steam
So, I had bought a few copies of a game for some friends, but I accidentally bought an extra one and I want to get a refund on that extra
Will steam only take that one out and not mess with the copy that I've already owned for awhile now and the others that have been claimed?
As of March 2016, Steam now subtracts the price of owned games from bundles, so you don't have to re-buy them.
"Past Complete Packs were sometimes a bad deal for customers that already [owned] one or more of the products in the pack," Valve added. "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.
In fact, here's a bundle viewed from my own account:
And from incognito:
Note how the base price of the bundle is about $5 cheaper when I'm logged in.
However, it's important to note that Steam makes a distinction between "bundles" and "packages".
Packages are a fixed price - if you already own something in it, you dont get a lower price or a second copy. Bundles will take out content you already own and adjust the price accordingly.
-moistly harmless, Jul 2, 2017
With packages, the prices are fixed, and you pay the full price no matter what. So it would be silly to buy the game and then buy the game + OST package. Because you'd be paying for the game twice and only getting one copy.
Before buying the game:
And after:
That base price won't budge.
...I just bought a game to illustrate a point.
I imagine that the library cache file became broken you could probably rebuild it to get it to remember but steam should check the location before installing and see what is there and since your games will be all installed then it should not hurt anything. the real issue is why is the library file/s getting corrupted?
But in all you should be fine and there is nothing to worry about. It has happened on a few of my games before and all has been well.
Best Answer
If it never left your inventory and is still there, you can refund a game by selecting
A purchasewhen using the refund interface.From there, you can select the copy in your inventory. It will have a little box icon, showing that it was a gift:
Now it should show you something like this:
Click on "view receipt" for the one that was not redeemed:
From there, go through with your refund request.