What's the best free haul you've ever gotten?

[dakooldood]

I see posts on reddit all the time about family members giving their collections to people, today it happened to me! My uncle was getting rid of his old games and checked to see if I wanted them. The text that he sent me said there was just a few, but when he gave them to me, there were 80 exactly, plus a couple of old wrestling dvds. Granted, most are sports games but I'm definitely not complaining. https://imgur.com/a/ifTy1rF

Anyways, that got me curious. What was your best haul that you didn't pay for?

[hoshichiri]

Very nice!

My best hauls were years ago, before there was really a market for this stuff. I had a co-worker who knew I played old games ask me if I had a Dreamcast. I did not. "oh, I just found all my old games & thought you might want them". I told him for free games I'd go buy a Dreamcast! I forget what all was in the lot, but I know it had Magnetic Neo, Record of Lodoss War, Shemue… and Shemue 2. The European release. With a boot disc to run it. That was awesome. I later bought Evolution 2 from a Gamestop blowing out DC games, mildly disappointed they didn't have the first one. Got home, took the tape hold the case shut off, and a disc fell out. But the disc was still in the case? I picked up the mystery disc- Evolution 1. I'm not sure that counts, though.

The REAL haul was a couple years before that. I went over to a friend's house, and she was having a fight with her mom over owning too many videogames. She eventually says "FINE- hey, do you want my SNES?" Of course I said yes (I tried to argue that I already had 7 consoles, which was more that what my friend had, but it did not appease mom.) You know what games came with that SNES? Amongst others: Donkey Kong country 1-3, Zelda: Link to the Past, Mario World, Mario RPG, Starfox, frickin' Evo: Search For Eden... Literally a trove of gaming by today's standards. I caught one heck of a break thanks to angry mom!

[oldgamerz]

probably from my sister, but I choose to pay her, since I knew she needed the money.

great hall By the way!  some games in their I have too like original Sims for the PlayStation 2 I think it's a classic, basically the sims original for the PS2 is vary close to the original one for the PC  once you past the first stages. the only issue is. the disc is one of the blue bottom colored games that many .PS2's don't have that needed laser working anymore.

And I love Atari Anthology too ,

Even though you got mostly sports games, that is not a bad thing because I firmly believe PS1 and PS2 sports games are way underappreciated. most sports games I've played have so many playable options and tweaks that will keep you busy for years to come

[kamikazekeeg]

Cousin of mine gave me her classic gameboy and about a half dozen games when I was asking friends and family if they had old game stuff they didn't want a while back so I could add it to my collection.  The Gameboy has gone on to have some screen issues, but still works and I got a nice clear plastic display case for it and a couple of the games from a friend to better display it.

[dakooldood]

Amongst others: Donkey Kong country 1-3, Zelda: Link to the Past, Mario World, Mario RPG, Starfox, frickin' Evo: Search For Eden... Literally a trove of gaming by today's standards. I caught one heck of a break thanks to angry mom!

I'd say! I actually did get a few SNES games from a cousin a few years back, they were actually some of the first games that got me into retro gaming. The best games among those were DKC 1 and Castlevania IV.

Even though you got mostly sports games, that is not a bad thing because I firmly believe PS1 and PS2 sports games are way underappreciated. most sports games I've played have so many playable options and tweaks that will keep you busy for years to come

Yeah, some of those sports titles do look interesting, mainly the wrestling games. I'll have to try them.

[aliensstudios]

Probably ten years ago, a friend gave me his original Xbox and all of the games he had for it. A few years later, another friend gave me a Sega Dreamcast and several games as well.

[azure]

My uncle would always give me his old consoles and games whenever he moved on. Still have them to this day. Got my SNES, PS1, PS2, and N64 from him. He stopped gaming around the PS2 time so had to start getting them myself, haha.

[spyrofanx]

I'd say the time that I got my PS1 from my older brother with quite a decent amount of games when I was beginning high school in like 2011 or 2012. Although this other cool free haul I got from a GameStop employee just handing out free PS2 and PS1 games. (I only took some of the PS2 games as I already had and still have the PS1 games being handed out, so I let some others take them)

[wolff242]

I see posts on reddit all the time about family members giving their collections to people, today it happened to me! My uncle was getting rid of his old games and checked to see if I wanted them. The text that he sent me said there was just a few, but when he gave them to me, there were 80 exactly, plus a couple of old wrestling dvds. Granted, most are sports games but I'm definitely not complaining. https://imgur.com/a/ifTy1rF

Anyways, that got me curious. What was your best haul that you didn't pay for?

You might want to look up what NCAA 14 sells for. it's quietly become one of the most valuable games from the last gen.

I've received 3 free hauls in my life.

1st was a 3DO in 95-97 with maybe a dozen or so games. Ended up selling it when I moved (I wasn't into video games at the time, mostly just played road rash with my roomie). Only system I've ever sold, and naturally...I regret that.

2nd was a free Dreamcast (Also with a dozen games or so) in 2001. Was a guy I was friends with on the internet that offered it to me (We had mutual IRL friends thought) I wasn't into video games at this time either, but I liked the system a lot more. Played Shadow Man, phantasy star, time stalkers to death. So excited Shadow Man is getting a remaster in 2021 Still have it, and have been tempted to get the device that allows you to play online with it's small but dedicated community. Crazy that 20 years later it still has a player base like that. There was a used bookstore that sold games, so from 2001-2003 I picked a few additional games up.

Latest was a SNES in 2005 (I went Sega that gen) with again....maybe a dozen games. Given to me by a co-worker. Still have it, but haven't really done much other than to boot the games up and make sure they work. I've picked up a few cheap games since.

[wolff242]

Very nice!

My best hauls were years ago, before there was really a market for this stuff. I had a co-worker who knew I played old games ask me if I had a Dreamcast. I did not. "oh, I just found all my old games & thought you might want them". I told him for free games I'd go buy a Dreamcast! I forget what all was in the lot, but I know it had Magnetic Neo, Record of Lodoss War, Shemue… and Shemue 2. The European release. With a boot disc to run it. That was awesome. I later bought Evolution 2 from a Gamestop blowing out DC games, mildly disappointed they didn't have the first one. Got home, took the tape hold the case shut off, and a disc fell out. But the disc was still in the case? I picked up the mystery disc- Evolution 1. I'm not sure that counts, though.

The REAL haul was a couple years before that. I went over to a friend's house, and she was having a fight with her mom over owning too many videogames. She eventually says "FINE- hey, do you want my SNES?" Of course I said yes (I tried to argue that I already had 7 consoles, which was more that what my friend had, but it did not appease mom.) You know what games came with that SNES? Amongst others: Donkey Kong country 1-3, Zelda: Link to the Past, Mario World, Mario RPG, Starfox, frickin' Evo: Search For Eden... Literally a trove of gaming by today's standards. I caught one heck of a break thanks to angry mom!

I dunno man, in a situation like that I'd have offered them back after everything cooled down. I would def feel like I took advantage of a friends bad situation.....

[bikingjahuty]

I had a friend and collector years ago that just gave me a bunch of doubles of his for free, and these weren't old sports games or cheap commons. I feel bad for not remembering every game in the lot, but I do recall several uncommon PS2 games being in there like Mega Man X8, Downhill Domination, and Silent Hill 3 being in there. There were about 5 others too, but I don't recall what they were.


I've been working on trying to get my fiancee's cousin to finally bring all his childhood games to one of our family gatherings for years. He still has his original NES and SNES from when he was a kid and has insisted for probably the last 5-years that we can just have them. Unfortunately he lives in Arizona and we see him probably once a year tops. I don't think he has anything super rare, but certainly has a lot of the must have titles, and really who cares, he's giving these to us lol. Only question is when.

[mark1982]

Only when I was a young lad, heh.

My neighbor at the time was heading off to college and was clearing out his room, I remember him coming over to my house with a box of comics because he knew I always bought and read as well. Especially those older Marvel G.I Joe and Transformers comics back then.

After my mom let him in he saw I was playing on my NES, he said he had a bunch of games too he could give me. He came back with a box of at least 20+ games. A lot of them I still have till now. Games that I would have never picked up as a kid, we're talking about stuff like Dr. Chaos, Legendary Wings, Robo Warrior, Dynowarz. These titles weren't really talked about in my school at that time. But I couldn't be happier, some of those games turned out to be my all time favorites.

There were a tonne of trading cards in the box as well with a few Silver Hawks figures. Really cool dude for giving all that to me. I wonder what he is up to now... maybe I should find him on FB and say hi.

[dakooldood]

You might want to look up what NCAA 14 sells for. it's quietly become one of the most valuable games from the last gen.

Wow, I had heard that it was pretty valuable, but I had never looked up the price before. Guess I got pretty lucky with that one.

[ignition365]

Most of the free stuff that comes to mind is stuff where my parents were like "Oh, we went to an estate sale and they had video games, so we bought this stuff" Which isn't really free, but I didn't pay.

Actual free stuff... I wouldn't say any of the ones that come to mind are very good. 

A girl I was dating in high school gave me her Sega Genesis and a bunch of sports games because her family didn't want it anymore.

I was at a Gamestop and a dude was trying to trade in a box of retro stuff, a lot of stuff they wouldn't take, but I guess the guy at the register knew I collected or something and he suggested that me and the dude work out a deal where he's use my Pro membership to increase his trade credit for what they would take and he'd give me whatever they wouldn't take.  Mostly junk stuff and a couple of interesting accessories, but I was surprised that GS wouldn't take Popeye for NES as I think that's worth $15.

[tripredacus]

It would have to be that time I found a NES and about 40 games in the garbage in 1998.