Free, but not Freeware

Video game concept

Free to obtain and play (no payments required), but have certain limitations that make them something else than freeware, such as requires proprietary server software you can't obtain, no rights to redistribute, and similar restrictions.

509
games
38
platforms
Can be obtained and played without paying (legally), but does not have any other similarities with freeware, such as no rights to freely re-distribute them (without permission). Nor are these in public domain.

No payments required does not include any potential internet usage costs, as that's too generic to be included (same as electricity bill and costs of acquiring the platform and related hardware). Otherwise you'd need to consider that UVL itself is not free.

This can possibly be used as a fallback for other non-freeware-but-still-free licenses that have details missing (though such cases should be fixed).

Popular tags

actionrpg advergame arenashooter breakoutlike dofus-series fallout gta gtalike hackandslash incremental interactivefiction landersim literaturegenerator mabinogi-series match3 metroidvania mmog pinball platformer quake-series racinggame roguelike runandgun seriousgame tactical tanksim traditional ultima visualnovel xcom-2012reboot xcom-series zelda-universe zeldalike

Parent group

Licenses

Child groups

Free-to-play, Freemium, Qt framework

Games by year

7779818385878991939597990103050709111315171921 681734510

The first Free, but not Freeware video game was released on January 1977.

Scientific Research Inst., Retroguru and Ankama Games published most of these games.

Platforms

Linux 156
Windows 148
Internet Only 30
MS-DOS 19
custom 17
Altair 8800 16
DEC PDP-1 16
Sol-20 16
Flash 16
Mac OS X 8
X360 7
GP2X 6
Mac OS Classic 6
Apple II E 4
Amiga 4
BSD 4
Android 4
Mobile 4
Win3.1 3
PS3 3
iOS 2
ZX Spectrum 2
Pandora 2
OS/2 2
Amiga AGA 1
Xbox One 1
Dreamcast 1
GameCube 1
3DO 1
PSP 1

Most common companies