(See the bottom of this piece for an update from Humble Bundle co-founder John Graham)

Since its successful debut back in 2010, the Humble Bundle has built a reputation for combining little-known independent games with a popular pay-what-you-want model and platform-agnostic, DRM-free downloads. The company's latest bundle, a partnership with major publisher THQ, could ruin that reputation in one stroke by abandoning some of the core principles that made the Humble Bundle so refreshingly different two years ago.

The Humble THQ Bundle launching today offers buyers a number of the publisher's legacy titles—Darksiders, Company of Heroes (and its Opposing Fronts and Tales of Valor expansions), Metro 2033, and Red Faction®: Armageddon—along with a copy of Saints Row: The Third for those who fork out more than the average sale price of the bundle. While past Humble Bundles have prided themselves on offering their games as DRM-free downloads for Windows, Mac, or Linux, though, the THQ bundle breaks precedent by providing games only as Steam-activated Windows downloads.

The new bundle also slightly tweaks the pure pay-what-you-want structure of past bundles, setting a $1 minimum purchase price. A similar threshhold was put in place for purchasers who wanted access to Steam keys during the Humble Indie Bundle 4 in order to prevent people "legitimizing" fraudulent Steam accounts with a bevy of cheap games.

I definitely see the logic of this new bundle from THQ's point of view. The publisher gets to trade on the Humble Bundle's good name in order to promote older titles that aren't exactly burning up the sales charts anymore. Any additional revenue gained from what's essentially a massive pay-what-you-want sale on its back catalog is pure gravy for THQ. Plus, exposing new players to these franchises increases the potential audience for upcoming sequels like Metro: Last Light and Company of Heroes 2.

But the move makes less sense from the Humble Bundle's standpoint. The Bundle built a name for itself by promoting lesser-known, quality independent games that the creators believed in—games that deserved a wider audience than traditional set-price sales schemes or limited indie marketing budgets would allow. THQ may not be as strong as it once was, but its games hardly need the Humble Bundle's support as much as their indie brethren. Saints Row: The Third recently shipped its 5 millionth copy, thanks in part to a massive marketing campaign alongside last year's release. Using the bundle as further promotion for already successful, big-budget games is the antithesis of "humble," and it dilutes the power and impact of what it means to be part of a Humble Bundle in the first place.

The move away from DRM-free multiplatform distribution might be even more damaging to the Humble Bundle's brand. Back when the first Humble Bundle launched, cofounder Jeffrey Rosen was very open about tolerating piracy rates of up to 25 percent in order to ensure the bundle would be DRM-free. With pay-what-you-want prices as little as 1¢, Rosen said he realized that most pirates were probably just getting around region-locked payment processors or pirating out of sheer laziness. "When considering any kind of DRM, we have to ask ourselves, 'How many legitimate users is it OK to inconvenience in order to reduce piracy?'" he wrote at the time. "The answer should be none."

While Steam may not be a huge inconvenience for gamers these days, its inconvenience level is considerably higher than "none." No doubt THQ was uncomfortable widely releasing its titles in a totally unprotected format (never mind that all its bundled titles are already widely available as cracked torrents). Less clear is why the Humble Bundle was willing to essentially sell out this core part of its DNA just to get THQ on board (Humble Bundle representatives have yet to respond to our request for comment). Perhaps tellingly, the option to donate a portion of the bundle purchase price to the Electronic Frontier Foundation has been replaced this time around with the option to donate to the Red Cross instead.

In the past, the Humble Bundle has been a boon to gamers on non-Windows platforms as well. By requiring that all bundled PC games also be available for Mac and Linux users, the Humble Bundle has led directly to new, non-Windows ports for a number of well-regarded indie games, including Bastion, Psychonauts, and Sword and Sworcery EP. The company continued its cross-platform tradition by urging a number of iOS-to-Android ports for its Humble Android Bundles and even hired a full-time Linux game porter recently to help the process along in the future.

Theoretically, this same pressure could have been brought to bear on THQ, requiring the publisher to work on Mac and Linux ports for its big-name games if it wanted access to the Humble Bundle name and sales platform. Instead, those in charge of the bundle seem perfectly OK with diluting yet another key element of the Humble Bundle experience in getting its first major publisher on board.

Building a successful brand is tough, but ruining a successful brand can be distressingly easy. By effectively ignoring many of the elements that made the Humble Bundle interesting and different in the first place, the Humble THQ Bundle risks irreparably harming what is currently a nearly unimpeachable brand in the world of game sales and distribution.

UPDATE

In a response to Ars, Humble Bundle co-founder John Graham assured users the company will "never stop creating Humble Indie Bundles... and the other bundle types we've successfully launched this year. But we’re also eager to see if our pay-what-you-want plus charity model meshes with critically acclaimed AAA content as well."

Graham said the new THQ bundle did not represent a permanent departure from the company's indie roots, and that the company may even release a third indie bundle this year. "This year has also been a year of many experiments for us that fall outside the traditional Humble Indie Bundle framework," Graham told us. "We’re very excited to be able to offer the gaming community a massive sale with blockbuster content and raise money for charity at the same time. We will of course continue to support indies content as a core of our business."

Regarding the lack of Mac and Linux ports this time around, Graham said plainly that, "in the case of this promotion, it would not have been possible for us to deliver this blockbuster content via other means." But Graham also promised the Humble Bundle "will not cease in our quest to bring awesome content to Mac and Linux and Android," and pointed out that the Humble eBook Bundle contained the first digital publication of Neil Gaiman's graphic novel Signal to Noise.