The Humble Bundle not abandoning its indie roots, assures co-founder John Graham

There's been a growing concern with the most recent Humble THQ Bundle that the company, which has built a reputation for combining independent games with a popular pay-what-you-want model and DRM-free downloads, could be abandoning the very principles that made it so appealing when it first launched back in 2010.

The Humble THQ Bundle, which has proved to be quite popular among gamers, offers buyers a number of high-profile games published by THQ. Aside from their relative star power, the THQ bundle breaks precedent by being sold as Steam-activated Windows downloads.

The main concern, however, appears to be the games themselves. Darksiders, Company of Heroes (and its Opposing Fronts and Tales of Valor expansions), Metro 2033, and Red Faction: Armageddon are currently being offered as part of the bundle, along with a copy of Saits Row: The Third for those who spend more than the average sale price. Those certainly aren't the AAA titles that we've seen released these past few weeks, but they aren't exactly indie either. Nothing about THQ, aside from its recent financial troubles, screams "indie". So the big question is, does the Humble THQ Bundle open the doors for bigger publishers to offer similar bundles, meaning less indie bundles? 

Not exactly. Speaking 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," he added. Graham said the new THQ bundle doesn't represent a departure from its indie roots, but rather its focus on experimenting.

"This year has also been a year of many experiments for us that fall outside the traditional Humble Indie Bundle framework," Graham said. "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."

Graham even said that there's a chance fans could see the release of a third indie Humble Bundle this year. And for those of you worrying about platforms, Graham promised the Humble Bundle "will not cease in our quest to bring awesome content to Mac and Linux and Android."

I, for one, don't mind the occasional large publisher offering their games on the Humble Bundle – especially THQ which has seen some troubling times in terms of finances. Have you purchased the Humble THQ Bundle?