Wait
Was this really a thing here? I thought that kind of stuff is only on Steam (which I like :P)

Edit: Sorry for semi-necroing though, I'm just surprised of what you stated

From what I recall there were sales pages where you'd get a greater discount if you selected all items vs. selecting just a couple of individual titles, and already owned items were considered, yes. But that's a long time ago, long before you joined. Like first half of the 2010's, I'd guess. The D&D games were often offered like this (which might be the most common reason why anyone on GOG would have Dragonshard in their library? ;P)

Yes, at one time all sales worked that way.

But there were some people who complained that such pricing is forcing them to buy games they don't want, which really doesn't make much sense if in the end you get what you want, and can ignore what you don't want.

I personally saw those from a completely opposite point of view, I got games that I wanted, as for all practical purposes, some free ones too.

Whatever the reason is, such sales are no longer happening.

IIRC, the lists were often very long though, and there wasn't much thematic coherence. Other than the D&D bundle, I don't really remember any that were even halfway attractive to someone trying to save money. So don't be too sad about it, it was nowhere near the concept of the bundles mentioned in this thread (e.g. 3 RPGs). As far as I remember, it was more like 10+ random games bunched together.

Yes, that was actually the norm here, years before Steam copied that feature.

This type of sale is called BYOB (Build Your Own Bundle) and the discounts stack up when you buy (or already own) more games from the BYOB list. Usually it's "Buy or own at least N games to get an additional X% discount.", sometimes there are several such discounts (e.g. Buy or own 5 games for +5%, 10 games for +10%, etc.), sometimes the discount for all games goes up or down slightliy with each new game you select or deselect, sometimes you have to buy the entire list for the additional discount. The most famous sale of that type was the entire Interplay catalog at 90% off in 2015, before the Interplay IP was sold off and the prices for Interplay games were jacked up.

Even though we don't get that sort of deal as often as in the past there are still occational sales which work this way. We had a BYOB sale just at the beginning of last month during the Warner Bros sale. I got Lego DC Super-Villains at -95% instead of the regular sales price of -85% because of the BYOB. Or Black Friday last year which had a great Team 17 BYOB with all time low for practically all Team 17 games thanks to the BYOB.

Keep your eyes open and I'm sure you will find a BYOB again in the future.

Are you sure these sales worked like that and under this name, on GOG? If so, that must be a relatively new development. The ones I was talking about were not called BYOB, and I think the extra discounts were "all or nothing", you had to get/own everything on the list in order to get a better discount than you'd get for individual items, no tiers. (While "Build Your Own Bundle" suggests that you are free to pick your favorites, not everything at once.)

Sales like you describe I only know from Humble. And Fanatical has actual BYOB sales, too, which work a bit differently but are comparable. But GOG? If so, I must have missed that.

Examples from this year:

https://www.gog.com/forum/general/the_unannounced_gog_promo_thread/post1281 (Warner)
https://www.gog.com/forum/general/the_unannounced_gog_promo_thread/post1267 (Microids)

There was also Devolver BYOB available shortly after Warner BYOB mentioned above.

It wasn't random, it was something like games from the same publisher.
Of course there was not thematic line otherwise, most of the time.

But for someone who buys games of all kinds, those bundles were really cool.

For instance, if you could get some discounted games you really wanted for $20, but taking all games in the promo would bring the total down to $18, or whatever those numbers might be, you not only get games you want for a discounted price, but by buying more, you end up paying less, and even get some random freebies, sort of.

It's a real shame they don't run these kinds of promos anymore.

At least they have these sometimes on Fanatical, and I think it's very fun to plan what random games to pick to bring the total down. Games that might be fun surprises, but which I would never otherwise consider buying.

I see. That's comparatively new though, right?

But maybe that's what Geralt_of_Rivia meant and I misunderstood? So back in the days we had those "all or nothing" discounts which GOG doesn't do anymore, but now we occasionally get BYOB sales?

Yes, that's what I meant. For me it's still random enough, but point taken, my choice of words wasn't completely accurate.

And a few (smaller) publishers do have a recognizable profile, like, most Devolver Games are actually kind of similar, thematically or gameplay-wise, and if there ever was, say, A Wadjet Eye Games publisher sale, that would be a coherent bundle, too. But those sales like "all Interplay games" or so never appealed to me personally. Too big, too much disparity in genres and quality. I agree that what you describe sounds attractive in theory, but in practice those sales hardly ever worked for me that way. Different strokes for different folks. :)

Yes, I'm sure those sales existed for many years and still exist today. Though they weren't always called Build Your Own Bundle, the naming only came up a few years ago.

But as I said, the exact mechanics vary from offer to offer. Sometimes it is 'Buy the whole list for additional discount'. IIRC that mechanic was indeed more often used in the past than today.