Steam is making things easier for completionists by introducing dynamic bundle pricing, meaning that they will no longer make you buy the whole damn bundle just to get that one elusive expansion or bit of DLC.
Valve rolled out their decision in official documentation sent out to developers. PCGamesN obtained a copy of Valve’s explanation , which reads, “ 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."
Blizzard has something similar for its Hero and Skin Packs in Heroes of the Storm , a feature which was implemented roughly six months ago. GOG has had dynamic pricing for a while now, which lured some frustrated completionists away from Steam.
Valve’s move for sensible bundle pricing may bring some of those completionists back - or at least ensure that the choice between GOG and Steam isn’t as obvious, which is exactly what Valve hopes for.
"Past Complete Packs were sometimes a bad deal for customers that already [owned] one or more of the products in the pack,” Valve stated . “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."
Of course, old-style bundles, which Valve now dubs Must Purchase Together, still exist, allowing for deluxe editions and with-soundtrack purchases of base games. Blizzard implemented something similar for its Hero and Skin packs in Heroes of the Storm about six months back.
The feature has not been widely implemented yet, but based on Valve’s decision to reach out to developers, there’s reason to believe that it should be fully implemented soon.
