Playing only free games (No piracy)

[Hell Swarm]

I was thinking of how little I spend on games these days and it got me to wondering how cheap you could possibly go without resorting to flash games. If you were playing exclusively given away free games, free indie titles and free to play multiplayer (less so this though) how good would your gaming experience be in 2024?

You could technically count game pass since you don't pay per game but subscribe for however long but that's on the fringes. The idea is what can you get for 0 money and what is the quality of those games? Epic keep giving away Triple A titles, Steam often has give aways of older stuff and GoG occasionally gets on board too. How good would you be eating if you only got those free games and playing nothing else for 6-12 months? Back in the distant days of Humble Bundle there were lots of people picking up really cheap bundles and getting huge value out of them but most bundles suck now and the free games model has taken over. Is the value the same or better/worse?

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

plenty of free to play games. most of them suck, the rest are skinner boxes masquerading as entertainment. but plenty of them.

 

[Vic]

I imagine it's like eating free food. Probably going to have to dig in the dumpster for it.

 

[Hell Swarm]

plenty of free to play games. most of them suck, the rest are skinner boxes masquerading as entertainment. but plenty of them.

Of course. There's also F.I.S.T free on Epic soon which I had a fun time with last year and I've been playing Marvel's midnight suns and enjoyed the combat (not writing) in that. There is some quality titles being released free thanks to Epic trying to bribe everyone to use their platform. It's well worth discussing what that's like today.

I imagine it's like eating free food. Probably going to have to dig in the dumpster for it.

You have to dumpster dive for free food. The rest of us have friends who invite us round for dinner and enjoy our company while we eat.

 

[Vic]

You have to dumpster dive for free food. The rest of us have friends who invite us round for dinner and enjoy our company while we eat.

Companies aren't your friends, you're their customer.

 

[NecroLord]

You just have to be smart and discriminating about what games you decide to purchase and play.

 

[I eat frozen vegetables]

You can also throw in abandonware.

 

[Poseidon00]

Some free games will occupy your attention if not giving you a full hardcore experience.

I am ashamed to admit how much time I put into retro-looking psuedo-rpgs like Final Fantasy: Brave Exvius. Half of that was just enjoying the lore of the characters and I continued to unlock them, or running around a nice looking 2D overworld. Never spent a dime.


The sequel to this was a tactics game with potentially good build autism, but I never got far enough to see if it got challenging because I had money again.

 

[Poseidon00]

You can also throw in abandonware.

If you throw in abandonware there are all sorts of gems.

Magic the Gathering: Battlegrounds and Godfather 2 are ones I would highly recommend

 

[Hell Swarm]

You can also throw in abandonware.

Abandonware falls under piracy. I don't object to either but it's not what I'm looking to discuss here. I'm curious if you were strictly using official stores and website give aways what would your gaming library look like.

 

[Elttharion]

Depending on your tastes and how much you play you can probably 'survive' exclusively on free to play games. Most of them will be skinner boxes tho. Shit like FGO, Genshin, Path of Exile, FF14 until a certain point, etc. Also if you want to play more than pretty casually you would probably spend at least a bit of money. Sure, you can play only MP games with your friends too. Stuff like CS, Cod, etc. A lot of people are like this. Most of my friends, for example, play pretty much only gacha games and the big AAA releases, like Elden Ring.

If you want something more single player focused Epic gave away a bunch of good games over the years. You would absolutely miss most of the best stuff but you probably wouldnt even have time to finish every good game on the list anyway.

This is the complete list I found btw, there are probably a bunch of duplicates but almost 500 games is a lot.

 

[Hell Swarm]

Depending on your tastes and how much you play you can probably 'survive' exclusively on free to play games. Most of them will be skinner boxes tho. Sure, you can play only MP games with your friends too. Stuff like CS, Cod, etc. A lot of people are like this. Most of my friends, for example, play pretty much only gacha games and the big AAA releases, like Elden Ring.

If you want something more single player focused Epic gave away a bunch of good games over the years. You would absolutely miss most of the best stuff but you probably wouldnt even have time to finish every good game on the list anyway.

This is the complete list I found btw, there are probably a bunch of duplicates but almost 500 games is a lot.

That's a great find. Stuff like Evil Within, Tokyo ghostwire, Nu Deus ex are all good quality titles and that's what got me wondering.

 

[I eat frozen vegetables]

I've put seven years into Granblue Fantasy and it's not hard to not spend money whatsoever.

 

[Odoryuk]

No piracy​

Why

 

[Hell Swarm]

No piracy​

Why

Because it defeats the point of the question

 

[Vic]

There's also open source games. Stuff like OpenTTD which is an open source port of transport tycoon, which received many updates over the years.

Also happened recently with Morrowind and OpenMW.

 

[Hell Swarm]

There's also open source games. Stuff like OpenTTD which is an open source port of transport tycoon, which received many updates over the years.

Also happened recently with Morrowind and OpenMW.

Fuck off Bethstard.

Do I need Morrowind to use OpenMW?​

Yes, if you wish to play Morrowind and its expansions. You must legally own Morrowind before you can use OpenMW to play Morrowind. OpenMW is a game engine recreation and only replaces the program. OpenMW does not come with any “content” or “asset” – namely the art, game data, and other copyrighted material that you need to play the game as designed by Bethesda Softworks. You have to provide this content yourself by installing Morrowind and then configuring OpenMW to use the existing installation.

 

[Vic]

Oh, didn't know that. Still, the point stands for OpenTTD which is 100% free and a great transport sim.

Another one is Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead which is a great zombie survival roguelike. It's on steam for money but I think that's only if you want to support the dev, as it's available for free from their website.

 

[hajro]

Piracy is based

 

[Lord_Potato]

You can also throw in abandonware.

A dying breed, since GOG slowly claims them all

 

[Lizard]

https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/best-freeware-games.117634/

https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/the-codex-of-roguelikes.71097/

https://www.beyondallreason.info/

https://www.moddb.com/mods/stalker-anomaly

https://www.thedarkmod.com/main/

https://www.projectaon.org/en/Main/Home

https://store.steampowered.com/sear...ESC&maxprice=free&supportedlang=english&ndl=1

https://itch.io/games/free

https://gamejolt.com/games?price=free

So much stuff out there, you'll have to sort through a lot when looking yourself but there are plenty of diamonds in the rough. So many that I genuinely have trouble remembering them.

 

[Vic]

but there are plenty of diamonds in the rough. So many that I genuinely have trouble remembering them.

yes throw out a bunch of lists and claim they have "plenty of diamonds" but being unable to name even one.

Also your second link is inaccurate as roguelike doesn't mean free.

 

[Odoryuk]

https://www.moddb.com/mods/stalker-anomaly

How come this doesn't requre base games? They totally use the assets, but you can just download the "mod" and it just works

 

[ds]

Depends on what kind of games you like. You could totally spend all your time just playing Doom total conversions or stuff like that. Unless you really need new games there is so much out there.

Wikipedia autists like to keep lists:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_open_source_games
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_free_PC_games

 

[Stormcrowfleet]

Open source games have some really good one, some are even port of existing awesome games. You can get free games on some platform like GoG that are good. You can also play some old games on abandonware, or even directly through studios (thinking of the original Starcraft being free on battle net).