Steam Bundles now cheaper if you already own included games

Steam Bundles are seeing a positive price shift as various bundles are lowering their price for players who already own one or more of the included titles.

First reported by PCGamesN, Valve explained this new pricing structure in an email to developers. "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 company explained.

"Past Complete Packs were sometimes a bad deal for customers that already [owned] one or more of the products in the pack," Valve added. "Either it made bad economic sense for those customers to purchase the pack, or they just felt bad about doing so since it [looked] like they were paying for products they already [had]. The new Steam Bundles system addresses this."

Indeed it appears this new practice is already in effect, at least for some bundles. For example, the Valve Complete Pack currently goes for $92.70 when searched for on the web browser where I wasn't logged in. But when I searched for it on the Steam client it noted that I already owned five of its titles in my library, and thus offered the same bundle for $68.85.

The Valve Complete Pack offers a bundle discount of 55 per cent off the total price of all the games included. Only now it factors in the total price of just title that aren't already in your library. So not owning any of the titles comes to a total of $205.80, while Steam noted that the "individual price of the 15 items you don't already have" is $152.85. The 55 per cent bundle discount is then applied to that total.

This doesn't appear to be Steam-wide yet, however. The LucasArts Back Pack came to $85.90 whether I was logged in or not, even though the Steam client was aware that I already had four of its titles in my library. This bundle doesn't offer a specific percentage discount though, so that might explain why it's not susceptible to this new structure.

Valve has yet to make a public announcement about this new pricing structure, so it's possible it hasn't yet rolled out across all of Steam. It's also unclear if publishers have any say in the matter. We've reached out to Valve asking for more details and will update should we hear more.

Will you support Eurogamer?

We want to make Eurogamer better, and that means better for our readers - not for algorithms. You can help! Become a supporter of Eurogamer and you can view the site completely ad-free, as well as gaining exclusive access to articles, podcasts and conversations that will bring you closer to the team, the stories, and the games we all love. Subscriptions start at £3.99 / $4.99 per month.

ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7psHRqJ6apZWne6%2Bx02iqrZ2Ronqjwc2do56rXaO8uHnCoZyaqJWneqqyjLKmrmWRob%2BmrcOyZKivnmK2r6%2FLrpuenF2crq6x0g%3D%3D