Facebook page it looks to be legit.

The latest Humble bundle has something really shady going on. [Up: It does not]

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