Epic is giving away a lawn mowing sim??? I'm at a loss for words. This is something I'd imagine as a parody. I don't know which is more bizarre:

That someone even made this
That epic thought it would be a good giveaway
That they're charging money for product marketing
That there's dlc for it.

Unbelievable.

Eh...that's nothing new. EGS always gives away some crappy dud games on some weeks.

They can't be giving away premium tier AAA games every single week. Although they do still do that a whole lot too, and way more than any other store ever has at any point in history.

Hey, it's manual labour porn. Some people can't get enough of the real thing, so they like to make-believe for a while.

And it's free. EGS knows people don't even have to play the game they offer: it's cheap advertising to get you to log in on the site to claim it, or even just to look at it. Maybe something else on the site grabs your interest while it's there. And it reminds you every week that EGS exists, and is "the good guy giving away stuff". Furthermore it's so wacky that it got you talking about it, spreading the news on rival store sites. Another win.

Have you played it yet? It might be weirdly entertaining and worth buying those DLCs. You never know.

I might have given it a try 30 years ago when I was envious of people that got to use riding mowers when I had to push dad's mower to mow my parents' lawn.
Today I have a self-propelled push mower. I realize that a riding mower isn't practical for all lawns.

My issue isn't that they're giving away a crappy game... it's that they're giving away something SO godawful that I'm just stupefied. Again, the fact that lawnmower marketers made a game to sell their products, and that anybody else took it seriously. I mean, I think I have a Volvo sim from gamersgate or somewhere, but that was free with the acct.

It's like a "watching paint dry sim". With product placement. That you have to pay for.... AND with dlc. It's like a bingo card of terrible game elements.

I'm not surprised lawnmower marketers made a game to sell their products.
I'm surprised that they thought people would pay $20 +$5 for each add-on for it.
Maybe selling it for $<5, as there used to be a lot of crappy $5 games in bargain bins back when we still had software stores, and there are quite a few crappy games for $1 on Steam.

If they gave it away for free or a nominal fee like $1, I would not have batted an eye.

I got it free and I batted both eyes. But... then it came hither. And I had to explain I wasn't flirting with it, though it kept insisting I was. And I said I wasn't interested, and then it got angry and asked what Manscaper had that it didn't have, threw a bunch of grass shavings at me, and roared out. Left a pattern on the rug.

I think the "massive giveaways" and "free game" threads are redundant. One, or both, should be closed.

Then, have three threads:

a) a free games thread. All you have to do to get the game is click a button. May need a free account and/or launcher, or otherwise require you to do something free, like give email for a newsletter. (gog, steam, epic, indiegala, etc). I don't see a value in splitting this further into a pure free game thread (push a button) and a free game with steps (acct, newletter, whatever).

b) a free games with subscription thread. You need to pay for an account, or buy something, or otherwise spend more than 0.01 money to get "free" games. (amazon prime)

c) free shovelware games. (itch, bigfish)

Maybe have a fourth thread letting people know about game bundles. They wouldn't be free, but they'd be very cheap. Like the old thread we used to have alerting people to Humble bundles, back when they had decent bundles.

A thing getting in the way seems to be threads opened by gamers who are no longer active, so they can't set the rules for their threads and mods don't want to touch them. So maybe have a rule that these threads would automatically expire at the end of each year, so if the gamer is gone, a new gamer opens a thread. And even if they're still active, thread rules could be adjusted for problems that came up later.

Ultimately, there seems to be too much squabbling over what games go where. We should reach a consensus and then make new threads. And if the threads are restarted each year, they can be tweaked each year so we don't keep constantly having discussions of what's "appropriate" for each thread.

There will be no consensus. However few or many threads will be, some will want to stay with one, or few, and not use the appropriate ones if separate, others will want want things separate and complain when they're lumped together. The constant discussions are unavoidable.

Just to chime in here for the "massive giveaways" thread, I'd just like to say that I don't have a problem ignoring posts with "freebies" I don't want. And I don't really understand what the problem is, if it was only one thread...

AFAIK there's only one request when posting (more or less) free games: write from where the games are (e.g. GOG), add limitations you know of (like requiring a free account, for how long the freebie lasts and so on). Emphasis on "you know of". Follow-up posts on such limits are also no problem for me.

And I don't get all the noise and complaints about information that could so easily just be ignored, because those endless discussions are just tiresome.

I agree to split the threads though: one for the links to the freebies -- all the freebies, no matter the limitations! (Amazon: there is a trial period, in which Amazon Gaming is also free, in which e.g. GOG codes are to be obtained completely free, soooo: freebie! under certain conditions/with limitations) -- and one for the endless discussions...

Feel free to simply ignore this opinion too.

FWIW, I like your suggestions. I, for example, would probably follow a and b, and ignore c.

If adopted, I recommend that all three be opened by the same person, so that when that person leaves GOG, he or she would hopefully be responsible enough to suggest three new threads be opened, rather than just disappear silently.

Games that require a subscription to redeem are not actually free at all. Therefore, they should not be listed under any sort of "free game" thread, nor should any posters ever refer to them as being "free" games since they really are not.

Just wondering: what's your opinion on giveaways for Steam games but only for those with "unlimited" accounts?

What are unlimited accts?