Shareware, AKA “try before you buy”, now known as free game demos.
My first one was DOOM on 3.5” floppy disks. I remember my dad asking “What’s this I.D. software you ordered?”
I remember the days of Playstation Jampack. I’d spend hours as a kid on those demos.
I played the free demo of Factorio for about 10 hours and got hooked. Waited a bit to see if the price would go down, but it didn’t and I didn’t care. Bought it at full price and sunk a few hundred hours into it, which is some of the best entertainment ROI from a cost/hours perspective. It turned out to be a bad ROI from a general life perspective since I didn’t do much else during that time, so be careful to not get too addicted.
FYI, the Factorio devs have stated that the game will never go on sale
Which is fine be me. First the game receives constant updates to this day. Second they’re asking reasonable price to start with. Third the amount of content…
Just a warning, the big factorio 2.0 update and space age dlc are coming out on October 21st. My supervisor is taking the whole week off for it
Thanks for the heads up, I didn’t have any plans for the next month anyway.
Does marriage count?
/s
Really weird that this question would come up right now because up until yesterday, I would say no. I was at the store with my daughter and there was a person giving away free samples of these frozen dumplings (they were cooked, not cold). My daughter chowed one down and asked for another. Now my daughter is a super picky eater, so I was like “hell yeah, I’m gonna buy a box of these”.
Well we went home to have dumplings for dinner and she didn’t want to eat them.
So now I have dumplings.
Wait are you talking about your cat?
Damn she is too picky
Maybe you should’ve waited a week or two to serve those to her again, maybe twice in one day was too much for her pickiness
Whelp we got a whole box of them, so maybe in a day or two we will try again.
Costco samples sometimes. Doesn’t happen often though. I think the last time was this huge bag of popcorn that was actually really good.
The Chicago style popcorn?! 🤤
Creators!
No lol. Just regular popcorn and certain flavors. This is in Canada, so it might be different for you.
Same. The first one was a box of 20+ single serving guacamole pots. It was excellent for a non freshly made version and we had it with chips or raw veg most days for the next couple of weeks. Despite looking for it every time we go back, it hasn’t been available since that first time.
Video games, for sure.
Granted this isnt a “Purchase,” but I married my wife. After that first sample, I was hooked and knew I wanted the whole woman forever. 6 years later, I got my best friend and gal of my dreams everyday.
Goals ❤️
Winrar and mIRC are pretty good but I’m not quite sure yet…
I was in NYC for Pride the other year and got a sample of a cannabis drink made by a new-at-the-time company Cycling Frog. Flavor is good for a seltzer type drink, and the inebriation level is tailored to be about equal to 1-2 alcoholic beverages, which makes it easy to dose. Hubby and I loved it and bought a couple of cans on the spot. They are now available in dispensaries near us, and we still pick up a case every few months.
Cycling frog is lit. I don’t think I’ve had any of their seltzers but their huckleberry gummies are great.
It wasn’t a free “sample”, but I got someone’s hand-me-down leggings and they were so comfortable that I bought a new pair when I needed a different size.
Video games, for sure.
We have this oriental restaurant here that gives out 8 samples at the beginning and you can then chose what to order, all-you-can-eat. The menu changes every couple of weeks. It’s not the greatest restaurant but a nice concept and I like going there with friends.
In college I was given a 5-pound block of cheese after doing a mall survey on cheese.
Okay but the question was: did you purchase it?
I really need to work on my…reading comprehension sometimes.
Dude same. I words all the time
Or are they still working their way through that 5 pound block of cheese?
I don’t go to Costco but every few years and I went hungry with a friend who has membership and bought too many of the samples I had
Yes, for a set of skincare products. One of the products was a sebum control serum that just did magic, I’ve never seen anything else like it. No more pimples no more blackheads no excess oil and just in three days. Unfortunately it’s discontinued now 😭 but yeah that’s my bought after the sample story
I was just about to ask the name of the product and then got to the end of your comment and became immensely depressed. I’m tired of feeling excessively oily and what you described sounded like a dream product.
It was the jojoba company brand. They still make the face cleanser with grapefruit, which was pretty good for oil control but the serum was the key product.
I’m just as sad 😭
If the product works too well they can’t sell you other stuff! 🥲
- Cracked Minecraft Beta 1.7.3 to full Minecraft Beta 1.9 Prerelease 5. (I don’t like Microsoft and Notch is a Nazi)
- Cheese (before I was vegan. I kinda miss free food sampling)
- Monthly countrywide public transit ticket (well 9€ wasn’t free, but for a net of 39,000 km railway alone plus every other PT except HSR, it basically is). 49€ now, 58€ in 2025 (=> Subsidy regimes are not on parity to motorised individual traffic)
- Library subscription
