My personal ways to save (sorted from best to worse)
- Games normally with a price tag, but given for free
There are two reddit sites, which give informations about such deals: /r/FreeGameFindings and /r/FreeGamesOnSteam
There is quite a big variety of posted games and sites. Keep in mind that some are good, decent or bad. If you are into indie and some retro games, you can snatch around 1-3 games weekly, if you prefer AAA, there still should be 1 weekly to find.
The problem one could find after some time, would be quite a big number of games, that are scattered throughout many launchers or sites. This can be negated mostly by adding them on a platform, that can find, add and launch other application from itself. Since it's a topic about games the default would be Valves popular Steam.
To add game, when being on Steam click Add a game option, located at bottom left and choose Add a Non-Steam Game, then find a launcher of what you need.
If what you want to access is not downloadable and sits on the internet, you can add it by doing all the same steps above, but except adding a game launcher, add your browser launcher, then right click it in your Steam Library, click Properties, then Set Launch Options and finally type or copy in the site adress you want to add.
After doing one or both of steps above, set up category on Steam library - i've called mine Other platforms with games. This setup allows user to access all of the content conveniently from one place and with single click.
- Subscription based sites
Second best option in my opinion would be a subscription based sites. They offer great price and give you access to entire library of games with no limits whatsoever. I've managed to find 5 of such sites, sorted from cheapest:
Origin Access
- Price: ~1.7$ per month - when choosing annual subscription or ~3.5$ for monthly one
- Number of games: 179, with 1-2 added per month
- Offers: Free trial time of 2 weeks, when subscribing a -10% on games in Origin store - even discounted ones
Jump
- Price: ~5$ monthly
- Number of games: over 117, with ~2 added per month
- Offers: free trial time for 2 weeks
Utomik
- Price: ~8$ monthly
- Number of games: 960, with ~5 added weekly
- Offers: free trial time for 2 weeks
Discord Nitro
- Price: ~8.33$ per month - when choosing annual subscription or 9.99$ for monthly one
- Number of games: 89 games, with ~2 added monthly
- Offers: Nitro classic benefits (non gaming)
Note This one lack free trial
Humble Trove
- Price: 11$ monthly when choosing annual subscription or 12$ for monthly one
- Number of games: 83, with around 3-4 added monthly. You also get the ones acquired from Humble Monthly, which are worth around 200-250$
- Offers: 5% of what we pay goes to the charity, 10% off store purchases, funds some of the future Humble Trove games
Note This one lacks free trial
This method can be better than the first point, if you will use the total of 6 weeks free trial or don't mind small expense for huge access to (mostly) quality AAA and indie games.
To calculate if it's worth for you, check how much hours you spend on gaming monthly on average, then look for the games you want to play and try to focus on the priciest and shortest ones, so you can maximize the profits from the service.
3.a) Hunting for huge Steam deals
My third option and when buying any games on Steam is adding interesting games from the Steam Store to Wishlist and later use Enhanced Steam extension or site called IsThereAnyDeal ,on which you can import your Steam Wishlist. Site isn't associated with Steam and it might invade your privacy to some extent - which most of the sites on internet do anyway.
If, upon own evaluation you had decided to give it a shot, the site allows to have a lot of ways to filter your wishlist or check if the game is in: bundle, has any vouchers, its scoring and propositions of similar games. It works much cleaner and looks better than the Steam wishlist in my opinion.
I personally look for games in Steam Store using New and Trending, Top Selling, Popular Upcoming and Specials tabs, which can be located by scrolling down a bit.
Looking for More Like This, when being on certain game page is great too. When scrolling down it's just above the reviews.
A lot of time and patience is needed to achieve results. But if you like looking for games, trailers etc. it can be quite enjoyable actually. I have over 2.7k games wishlisted and when i visit the site i always get around 15 deals for over 85% off. With major sales i can imagine this quantity skyrocketing.
I had spend around **280$**, from which i managed to buy **73 games + 18 dlc's** - bigger half of i've completed in around two years.
3.b) Buying bundled games
\*Humble Bundle\* offers game bundles, that have few price tiers to choose from and a small bonuses like 10% off first month of Humble Monthly or some cuts for store purchases.
Lowest tier usually offers 3 games for 1$, with higher tiers offering closer to AAA games for a bit higher price.
I have to say that i've managed to acquire a total of **20 games + 1 dlc** for **14$**
With **Twitch Prime** monthly **subscription** you always get 4 or 5 games per month, in game currencies and items, dlc's and games squeezed randomly between the month.
First **6 months** cost 3$. After that it raises to 6$. Keep in mind the subscription and read carefully, when wanting to remove it! It can be a really complicated process.
Here i've got around **42 games** for **20$**
Another thing worth mentioning is a combined number of around **40 games** in over **1 and half a year** for pretty much free from these two sites.
One source is the Humble Bundle **game giveaways** and Twitch Prime mentioned **bonuses** between month. Well second one isn't really **free**, but the bonuses can be considered a free addition on top of the subscription offers.
- Free and great alternatives
Sometimes there are free games that are as enjoyable as the good, paid ones.
I can safely recommend four sites:
- GameJolt
- Itch.io
- Digi Pen
- Kartridge
Digi Pen has lots of student projects, that really can surprise.
Kartridge offers badges, which give experience to level up your profile and at specific levels we get Tokens, up to 4 with each worth 5$.
They can be spend on some games in their store. It has some limitations though, so i suggest checking out their FAQ to understand this more.
And finally let us not forget about good, old community mods to the games we already own, that can add a lot of content and hours of gameplay. Some people dedicate hundreds or even thousands of hours in teams or alone, to give out some great masterpieces.
A great example here would be mod to The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim called Enderal: Forgotten Stories. Since it's release on 14th February of this year it got really positive reactions and got played by over 100 thousand users.
The mods can be found in Steam Workshop or on site called Moddb.
That's all the useful information i've managed to gather so far. Thanks for reading through and let me know if i can improve this post. If you have your own useful ways to save money on games, please let me know!
April 09, 2019 at 09:14AM
