"Oh no, piratebay doesn't have X game! I now have to buy it to try it!"
>using piratebay in 2022
Imagine paying for trashy videogames, without even a chance for a demo or refund. Or even worse, not having true ownership and playing whenever and wherever you wish (enjoy the forced internet connection and the telemetry that comes with it)
1. https://www.gog-games.com
There are 3 great benefits over the other websites:
- Every game comes with a simple installation, no crack needed.
- No IP tracking or ads
- Absolutely 0% chance for a virus.
Why? gog-games is quite literally a re-upload of every game in gog.com
And gog-games also depends on donations, so it doesn't make sense to spread virus-injected games.
So, if you are afraid of viruses, then this website is for you. But then again, viruses in videogames are so rare nowadays, haven't got one in years, which speaks a lot about the goodwill of seeders.
I suggest using JDownloader 2 for downloading gog-games, as it's retarded to download big games otherwise (part 52, gotta manually click download to 52 links SMORC)
My routine is if I see a game on Steam that I want to buy, I check out if it has also released on gog. If so, I just open gog-games and download it there.
This means around 90% of the games I play are free, and you can also enjoy this. But of course, if the game is remarkable, do donate to the developers, or buy their game.
2. https://1337x.to
This is a torrenting website, containing all kinds of torrents. Uploaders like Fitgirl and CODEX etc etc can be found here, instead of checking their websites one-by-one.
You may be banned from accessing this website, but just using Tor works. If you are paranoid about leaving a trail, search the game you want and copy the magnet torrent url instead of downloading its torrent file through Tor. So no legal entity can prove you downloaded a file through Tor. Alternatively, if you don't want to use Tor, look in the bottom section of how to torrent like a chad.
3. https://igg-games.com
I recommend against this because every link is behind an ad, and you get tons of cookies too. Like your grandma who insists you eat that cookie or you cannot leave.
However, it tends to have videogames not listed in 1337x. And sadly many times, all mirror links are dead too.
So yeah, try this out if all the above failed you.
4. https://cs.rin.ru
Needs an account to use, and also some knowledge of cyrillic (or just translator). I haven't bothered with it, even though it has many cracked steam videogames. So, to fill this section, I will provide you its hilarious background: If you had internet back in cs 1.6 days, you would play cs 1.6, and so, this started as a russian forum for cs 1.6, and it got big. So, russians shared every media via the internet, in their favourite game forum. But slowly it attracted non-russian players who wanted to play free videogames and the forums are now mostly in english lol
How to download like a chad
Alternatively titled as "How to download a videogame from any torrenting website in the world, without opening a browser. Peak accessibility (minimal key presses) and 0 proof that you even visited these websites."
tl;dr in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nksLKqotTys
"H-How could you post this article!
Pirating is morally reprehensible!
Are you seriously suggesting to pirate videogames?"
Yes. But if you enjoy a videogame, you should buy it. Otherwise, if you buy a game you dislike, you contribute to the creation of more games like it. Simple as.