Q&A What titles are bundled with hardware these days? Post your bundle game collection!

[Virtual Ruminant]

Ever since I got into small form factor gaming PCs some ten years ago, I haven't really bought any component hardware like graphics cards or mainboards and it occurred to me today that I don't know what sort of game gets bundled with gaming hardware anymore. Is it even still a thing? I'm guessing it's probably download codes now rather than actual optical install media like in the old days.

Do you have a collection of all the bundled games you got with long-gone hardware still lying around? Post it!

Have you recently bought a GPU and received bundled games with them! Post what they were!

 

[Prodigy]

Ever since I got into small form factor gaming PCs some ten years ago, I haven't really bought any component hardware like graphics cards or mainboards and it occurred to me today that I don't know what sort of game gets bundled with gaming hardware anymore. Is it even still a thing? I'm guessing it's probably download codes now rather than actual optical install media like in the old days.

Do you have a collection of all the bundled games you got with long-gone hardware still lying around? Post it!

Have you recently bought a GPU and received bundled games with them! Post what they were!

It's definitely still a thing. I live in South Africa and just upgraded my CPU to a Ryzen and got Star Wars jedi: Survivor bundled with it (code). I have seen GPU's that give Redfall, Gaming glasses etc... it seems like it is always that have launched in that month.

 

[Durante]

I feel like GPU bundles basically went away in the COVID/Crypto years, because why add value when you can't keep any GPUs on the shelves?
They seem to be slowly returning now.

That said, I don't think I ever really got anything in a bundle that I actually wanted -- I feel like it was always mostly multiplayer shooters or AAA spectacles. Of course, that makes sense when you want to show off your GPU, and most people probably don't buy a high-end GPU only to primarily play indie games, CRPGs and Japanese mid-tier stuff on it

 

[didamangi]

rtx 3080 10gb: Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, still haven't played it on bnet. Sold the card for $2000 to a cryptobro.
rtx 3080 12gb (current gpu): Spider-Man, nice bonus. Have played and finished it.
rx 6700 xt (for my nephew upgrade): The Last of Us, nice bonus. Have played and finished it.

I remember in the olden days, my older brother bought a creative sound blaster awe32/cd rom combo and got like 3 free cd games. One of them was rebel assault ii I think.

He bought a Rendition Verite card as well and got a shareware version of quake. First time seeing a 3d accelerated Quake on pc was amazing back then, going from DOS/megadrive games to that was probably what got me into PC gaming. Also Fallout 1/2 and CGW magazines.

 

[Durante]

This blast from the past reminded me of something.
I think our first CD-ROM drive might have been bundled with a The 7th Guest.

 

[Virtual Ruminant]

This blast from the past reminded me of something.
I think our first CD-ROM drive might have been bundled with a The 7th Guest.

Oh yeah, retail box optical drives used to come with games well into the 2000s. One of the games I remember getting with a DVD-ROM drive once was Westwood's "Blade Runner" game ... never finished it back then, and when I actually did play it from start to finish last year, the experience wasn't so great

 

[Parsnip]

Unless memory fails me, I think I got MGS5 with a GPU.

And I think the last DVD drive I had came with Tomb Raider Anniversary, might even still have that disc somewhere.