This is the 6th or 7th time I've seen a bundle on the GOG store that includes a bundle within a bundle where an unsuspecting person is going to end up paying for a game or content twice.

The current Metro Franchise Weekend is the latest example of this and especially egregious.

https://www.gog.com/promo/metro_franchise_weekend

Let's assume you own none of these and leave the DEFAULT selection of Select All 8/8 and "Check Out Now".

You would end up paying $77.62 instead of the $22.19.

You would paying:

$11.99 for Metro Exodus
$6.49 for Sam's Story DLC
$3.49 for Two Colonels DLC
$7.49 for the Exodus Expansion Pack (WHICH INCLUDES THE TWO DLC ABOVE)
$15.59 for Metro Exodus Gold Edition (WHICH INCLUDES ALL OF THE ABOVE)
$4.99 for for 2033 Redux
$4.99 for Last Light Redux

$22.19 for the Metro Franchise Bundle -- WHICH INCLUDES ALL OF THE ABOVE.

Congratulations. You potentially caused an unwitting customer to pay for ..

..both Redux games TWICE (individually and Franchise Bundle)
Metro Exodus THREE times (individually, Gold Edition and Franchise Bundle)
and Exodus DLC FOUR times (Individually, Expansion Pass, Gold Edition and Franchise Bundle).

Now you may defend this by saying, GOG is offering discounts across the board - not just to those who never bought any of these titles - and you can select and pick and choose. The fact is that when you click on the advert https://www.gog.com/promo/metro_franchise_weekend it highlights everything you don't own by default and that includes a different version of what you may already own. So maybe you already own the Gold Edition but it will still automatically check off Exodus, individual DLCs, Expansion Pass and the Franchise Bundle.

None of the boxes should be checked by default and the one selection that actually features every other item should be featured prominently at the top with it indicating (includes all of the below).

I've seen this so many times now with so many bundles on GOG it's difficult to believe this isn't done intentionally.

Yes, this situation is a mess. I paid for Metro Franchise Bundle, Metro: Exodus Gold Edition and Metro: Exodus Season Pass (3 purchases instead of just 1). Yet I was aware of what I was doing. Seems that GOG is fine with that.

I don't believe it's international. The impression I got is that they have no interest in fixing any issue, no matter how small. Making items mutually exclusive on the promo pages would require time and effort, so things stay as they are.

Knowing about the problem and doing nothing to fix it is essentially no different from doing it intentionally.

This is relatively new. These type of bundle issues didn't used to have such a warning. The fact that they have added it is definitely good faith and makes it less likely that this is intentionally done to steal.

I don't see a warning if you're pairing Gold Edition with Franchise Bundle, though.

Not only that, they even carefully remove extra games from user's wishlist. For instance I bought Shenmue III Deluxe Edition and GOG removed Shenmue III Season Pass (which of course I bought as well because I'm crazy), but I would prefer GOG to mark Season Pass as *Owned*, I don't understand why the hell it is SO hard to implement.

It's called "intentional negligence" at this point.

Its not GOG's job to present everything in detail. Its up to the customer to do their own research. That is for ANY purchase in any store. Not just GOG.

I don't mind that. You can see fine what you're buying unless you're that lazy compulsive buyer with more money than sense, and even then they'd warn you again at the checkout. I wouldn't be strictly opposed to bolder warning and "select all" box being unchecked by default, but different problems aside, there are similar issues that should be way more of a priority.

Like, say, when you buy something in a bundle and it stays unmarked as bought in the shop because "technical reasons", that gets really annoying and needs to be fixed.

While i agree, some of these storefronts seem to make things confusing to the degree that you genuinely don't know the answer. I'd have to say, out of the storefronts i've used, the worst offender is Playstation Network: i've gotten a deluxe edition of a game with "season pass" content, but it wasn't clarified that not all the DLC was included in the season pass. For reference, the game was Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown, and looking at the wording now i think it's since been changed to clarify this.

Hmmm then what they might need is a 'remove duplicates/owned' button at checkout, which will only remove items that is included in other items or items you accidently checked that you already have.

Course you could insist you're getting it as a gift and then redeem the parts you want and then do whatever with the rest.

I think the problem is just that: GOG needs to make a backend that could facilitate that, which is also the hard part of separating what you do and don't already own in the first place which OP's talking about. The challenge is, GOG actually has to take the time to curate like they claim to do, and organize what comes with each thing. I imagine the system already kinda exists given you can buy a bundle that has separate game entries in your library (ghost and minighost for example). I imagine a dummy entry for bundles that marked individual bits as owned on purchase wouldn't be too hard for them. I just don't see how "accidental purchases that the customer doesn't realize" could end up as top priority for GOG without alot more outcry and/or a lawsuit of some kind (and while i could argue that GOG is willfully negligent, here, it would be hard to sell criminally negligent).

The thing is that they actively encourage people to buy the duplicates by having everything checked on a sale page by default.