Call me lazy if you want but I don't think someone should need to look up a guide on how to buy a video game without feeling scammed. I feel like I've been seeing this more and more lately with abstractly named tiered bundles, complete editions that don't contain everything, and remasters of games that feel like they should have been updates.
I've listed a few examples below but can you think of any others?
Examples:
The photo I attached is a buying guide for Hitman 3. A game that still confuses me. For those that don't know Hitman 1 and 2 can be played in Hitman 3 but the game is sold in bundles. I believe part one contains missions from the first game but the standard edition, the next level up, does not contain all the levels for Hitman 2 but does have all the levels for Hitman 3. The deluxe edition has all of Hitman 2 and a good chunk of the small DLC like cosmetics and challenge missions but not all of them.
Before Hitman 3 was rebranded as World of Assassination I believe you could avoid repaying for the games you already own (at least on Steam) but I don't think that's the case any more.
So as someone who owns the original Hitman I believe I essentially need to rebuy it as part of the deluxe edition if I want to play Hitman 1 and 2.
Intravenous for example was released in July 2021 and from my understanding is being remastered with features from the sequel, Intravenous 2 (released August 2024), as a DLC for the sequel under the name Intravenous IV2.
Hitman really is a mess, according to EGS i own Hitman 1 and Hitman 3, but i doubt i really own Hitman 3, probably is a starter pack with the first chapter as i dont think the full Hitman 3 has been given away? On top of that you enter at the shop page and everything is such a mess that i just dont have any will to install the game and try to uncover what i own and what i dont nor i have any will to pay for something that im not sure what im buying and if im paying for something i have already.
They really fucked up the PC release for that game. I think there was a period where Hitman 2 and Hitman 3 were exclusive to different store platforms, and they had to publish a guide to link everything together with an account.
EGS gives out so many freebies, that I wouldn't be surprised if you snagged Hitman 3 in that and just forgot about it.
It was a yearlong Epic Game Store exclusive despite the publishers promising not to do that, and when they finally released on Steam there was a bunch of issues for people who owned H1 and H2 accessing their levels/progress in H3.