Playnite: Better handling of game duplicates

[stibbons01]

Hi,

as I couldn't find a similiar request I would like to ask for a new filter that makes it possible to filter for duplicate games over all game libraries (GOG/STEAM/etc.).

Greetings
Marc

[JosefNemec]

Two things we should add to handle duplication better:

• view/filter to show current duplicates
• option to automatically hide newly imported games if they are already imported from different library

Ideally we would also have a system in place that would allow grouping of duplicate games from different libraries together, but that's currently not possible without major rework of the whole game library system, which would be done via #408.

[boehs]

@JosefNemec I think a good approach to this like gog 2.0s.
https://imgur.com/a/1eckPfJ

[Xicloing]

Probably would be useful to let users set a preferred client for automated handling of duplicate games, e.g. :

• if available, always use Steam as main entry
• if available, always use DRM-free GOG games as main entry.

[shakeyourbunny]

Any plans to implement this?

It does not need to be automated (as a first step), but I second that you may select a "main" library with priorities.

This would really condense my library (I usually buy games on Steam for playing and GOG for my legal backup copy).

Some sort of "Libraries - Main and priority ordering" dialog would be neat, where you could switch around your library priorities, like the meta source data selection dialog.

[JosefNemec]

Current plan is:
1) add option to automatically hide/ignore duplicates when importing new games (with library priorities)
2) some overview/management of current duplicates
3) option to completely ignore games during import to prevent duplicates from coming back if you don't want to just hide them but completely remove them+ (this will be in Playnite 8)

No ETA on 1) and 2).

[shakeyourbunny]

I didn't meant to ignore duplicates, but to merge the duplicates. What if I'd like to launch not the main library version, but the duplicate version?

[JosefNemec]

Merging won't be implemented any time soon because I would have to completely rework how the library is implemented. I may add it in far future, but it will be done via #408.

I also think that merging is not a priority right now, because I can't imagine situation where you would want to start game via Steam one time and via GOG another time anyway (like actually have them both installed and switch between them). There might be some edge cases where this would be useful, but the effort to implement merging is currently not worth it.

[HunterZ]

This is one of the features I've always felt was really missing from Playnite.

I have FTL on Epic, GOG, and Steam, and they all show up as completely separate entries in Playnite ("Faster Than Light" on Epic, "FTL: Advanced Edition" on GOG, "FTL: Faster Than Light" on Steam). In GOG Galaxy 2.0 they are consolidated into a single entry.

The point of merging is to slim down the list so that you're not having to mentally filter out duplicates, and to make it easier to find a game when you own it on multiple storefronts.

[gjgfuj]

the easiest way I can think of to make this as soon as possible is to just add the ability to link to another playnite game inside the links section. That is a very simple way to resolve it and I'm surprised that is entirely non-possible.

[shakeyourbunny]

If you do this linking, it would be neat, if there is an entry with the linked games in Detail view and Gallery View. This should be togglable.

[Flare576]

I'm excited to see this feature. I just spent a few hours with a game export from Playnite trying different techniques of "categorizing" games (e.g., "Avadon: The Black Fortress", "Avadon 2: The Corruption" and "Avadon 3: The Warborn" would all be categorized as Avadon games) and "Source" grouping (e.g., my output shows that I have "Avadon: The Black Fortress" on both Steam and Humble). It's far, far from perfect, though; things like "Assassin's Creed Brotherhood" and "Assassin's Creed Revelations" don't have a delimiter-driven way to determine a "base name". Likewise, games with slight variances in formatting don't match for Source combination.

I think if I invested the time to do some word-by-word comparisons, it could get better, but it'd likely end up messier ( like ending up with "Dungeon Defenders" and "Dungeon Souls" as Dungeon games).

But after playing with data for a bit, I got to thinking about starting at the UI/UX end instead. One thought was that the [Install] button could have a dropdown-style arrow for games with multiple sources (i.e., https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/851745/39771116-572d7bf4-52f1-11e8-85ee-cb44ddc8766b.png).

This could get messy when the game is already installed and is changed to a _Play_ button, but the "More" button could be leveraged with a "Sources" entry that would allow installing from a second location? Doing so would cause the "Play" button to have a dropdown as well. This gives some parity between the Play/Install buttons and keeps it simple for folks who only want to install from one place.

If you also added an item to the Appearance -> Details View to set a "Preferred Sources" (a sortable list?), MOST users wouldn't even need to worry about the drop-down.

The "More" -> "Sources" entry could be leveraged to "Remove" a game from a source, where the main-level "Remove (Delete)" would remove it from _all_ sources.

Sorry for the brain dump; ya'll are probably already way past the "suggestions" phase, but if I didn't get it out of my head I wouldn't stop thinking about it :) Thank you for such an amazing tool.

[Bluscream]

I like how GOG handles duplicates

[ehawman]

This is the first page of my Playnite library. There are six duplicates (one of which is a triple). Just the first page. When a game is released for free on one service, the same usually happens for other services as well in short order.

I know you've said that this is a difficult thing to implement for little payoff, but even if the option had no automation, was 100% manually done, it would be worth it.

As others have said, GOG does their grouping/swapping well, but you could also do something in the general options menu where the linked services are ordered, and if you have duplicates the higher priority one becomes the default for that grouped game.

[darklinkpower]

You can use this extension to hide duplicates automatically.
DuplicateHider - Hide Duplicate Game Copies

[TehJumpingJawa]

Just want to highlight my use case, as it hasn't been explicitly mentioned so far.

I desire the ability to find titles for which I have multiple licenses, so I can play them co-op/MP with family members with whom I share my accounts.

There's also a complication that I don't think has been mentioned; the issue of differing versions of the same game.
e.g.
vanilla, Enhanced, Gold, GotY, GotY Enhanced, Overkill, Complete Collection, etc etc.

No idea how you'd go about consolidating these, or if it's even a good idea to do so.
Still, even if they're not consolidated, an "include different versions" filter would be desirable in the use case outlined above.

Another complication I just spotted, are the same games being named differently across platforms.
e.g.
"Watch Dogs" (Epic) vs "Watch_Dogs" (Ubisoft)
"Age of Wonders III" (Steam) vs "Age of Wonders 3" (GOG)
"Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3 - Uprising" (Steam) vs "Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 - Uprising" (Origin)