Who here has gotten Video Games somehow for FREE?

So who here has somehow gotten videogames or accessories for free?
Trading in games to get a game does not count, now does buy 1 get 1 free.
I mean, just flat out free, you didn't have to buy anything or give anything?

I can recall 4 seperate times at least. First 2 involv the genesis
1) We used to have a flea market every sunday at the outside mall near me (Roosevelt Mall in philadelphia) so sometimes at night I would look in the dumpsters for stuff. One tim I found 1 or 2 games (Fifa 95 and im trying to remember the other) and a 6 button "High Frequency" controller (the one that has switches for every button)

2) One time in gamestop (this was within the first year or two of gamestop's existence when they still sold genesis games) I was getting some genesis game, and the worker said "Oh hey someone just left games for us, but we cant take them" (I guess they were dirty or something), itw as at least 3 games I believe, Toughman Contest, Sports Talk Baseball, Sports Talk 2 joe montana football.

the other 2 times involvd me working at a movie theatre, and finding a gba game on 2 seperate occasions.
first one was a godzilla game, i let someone have it since they really liked godzilla.
second one was a kirby game, i think it was a remake of the first gb one, i beat it within a day or 2 and used it as credit towards mario kart for gba.

I got 2 free copies of Dragon Warrior back in the day when subscribing to NP, they were only supposed to give out 1, pretty sweet deal IMO, I traded the second game to a relative for a game piece I needed in a contest. I ended up getting a free copy of F1 Race & The 4 player adaptor for GameBoy brand new, Spiffy stuff back in 1990-1991.

Nintendo Power did it again, they accidentally sent 2 copies of Zelda: Collectors Edition on Gamecube to me when the contest was running. I promptly canceled my subscription upon receiving them though, the magazine was an overly expensive rag for over a decade now. Ripped them off? Maybe...Whatever, I got $45 for the second copy & bought something else.

Got a free Intellivision, & six boxed games w/ controller inserts off some old dude at a "left-over" garage sale as I was walking by, he was just going to throw it on the curb and let it go with the garbage.

Got a brand new copy of Etrian Odyssey from a guilt tripped friend who lost a crappy DVD I lent out. :nod:

Bought Skies of Arcadia for Dreamcast in mint condition off ebay,
Seller didn't send it or it was lost in the mail for over a month...submitted paypal insurance claim at the last minute. Months later & forgotten: It shows up, everything mint, with the just the cd jewel case crushed enough to break the hinges. :ok:

I got Christmas NiGHTs from a Blockbuster and I just got a brand new Net-Link for free because of an paypal mistake. The only drawback is that it didnt come with any of the games it was suppose to come wit.

I never really got games for free (unless you count a couple games I borrowed from my cousin for so long that he forgot about them), but I did rack up one day at a used computer store that sold used video games. For some reason, he said he didn't want to sell enhancement devices because he wouldn't know what to do in an exchange situation (how about give them games equal to the value?). Because of that odd logic, I got all this free:

2 Genesis Game Genies
1 Super NES Game Genie
1 complete 32X (no model 1 cord, but it did have the spacer)
1 CIB Sega CD RAM cart (traded with some shitty games for FFVII because I refused to pay $70 for it, thanks to Iron Lizard I finally got a loose one for $5, you rock Iron Lizard!!!)
1 nonworking copy of Darkwing Duck for NES (yeah, ok, that's a game, but it has severe damage and the graphics are garbled to hell)
1 PSX GameShark (the kind that plugs in the serial port on the older ones, can that be used to play backups?)

The funny thing is I still didn't own a Genesis at the time, so I had to wait about a month for him to get a Genesis traded in so I could actually test out the 32X.

I also got some huge steals there, like Battletoads/Double Dragon for NES (fairly rare/expensive) for $3.33 :) (he has flat rate pricing for his games with buy 2 get 1 free so all NES/Genesis were $3.33 and SNES were $4 each, pretty damn reasonable if you could find 3 games you wanted).


oh yeah, I also got Super Scope for Dreamcast free when an eBay seller took a while to ship out. The funny thing is I didn't even complain and all he sold me was the Gran Turismo 2 Bleemcast disc for like $5~$10.

My best friend got over his " I am obsessed with Japan" phase and gave me his white Saturn along with a small collection of games. My brother who was a bigger collector than I ever was gave me his CDX, Snatcher, Lunar I, II, Vay and shit load of other good games. He now making 80g's a year though so I don't think it bothers him as much. A few Ataris and N64s here and there. Yes I have been very lucky. One buddy game me an N64 with a crap load of games that makes up most of my N64 collection.

There was a guy on Craigslist that was giving away some vintage video games. When I contacted the guy, he told me I was second in line. The first guy never showed up. I ended getting some atari and colecovision games for free.

I got for free:

A Sega Genesis Nomad from a friend

Some Genesis games from same friend (and a Genesis and the rest of his games soon to be next time I see the stuff at his house)

A copy of Wario Land: Shake It! And Fire Emblem Shadow Dragon from a World of Nintendo booth at a video game convention.

Another friend's dad gave me a free copy of the Netlink version of Virtual On. Now to get a Netlink!

Back when I was freelancing I did one day a week sorting in the back of a charity shop, we were not allowed to sell electricals of any kind which led to me taking all manner of consoles home instead of seeing them go in the bin.

The nicest aquisitions during this time were a mint, boxed dragon 32 and a towered Amiga 1200 with a blizzard PPC card in it which recently got me £200 via eBay.

I wrote letters to NEC/TTI back in the day and a response I received towards the end of the Duo's run included a Lords of Thunder t-shirt and Dungeon Master Theron's Quest. It seemed pretty obvious that they chose that game because my letter had listed the games I owned and that RPGs are my favorite. If I didn't already have it, they likely would've sent me Dungeon Explorer II.

I've also found random CD games in the extra disc slot of various double disc case PC Engine games over the years.

I somehow got a Sega Master System for free at a Garage Sale that was in the middle of nowhere and it got absolutely no sales. So an old Hells Angel in his 70s gave it to me for free. It was a pretty good deal.

I've downloaded so many ROM's it isn't funny.

I don't really think I've ever gotten any video games for free, barring a Pokemon Mystery Dungeon prerelease I managed to win.

I got a Model 2 Genesis free with my Model 2 Sega CD.

I sold the Model 2 years ago, but the gesture was nice.

A few years back the forums over at www.kikizo.com gave away a free game every month to the best forum member. Of course I won nearly right away (but you can't win again for a while). I had my choice from any game I wanted which was currently sold in stores. I chose Nightshade for the PS2. A few days later a brand new copy of Nightshade arrived in my mailbox.

Other games I have gotten for free are Twin Bee Deluxe Pack for the Saturn because a friend had an extra copy due to buying it as part of an auction I think. It might have been sealed, but I don't remember. Games are meant to be played, not sealed. I also got copies of Test Drive Unlimited (awesome) and Bullet Witch lucky me... I think, both for the Xbox 360. They were review copies sent to a friend so he could review them, and he just passed them on to me.

about ten years ago the local rental store I had been a faithful customer of since when it opened in 1992 (I had a membership card with a two-digit-number) went out of business. It was a nice, cozy place, privately owned and not a part of a bigger chain. During its "going out of business"-sale, the proprietor decided to hand me a few used games (4 oder 5 I think, I remember "Road Rash 3" for the Genesis and "Fighters Megamix" for the Saturn were among them) for free since I had been one of their most faithful customers.

Damn, I miss that place...

Believe it or not talking my dog for a walk, I have found 6 Genesis carts and an extra SMS console.

-I got the Model 2 Genesis that brought me here for completely free, with copies of Sonic 2 and Aladdin, from a girl in my 9th grade English class. I'm pretty sure she liked me. :P

-My friend randomly gave me a copy of Earthworm Jim 2 for SNES once.

-Having family rocks. My uncle gave me his Atari 7800 with 10 games, and I had a cousin that randomly mailed me his NES, with 4 controllers, a NES Satellite, Tetris, Contra Force, and the Nintendo World Cup/Super Spike VBall multicart, and SNES with Contra 3.

-I bought a ton of Lemmings stuff from a guy at my Lemmings forums and he threw in some free stuff I didn't ask for: Lemmings for Mega Drive, a single-floppy Amiga budget version, the ZX Spectrum version, and a Japanese strategy guide for the Super Famicom version.

-Once I borrowed Star Wars: Rogue Squadron and Shadows of the Empire for the N64 from a friend. I forgot I had them, and years later I found them, and now he's moved away. I guess those count as free.

Now that I think of it, yes! I did get a game for free once.

I ordered Super Street Fighter II X for the Dreamcast from some Japanese dude on eBay once. Once it arrived, it had a little extra surprise inside: a Japanese promo copy of Toshinden for the PS1, complete with hilarious Engrish promotion text on the cover of the manual. I should upload a photo of it sometime, it's wonderfully silly.

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Oh, and let's not forget I won my Xbox 360 in a contest. It's a limited edition PGR3 version too, one of only 100 in existence. It didn't come with any games though, other than Hexic HD which is always free.

I wish I'd gotton a game for free...

However, I did get a free router from a friend a month ago. It's only about a year and a half old, and his family got a new one and they were going to throw this one away. My friend asked, "Hey we're going to thow this away, do you want it so you can use Xbox Live?"... You can tell what my answer was.

Although, my internet provider, mediacom, won't let me use it unless I fork out a monthly fee... Oh well, I should of expected hidden fees. It's the year 2009, of course some asshat buisnessman wants to make his wallet fatter on me trying to use a product that wasn't made by him. :?... Happens all the time, and I'm not the only one going through it, so I'm not even going to bitch/piss/moan.

Oh, I could easily type down shit i've found all day. But when it comes to Video Games, it might not be all that much.

My little brother turned in his gamecube so they could fix it, couldn't find the receipt, so they paid for a new one. They found the receipt back at home, and I got it, + the broken gc, turned it in for reparation, and then it was mine.

Does it count if I got back my Mega Drive with some games, that I sold to one of my mothers friends when I was very little? years later then, anyhow.. i got that.

Bought a few Mega Drive consoles for the games and gotten the units for free aswell.

Found a whole lot of pc-games on my previous city dump, well, doesn't make sense, but the city dump in MY previous city. There. Sorry, but still have a hangover.

And then there's all the other electronics i've gathered throughout the years in various places.

I've never been quite lucky winning games on the other hand.

I freaked out when I saw an old video game store I was so happy. Looked around in it for about 20 minutes then told him I wanted a sgea genesis 2, he went ahead and knocked off ten bucks on an original genesis then I asked him why nes went up in price and he went ahead and gave me a racing game and a second controller for it, it was pretty sweet. If it wasn't so far away id love to go back.

Sega sent Virtua Fighter Remix for free! :)

It's not a free game, but Sega sent a $100 check and a free (Dreamcast) keyboard, because I was a subscriber to Seganet.

I know i've gotten free games and stuff in the past but more recently got a free V3 Playstation 2 from work, just had to clean the lens and works fine.

I might be getting a free 65" TV from work as well, will have to fix it first though.

About ten years ago, a cousin of my dad's that was into PC gaming gave me a few of his games that he didn't want anymore- Age of Empires, Command and Conquer, Wheel of Time, and Daggerfall. I wish I still had some of them, or a computer they might work on.

I won a toy lightsaber in a Soul Calibur tournament a few months ago, and I traded that on ebay for some Gen games, if that counts.

Not sure if this counts, but when I was five, I lent my copy of Aladdin to a friend who, as I recall, only had an NES. He later claimed to have broken it, and me being a stupid ass five year old, didn't care. So either he was equally dumb and broke the Gen cart trying to stick it in an NES, or he got away with a free game. Lucky him, considering he moved away shortly afterward.

My mom's boyfriend had an old copy of the Seventh Guest that he gave to me when we moved in with him. It won't work on my newer computer, so I might end up selling it.

my uncle gave me ridge racer revolution on ps1 and my cousins gave me a load of n64 games

I can't really think of any completely free stuff other that that I got from relatives, like my grandparents' 1977 Atari VCS ("heavy sixer") complete (paddles ac adaptor joysticks) and a few games, and maybe a couple of out NES games. I can't rememer if we traded a freind for the 2 N64 rampage games, or they just gave them to us. (I seem to remember him just giving them when we bought Glover from him).

I missed getting my uncle's Atari 2600 stuff (ended up giving it to good will last year, even though he's only bought it on ebay ~2001 -said a lot of the games wouldn't work... and gave me no heads up), however he said he still thinks he's got a SMS II with a few games and I seem to remember a loose 32x tossed in and either a couple 32x or genesis games as well. (I had no idea what it was last time I saw it, so I wasn't sure)

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Originally Posted by gamevet

Sega sent Virtua Fighter Remix for free! :)

It's not a free game, but Sega sent a $100 check and a free (Dreamcast) keyboard, because I was a subscriber to Seganet.

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Oh yeah! I got both of those deals as well. I also think I got Christmas Nights for free or $5 at the most, US edition.

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Originally Posted by Joe Redifer

Oh yeah! I got both of those deals as well. I also think I got Christmas Nights for free or $5 at the most, US edition.

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Sega hooked me up with Double Dragon, Reggie Jackson Baseball, and Power Strike for Master System. I sent in UPC's, they sent freebies. Joy!

My friend gave me Battletech, Super Street Fighter II, and F22 Interceptor for free.

I got a US copy of Christmas NiGHTS (plus sleeve) in exchange for writing a paper about cocaine for one of my friends, don't know if that counts. Recently, another friend of mine gave me a complete copy SaGa Frontier for PSX because he didn't like it. One man's trash, as the saying goes.

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Originally Posted by Black_Tiger

I wrote letters to NEC/TTI back in the day and a response I received towards the end of the Duo's run included a Lords of Thunder t-shirt and Dungeon Master Theron's Quest. It seemed pretty obvious that they chose that game because my letter had listed the games I owned and that RPGs are my favorite. If I didn't already have it, they likely would've sent me Dungeon Explorer II.

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Now this is the kind of story that really warms the heart. It's nice to know that some companies do care about their userbase. Sure, they were probably going under at that time, but they still had the option to sell the game at a loss instead of giving it away for nothing.

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Originally Posted by Why-Disciple

My mom's boyfriend had an old copy of the Seventh Guest that he gave to me when we moved in with him. It won't work on my newer computer, so I might end up selling it.

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You can use ScummVM to get Seventh Guest running on modern PC's. I've tried it with my copy, needs a little fiddling but works just fine!

Or use DOSbox. In fact, the win95 version might be more of a problem on some newer OSs. (at least 64-bit ones)

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Originally Posted by 16-bit

My friend gave me Battletech, Super Street Fighter II, and F22 Interceptor for free.

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A clunky mech game, an awful port of SSFII (SFII SCE was way better), and an abortion of a 3D tech demo...

man, that's not a very good friend, lol!

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Originally Posted by Joe Redifer

Oh yeah! I got both of those deals as well. I also think I got Christmas Nights for free or $5 at the most, US edition.

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I believe it came with an issue of Next-Gen magazine.

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Originally Posted by 17daysolderthannes

an awful port of SSFII (SFII SCE was way better)

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Is there any reason to pick up Super Street Fighter II if I already have SFII:SCE? New characters aren't particularly appealing to me, as Chun-Li is my homegirl and just about the only character I use anyway (on any Street Fighter).

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Originally Posted by 17daysolderthannes

A clunky mech game, an awful port of SSFII (SFII SCE was way better), and an abortion of a 3D tech demo...

man, that's not a very good friend, lol!

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I think F-22 is kind of cool, choppy with average/bland music, but at least rather playable compared to other 3D flight sims which were not at all suited to keyboardless controlls. (ie MiG-29 and F-15 Strike Eagle II, not sure about LHX) I'm kind of partial to it, not a great game, but OK IMO (granted I'm a flight sim fan), maybe 5/10. (it did better with 3-button controls than MiG-29 or F-15 II did with 6-button, although I do think it could have been significantly more fluid with a 6-button option -lack of rudder is annoying, 2ndary weapon select outside of pause menue would have been nice too, maybe 2-button throttle controll as well)

In my Ebay days, I would buy bundles of systems and games from other users and then break them down and sell everything individually. I would almost always turn a profit, and somtimes my profit was great enough that I was able to keep some of the stuff for myself for free (in essence, I was getting paid to take this stuff).

This is how I got my PS2 Slim, Half-Life, The Thing, Tombraider Anniversary, and God of War I & II for free.

I also ended up with The Legend of Zelda: Collector's Edition, Sonic Mega Collection, SSX3, and Crash Bandicoot: Wrath of Cortex for GameCube.

Not a bad score, all told.

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Originally Posted by Why-Disciple

My mom's boyfriend had an old copy of the Seventh Guest that he gave to me when we moved in with him. It won't work on my newer computer, so I might end up selling it.

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I remember getting it to play on the computer my parents had, but the audio was low and muddled.

Hm, back towards the end of the 90s my aunt and uncle got rid of their MD / CD (apparently it had "broken" and my aunt had just thrown the whole lot of hardware out. :shame:) Anyway, they gave me a few complete games that I didn't already have - Crue Ball, Pac Panic, Super Hang On, Talespin and Klax.

Also, my parents bought me a Master System for Christmas one year. They checked it out and then went back to the shop to complain about the "missing" Sonic game, not realising it was built into the machine. Due to similar lack of knowledge on the shop manager's part, I ended up with a surplus complete copy of Sonic as part of my present. :) Shame I didn't leave it sealed, really - probably be worth a bit now :p

Wow , The 7th Guest. I remember how much they hyped that stinker. OHHH scary puzzles!

I remember being freaked out at "Myst":

a. Because there was nobody else around in the game.
b. Bigger cause was probably because I played many a adventure game on the Apple //c and in all those games something/someone would try to kill you.