Prime Gaming Is Free With Amazon Prime; Here’s What You Get

With Prime Day set for July 16-17, shoppers are eagerly awaiting markdowns. But for Amazon Prime gamers, Prime Day deals start early with access to 15 new free games leading up to the sale, including Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II.

Here’s a breakdown of what Amazon Prime Gaming is and the deals you could score leading up to this year’s Prime Day.

Amazon Prime Gaming is a gaming program that’s free with Amazon Prime membership. It includes access to games that can be downloaded and kept on a PC, as well as the ability to play games on consoles and across devices using Amazon Luna, Amazon’s cloud gaming platform (which allows you to play on Apple devices, Android phones and some TVs). Some PC games require installing the Amazon Games app for access.

Prime Gaming also comes with a free channel subscription on Twitch, a streaming platform owned by Amazon that gamers use to share content of themselves playing their favorite games while providing commentary.

Amazon Prime Gaming rewards include special offers, upgraded in-game content and new bonus games made available to Prime members.

To get Prime Gaming, you’ll need to be a Prime member. A Prime membership costs $14.99 a month or $139.99 annually. If you’re in a free trial for Amazon Prime or Prime Video-only membership, you’re eligible to activate Prime Gaming (but video-only trials will not receive a Twitch channel subscription).

You may also be eligible for Prime Gaming if you have a Prime Student subscription, which is $69 per year with a six-month free trial. During the free trial period, you will be limited to receiving a Twitch channel subscription for one month.

There are 15 new free PC games being released leading up to Prime Day for Prime members. They include the following titles:

• Tearstone: Thieves of the Heart

• Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood

• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge

• Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II

• Alex Kidd in Miracle World DX

And gamers can expect more offers to roll in during the Prime Day sale.

Entertainment services, like games and streaming, fall into the 30% section of the 50/30/20 budget framework. Under this budgeting system, 50% of income is used for essential needs including debt minimums, 30% for wants, and 20% for savings and extra payments to debt.

If you’re paying for Amazon Prime already, then the expense of Prime Gaming is factored into your budget since it’s free with membership.

But if you’re not a Prime subscriber yet and want to be, you could look at other ways to trim down costs in your wants category to make room for a Prime subscription. You might decide to cancel other gaming subscriptions in favor of a Prime subscription because of its other benefits, such as fast shipping, video streaming and Prime Music.