Weekend Question: What games have you bought more than once, and why?

PCG Jody

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Dec 9, 2019
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I ask the PCG staff a regular Weekend Question and post the answers on the site. If you'd like to throw in an answer here, I'll squeeze the best into the finished article!

This week the question is: What games have you bought more than once, and why?

Maybe you wanted a digital copy to replace an aging physical copy. Or one of those Complete Golden GOTY Ultimate Everything editions to get all the DLC for a game you already had. Maybe you wanted a game on a different platform for the sake of cross-play, or convenience. Or you forgot you owned it already until you went to activate the key from a bundle. It seemed like a bargain at the time?

We had a version of this question on the forum already, but I'm not looking for a list of every game you've bought multiple times. What I want to know is, why did you do it?
 
Only reasons I have for buying a game again are:
1. to actually play it again, games such as Sacred 2 weren't on Steam until way after release. Convenience more than anything.
2. To play it on a different format. I bought Diablo 3 on PC, PS3 & PS4.
3. To play it on a new console. This sort of applies to Diablo 3 but its more Journey.

So far haven't accidentally bought same game twice, but I have done that with books before :)
 
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why did you do it?
Likely explanations:
♣ Epic weekly freebie of a title I already had.
♦ Many old titles bought again on sale at GOG cos old version wouldn't work on Windows 7 or 10;
♥ I bought most of the Command and Conquer games 3 times—the original optical discs, and then the 2 big collections EA put out, first of 10 games, then of 17. Reason for that was supporting one of my top 3 franchises, plus wanting the latest version so they might be playable on new OS. Same applies to Civilization 4 & expansions.
♠ Duplicates bought cos of bundles in Steam, Humble or Fanatical.
 
The primary reason I'll buy a game a second time is to have a digital version of an older game that I have in physical form; either dvd, cd, or even on a set of ancient floppy disks. Digital versions of these games will usually run fine (although some need some tweaking) on modern systems and are fully patched to the latest version. I do wait for sales, bundled deals, or the occasional freebe before making a re-purchase.

The second reason would be a remastered or remake of a game I like. We've been seeing a lot of these this year, and I really love that some older classics are getting a makeover to run on modern PCs, but it's essentially the same game.
 
Sometimes I'll buy a bundle that has games included that I already have. We now have a thread here where some of us offer these extra keys up to whoever wants them.

One case where it wasn't a bundle was with Fallout 3. I bought the original edition on Steam without realizing that it didn't actually run anymore. This was before refunds, and I was pretty irritated that Bethesda would keep a game for sale that didn't run on current gen Windows. I spent an hour getting it to run, but then the GOTY edition, which runs fine without doing anything to it, went on sale for practically nothing, and I bought it.

Other than that, as a lot of others are saying, I've bought digital copies of games that I had physical copies of from the days of yore.
 

Sarafan

Community Contributor
Most notable example of a game that was bought by me several times is Heores of Might and Magic 3. Basically the first copy that I owned had some irritating bugs in my region. When the two expansions were installed, only the Shadow of Death campaigns worked properly. The rest had some missing audio files during the cinematics and warning pop ups about missing files.

So I decided to buy a boxed Complete Edition. This version had some bugs regarding translation in my native language and problems with implementation of the Shadow of Death changes. Nothing that couldn't be fixed by some file editing, but after a few years I decided that I need a solid base for modding. That's why I decided to buy a third copy of the game on GOG (this time the English version) and it finally works flawlessly!
 
Why I've repurchased games:

1. Because there was a really good deal and I'd forgotten I already had a key for a very similar deal from a year or two earlier

2. Because I like to keep my entire game library for as long as possible, and most of my older disc versions are either no longer viable or feature draconic DRM elements.

3. Same reason as #2, except even with more recent digital copies with phone-home DRM, I'd rather have a DRM-free GOG version once it becomes available.

4. I want a friend to experience the game so I buy it for them for Christmas or birthday, or possibly "just because."

5. It came with a bundle.

6. A better version with more features and/or DLC came out for cheaper than if I were to just upgrade the basic copy I already owned.


2 & 3 are the main reasons though.
 

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