Valve To Bring Dynamic Bundle System To Steam

There are situations where it makes sense to do something one way and not another. Take Valve’s past policy on game bundles, as an example. Bundles are always offered at a discounted price, but if you own any game in that list, you do not get an extra copy, nor will it be removed to give you a better price. While this favors game publishers – they get more for less – it doesn’t make sense to customers after their library has reached a certain size.

Fortunately, Valve has been correcting many of its shortcomings, like streamlining the refund process. Now, the winds of change are again blowing in the consumer’s favor. According to recent information obtained by PCGN, a game bundle that provides a game that a customer already owns will be removed from the bundle in the future. This will lead to the customer spending less rather than the developer earning more for copies that are not even awarded.

When I first joined Steam, I bought game bundles because they helped me expand my library and cut down on my physical media, but down the road when my game library increased. I realized that I couldn’t remove those games that I owned or get an additional copy of it in these bundles. Those reasons are what made me think twice to not get a bundle because I was in fact paying more, even if I got them individually.

This new policy is something that GOG has been doing for some time and it is good to see that Valve is still moving to a pro-consumer stance. There are still a lot of things that need to be addressed, such as the lack of customer service, but progress even if it is slow, is good for consumers and companies alike because this means I, and many others, will start taking game bundles into consideration when making our purchases.