Steam bundles have traditionally been a problem for those who own at least one title from them. That has now changed as Steam will be discounting bundles based on games that already exist in customers’ libraries.
In the past, gamers would have to settle for picking up another copy of a game they own just to get the bundle discount; a copy that they would be unable to gift to away. This was generally viewed as a disincentive to buy game bundles since it ended up translating into paying more per game.
Documents sent by Valve to developers explains the situation, “With Steam Bundles, if a customer already [owns] some items in the Bundle, they will pay for and receive only the items not already in their account. This allows the best fans of your series or franchise to ‘complete the set’ and get a deal on the remaining items in the Bundle.”
The new system is already in place, and those on Steam should be seeing games they own being removed from bundles being sold. We checked the Counter Strike complete bundle and sure enough, it removed Counter Strike: Global Offensive from the deal. The price of the bundle was similarly reduced and even displays how much of a discount was applied to the total cost.
Interestingly, the system doesn’t quite handle situations of people who already own all the games in the bundle. Then again, it probably won’t be selling bundles to people who own that many games in the first place.
Steam users have been asking for this feature for years now, and it is about time that it has been implemented in the system. It would have been nice if we had the option to pay for the extra copies of owned games and give them away.
[Source: Polygon]
