Free PC game and free weekend notification thread

Rusty Lake Hotel is free on Steam through the 30th (noon CST).

Tonight We Riot is free on GOG. Fun little side-scroller where you control a crowd/mob of revolutionaries overthrowing the capitalist overlords in their city.

Thanks for that, I’ve never heard of it before but it looks fun.

Looks as though the developers plan on making Tonight We Riot free on Steam and other platforms for May Day so, if the GOG thing is a turn-off, stay tuned.

Titanfall 2 is free to play for the weekend (now through May 3). It’s actually pretty good.

I should add, the single player campaign is short enough to get through in a weekend pretty easily (5-7 hours).

That’s actually my biggest complaint about the game…I wish the campaign was longer.

If you dig multiplayer then you are in for a real treat.

Yeah the campaign was really well done, I wish it was 10 times longer.

Lucky for you, Nubarron: The Adventure of an Unlucky Gnome is free on Steam

If you are wondering how much Epic is paying for these free games, here is a list from the 2019 time. Subnautica was the most expensive that year, over a million dollars

It stops in Sept 2019. No idea how much GTA V and some other games, like Star Wars Battlefront II, which were major release games.

Here is the list.

Those games were WAY cheaper than I anticipated. I thought epic was paying for more. $12 mil per year is not at all an unreasoanble promotional cost. But the publishers and devs of those games are hardly getting anything for as many copies as are being given away. I’m not even sure it’s a winning proposition for a lot of them - sure, it’s some money, but people who might’ve bought their games in the future wouldn’t have to because they got it free.

I’m pretty sure most of these devs can do the math to decide if it is worth it. They know their sales numbers. A payday of $250,000 now is better than $300,000…maybe…over the next year.

It is certainly up to the devs to accept the offer so I can’t see how they would be ripped off here. I suppose if the freebie makes their game super-popular and they then realize maybe they could have made more not taking the deal makes it a bad choice but…eh. These are usually older games, they know their sales pretty well before agreeing to this.

They are only free for a week, so if it does result in an increase in popularity they should see an increase in sales afterwards. New users still buy subnautica.

I enjoyed the Titanfall 2 free-play and now I’m likely to buy it.
The free-play did its job!

It worked on me for Subnautica. Loved the game so much I immediately went and purchased the sequel Below Zero (which was in “early access” but the final version finally gets released in a couple of weeks. I’ve made myself wait to play it until it’s officially finished, and I’m so excited!)

It could also push sales on other platforms. I haven’t really touched my EGS library, but I could see people liking some of the games enough to buy them elsewhere. Not likely, I admit. Though games that release on EGS, like Hades didn’t really get popular until it was no longer exclusive. (Hades isn’t the only game, I just can’t remember the other games since they’re still exclusive)

If a developer can get paid for the game on EGS and then get more sales from the coat-tails, it’s a win-win. Even more so if it’s like the current idle game being offered that’s free to play and the EGS is just adding a microtransaction bundle.

I’d have jumped at Titanfall 2 if I didn’t already have 2 copies. (Sadly the Steam version still uses Origin) Though I can dream of getting Titanfall 3 someday.

Pine now free on Epic Games.

New free Epic title is up. Lion’s Song? If you wanted an indie game about Austrian artists, this day was made for you.

Next week is “Mystery Game”, as in a secret game yet to be revealed. I like to think that they’re waiting to see how the Epic v Apple case shakes out. “We win? Here’s a new AAA game! We lose? Y’all get some rebundled indie pixel game from 2013.”

I’ve really just joined this thread and been grabbing free Epic titles recently…

I know its a bit OT, but I’m used to Steam sales once in a while (chinese new year, june, halloween, black friday, boxing days). Does Epic do these? Any overlap? I might actually buy something from them now they’ve given me all these free games I won’t bother playing…

Epic does sales and around the same schedule as Steam and the rest (Summer sale, Christmas sale, etc). They used to do a very aggressive “Get a $10 off coupon for any game over $15 (which in turn gives you another coupon)” but their last sale didn’t include anything like that so we’ll see if it comes back for their Summer sale.

The first two chapters of “The Dream Machine” are free on Steam through the weekend, and you can buy the remaining 4 chapters for $5.50 total. It’s a point-and-click adventure game, completely made in claymation.