The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

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Free DLC is gone, do I need to re-buy it?
Hey Steam users, roughly 6 months ago I signed into steam and started up TES V: Skyrim only to find myself being attacked by vampires from the Dawnguard DLC. This shocked me because I hadn't purchased it and until then ran a vanilla game. I checked the games directory and there was a file titled "Dawnguard.esm" in it.
I told everyone I knew and they said it was a blessing, so I went with it. The DLC was fully functional, as if I'd bought it.

Just yesterday I got my new gaming rig setup, reused the hard drive and a few other components from previous build, anyway- the hard drive was wiped because I downgraded from Win 8 to Win7, so I had to fresh install everything.
After it was done installing I decided to play Skyrim to see how it ran, it ran amazingly, I was screwing around, wanted to go to Fort Dawnguard, it was gone. Dawnguard.esm is no longer in my directory and there is no record of Steam giving it to me or of it even being in my game.

I'm not upset seeing as it was free and I planned on getting it anyway, but I would like to know if I need to purchase it to get it to come back or if theres some magic button I need to push to enable it again. (Not trying to be stingy, but if I don't need to buy it then why buy it :3 )

And has anyone else been given a totally free and off the books game from Steam before? I searched the internet and couldn't find anything.

And to clarify, it just showed up and I don't know how, I'm not a pirate.

P.S. any help or advice woud be greatly appriciated.
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Showing 1-3 of 3 comments
tombdiver Feb 8, 2014 @ 9:46pm 
There was a time some months back where Steam mistakenly had the data files in your game folder. this was common for many people at the time. They too looked and saw they did not actually have the Dawngaurd DLC.....but because of this mistake they were able to partake in Dawngaurd related gameplay. Steam could not remove the mistake because it would have killed your game saves. You should have backed up your game folder before blowing it off. Look at it this way, you got to TEST it for 6 months.....time to actually purchase the DLC!
ShocksVR #AirLink Feb 8, 2014 @ 10:21pm 
Ya you have to buy it; not "re-buy it" since you never bought it in the first place.

It was a mistake by STEAM where they gave everyone a download of Dawnguard for Free; but they have since corrected the issue and those who did not buy Dawnguard cannot download it from STEAM.
Okay, thanks guys :)
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Showing 1-3 of 3 comments
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Date Posted: Feb 8, 2014 @ 9:30pm
Posts: 3