Posted June 04, 2019
Like many of you, I keep track of practically all of the free game offers that are onilne on a roughly day to day basis. For many folks out there this would seem like a daunting task that is time consuming, but as many of us know it is actually neither time consuming nor does it take much effort. I have a bookmark set to take me to the Epic Bundle website which is IMHO one of the best sites for keeping track of all of the online freebie promotions and giveaways out there. Rarely does a free game promotion ever go under the radar and slip past the Epic Bundle website's eyes. Just a 15 second visit to the site once or twice a day when I'm not busy and I am fully updated on any free promotions out there almost always.
Add to that various people sharing info about free promotions on countless Discord server chat channels, on web forums and on social media and it potentially approaches next to impossible to miss out on most of them. :)
Alas, not everyone out there is aware of how easy it is to keep track of promotions nor want to put in the effort especially if they have a busy lifestyle with higher priorities etc. So I often send free game promotion links directly to friends and acquaintances whom I think might be interested in a game, as well as posting them in various chatrooms where such information is welcome.
I can't tell you how many times people have ignored a free game posting outright to "check it out later" and it has expired or ran out of keys before they bothered to spend the 10-30s or so to check it out and then deeply regretted it afterword.
I can't tell you the number of times I've posted a link to someone or witnessed someone else sharing a link and someone has responded "Hmm, I don't think that's my kind of game." or "But does that have multi-player?" or "Does that support Mac?" or "Does that support Linux?" or "Yeah but does it have Xbox controller support?" or some other question which they are presumably feeling they need to know before they decide the difficult decision of taking it for free...
... only to hesitate due to these personal hangups and miss out on the free offer that takes next to no effort whatsoever to get something for free, and then later on regret having not taken the opportunity to get the game for free and end up really wishing they'd paid more attention or not been so picky and finicky before the fact.
As an example, last December (2018) Epic Games Store gave away a free copy of the game Subnautica for 2 or 3 weeks in a row it was available. I told several people about this game and had many people ask questions like I mentioned above, or "it looks like a boring swimming simulator" or some other personal hangup, and then days/weeks/months later they actually WATCHED someone else play Subnautica on Twitch and how much they and their viewers were enjoying the game, and deeply regretted having not got the game for free when it was available.
When people ignore free games based on any reason really, they miss out on a free opportunity, not any form of obligation to ever play the games. We can be easy to pre-judge things we think we may not like only to find out later that we were wrong or wish we'd decided differently and got the free game. But if one takes every free game on offer every time one is available, there is never any obligation to play it, and we're free to engage the very human act of changing our minds later and deciding to want to try the game out - but we've locked it in when it was free so we now have that option without having to spend money.
I know several people who have ignored freebies and then days or weeks later changed their minds and went and paid full price for the game that was given away for free previously, and felt bad about having to pay for it.
I only mention all of the above because I don't want to see others miss out on cool free stuff by being close minded and regretting it later. I see it way too often where people regret things like this due to hesitating or second guessing stuff. Don't make things more complicated than they need to be, just take anything and everything that is free 100% of the time, and don't worry about it "cluttering up your library". Who cares. :) Besides if it bothers someone after the fact and they later decide they really don't want something, at least on Steam and on GOG you can have games permanently removed from your library after the fact.
Please come and join the Take All Free Games On Promo No Matter What Alliance™, don't be "That Guy™" :)
LOL
Add to that various people sharing info about free promotions on countless Discord server chat channels, on web forums and on social media and it potentially approaches next to impossible to miss out on most of them. :)
Alas, not everyone out there is aware of how easy it is to keep track of promotions nor want to put in the effort especially if they have a busy lifestyle with higher priorities etc. So I often send free game promotion links directly to friends and acquaintances whom I think might be interested in a game, as well as posting them in various chatrooms where such information is welcome.
I can't tell you how many times people have ignored a free game posting outright to "check it out later" and it has expired or ran out of keys before they bothered to spend the 10-30s or so to check it out and then deeply regretted it afterword.
I can't tell you the number of times I've posted a link to someone or witnessed someone else sharing a link and someone has responded "Hmm, I don't think that's my kind of game." or "But does that have multi-player?" or "Does that support Mac?" or "Does that support Linux?" or "Yeah but does it have Xbox controller support?" or some other question which they are presumably feeling they need to know before they decide the difficult decision of taking it for free...
... only to hesitate due to these personal hangups and miss out on the free offer that takes next to no effort whatsoever to get something for free, and then later on regret having not taken the opportunity to get the game for free and end up really wishing they'd paid more attention or not been so picky and finicky before the fact.
As an example, last December (2018) Epic Games Store gave away a free copy of the game Subnautica for 2 or 3 weeks in a row it was available. I told several people about this game and had many people ask questions like I mentioned above, or "it looks like a boring swimming simulator" or some other personal hangup, and then days/weeks/months later they actually WATCHED someone else play Subnautica on Twitch and how much they and their viewers were enjoying the game, and deeply regretted having not got the game for free when it was available.
When people ignore free games based on any reason really, they miss out on a free opportunity, not any form of obligation to ever play the games. We can be easy to pre-judge things we think we may not like only to find out later that we were wrong or wish we'd decided differently and got the free game. But if one takes every free game on offer every time one is available, there is never any obligation to play it, and we're free to engage the very human act of changing our minds later and deciding to want to try the game out - but we've locked it in when it was free so we now have that option without having to spend money.
I know several people who have ignored freebies and then days or weeks later changed their minds and went and paid full price for the game that was given away for free previously, and felt bad about having to pay for it.
I only mention all of the above because I don't want to see others miss out on cool free stuff by being close minded and regretting it later. I see it way too often where people regret things like this due to hesitating or second guessing stuff. Don't make things more complicated than they need to be, just take anything and everything that is free 100% of the time, and don't worry about it "cluttering up your library". Who cares. :) Besides if it bothers someone after the fact and they later decide they really don't want something, at least on Steam and on GOG you can have games permanently removed from your library after the fact.
Please come and join the Take All Free Games On Promo No Matter What Alliance™, don't be "That Guy™" :)
LOL