How To Get Free Video Games on PC
4 ways to get PC games for free
It’s hard being a PC gamer these days.
GPU prices have gone through the roof. Bots are buying all of the graphics cards within seconds of a restock. Even brick and mortar stores are charging reseller prices if you can even find a GPU in stock.
Let’s say you have the dough to shell out close to $1,000 or more for a new graphics card to upgrade your gaming rig. That doesn’t leave much cash leftover to buy games. You know, to actually USE that shiny new graphics card.
So what’s a gamer to do?
1. Epic Games
Epic Games has been coming to the rescue for months!
For over a year, Epic Games has been releasing 1–2 free video games A WEEK for gamers to download and keep forever. No strings attached other than having to launch them through their own Epic Games launcher. A small price to pay in my opinion.
Now you may be thinking, “I bet they are obscure indie titles that no one has ever heard of…”
Nope! Over the past year I’ve grabbed over 100 free games to add to my endless gaming backlog which at this point is more of a collection.
I’ve snagged games like NBA 2K21, Among Us, Darkest Dungeon, Tropico 5, and so many more. All for the price of Free.99.
Just head on over to the main store page and scroll down to the FREE GAMES section to snag your free games every week. New titles are released every Thursday.
It couldn’t be easier.
2. Steam
Now Steam isn’t as generous as Epic Games. And let’s face it, they don’t have to be. Chances are that if you are reading this article you already have a Steam account. Heck, you probably have more than one!
But that doesn’t mean GabeN (Gabe Newell) doesn’t feel generous once in a while.
Keep an eye on Slickdeals where free games easily make the front page as hot deals whenever Steam has some free games to add to your library for a short period of time.
Just like Epic Games, you have to simply add the games to your library and they are yours forever. No need to install them until you are ready to play.
In fact, just this week alone Steam had Titan Quest and Jagged Alliance for free.
Even if you’re not interested in these games, it’s an easy way to increase your steam game library to get the next game collector badge and level up. All for a few seconds of your time.
3. r/randomactsofgaming
Is there anything you can’t find on Reddit?
While there are plenty of gaming subreddits for every type of gamer, r/randomactsofgaming is geared for those gaming on a budget.
As the tagline reads, it’s:
“A subreddit designed to allow gamers to spread the love of gaming.”
Redditors post threads giving away games that they don’t want to play. Maybe they have duplicate steam keys they got from a bundle. Maybe they just aren’t into racing games. Whatever the reason, they want to pay their love of gaming forward.
So feel free to check out the posts in that subreddit and try to cop a few games. Some posters use a random lottery system to select winners. Others want a funny joke and the funniest wins. The original poster gets to decide how to dole out their games and sometimes its fun just reading through the entries. I’ve even seen game developers send out steam keys to generate buzz for their new game.
With 158,000 members and counting, and numerous new daily posts, you are bound to score some free games.
And maybe one day you can be the one helping the next generation of PC gamers.
4. Streamers
This won’t be the easiest method to get some free games but may be worth a shot with the smaller video game streamers.
Video game streaming has exploded over the past year or two with more and more gamers dreaming of playing video games for a living.
Many new and upcoming streamers give away games to advertise their Twitch stream or YouTube Gaming channel. This works best with the smaller streamers as it’s usually a lottery system and obviously the fewer the number of people that enter the lottery, the higher your chances are of winning.
While you should be encouraged to watch their stream, some of these giveaways only require you to follow them on Twitter and subscribe to their channel.
Larger streamers can get game keys to give away to their audience from devs to advertise their game and generate publicity.
Again, this won’t be the most high yield method and why I listed it last. But for the price of a few clicks, it’s not a bad return on your time investment if you end up getting a free game out of it that brings you hours of enjoyment.
What other ways have you pocketed some free games? Let me know in the comments below!
