The Amazon Prime Gaming in review for 2022 highlights free games, “value”

What's in a game? And when is a "free game" actually free? Is there "value" retained if you get a free game that just sort of sits in your backlog forever? These all might be too existential of a question for a news brief about the Amazon Prime Gaming review for 2022 released today by the media and shopping giant. After all, there's currently over 100 games in my Steam catalog that I've never even installed, yet they'll always be there waiting for me if and when the time comes.

So, when a company like Amazon touts how much of a "value" their service is offering in free games and giveaways, it's a somewhat nebulous and contextual statement. After all, some of us have had Amazon prime for years. I'm willing to bet a large sum of ya'll have never even opened Amazon Prime Gaming.

Is there value in that? Are we just asking a bunch of questions with vague answers?

Maybe seeing this "value" laid out in front of us will help make a decision.

Head of Amazon Gaming PR Dustin Blackwell really wants you to know how good of a deal you're getting with Amazon Prime Gaming. "If a member claimed every single game offered each month as part of our “Free Games With Prime” program throughout 2022, they would find themselves with a collection of games worth more than $2,300 USD in value," Blackwell says in the blog post. He goes on to extol how the service increased that value by 34 percent over the previous year.

And that's great, but what kind of value are we talking about here? According to Blackwell the 10 most claimed games off the Free Games With Prime program included:

It's cool to see StarCraft Remastered on there! And on the off chance you don't use any other service that sometimes gives free games like Epic Store or Twitch then it's safe to say you got your money out of the thing you keep paying for yearly so that you don't have to pay for shipping for toilet paper.

The most interesting statistic here is the increase of claims by 25 percent over the previous year. One wonders if the branding changeover from Twitch Prime to Amazon Gaming had anything to do with this increase or if it was, indeed, the game quality. Likewise, it could also be the free loot for games such as League of Legends, Grand Theft Auto Online, Pokémon GO, Roblox, Valorant, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, and more.

Honestly, if you're not big into gaming and you just happen to have Amazon Prime then its Prime Gaming offerings are a neat addon. While none of those top claimed games are going to set the world on fire, there's always someone out there who isn't as fortunate as the rest of us when it comes to game collection. If you have Amazon Prime and haven't done so already, go take a look at its monthly offerings. After all, value is often in the eye of the beholder.

I still miss Twitch Gaming though.

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