Not really anyway. While there are some tricks to get the most out of the game without spending a cent, it relies on a currency earned by completing missions called gm$ and you can only complete each mission once. Once it's gone, it's gone.

I can hear you saying "but the store page said free to play" and it did. Sadly, this isn't entirely true. It isn't entirely untrue either, but it lies on the dishonest side of that ditch only clinging to the tiniest bit of grass that lets it make that claim at all.

In this guide I'll go over how to get the most from your limited ability to actually play for free, but once your gm$ dries up the game essentially reverts to a demo again unless you're willing to pay money or go into the dark realms of spyware laced sponsor offers for a few pennies at a time.

Since neither of those options are actually free, that means the claim of "free to play" is problematic but we'll talk more about that later. First, let's see what you actually can do for free.

The absolute maximum gm$ you can potentially earn for free is 47,800gm$.
(update note: As of now, several days after the release of the reindeer as a huntable species, they have no missions and therefore no gm$ available so these numbers still remain the same)

That sounds like a lot until you look at the prices for things in the store. While you're there, you may also notice there's not much you can actually buy with gm$ and instead most everything requires em$ which is the paid-for currency.

In fact, the only other weapon you can buy is a single shot break action 12 GA shotgun for 6,299gm$. This shotgun is required because you'll need it to hunt anything that can't be taken down with the .243 rifle, which is the majority of the huntable animals. The good news is you can hunt everything with a shotgun because you can choose to load birdshot, buckshot, or slugs.

There's just one more little surprise waiting. Even though your starter rifle gets its ammo refilled for free after every hunt, as a guest account you have to buy the shotgun ammo or else you'll run out. You will run out of ammo for it eventually because there's no way to earn more gm$ once you've completed all of your available missions.

Oh, and don't forget that to even get access to most of these missions you'll have to buy special licenses to hunt any animal that isn't a Mule Deer or Cottontail Rabbit. While those vary in cost for certain animals, the most common (and most expensive) cost for licenses is 2,399gm$ (1 day) and 4,999gm$ (7 day). There is also a 28 day license for 9,999gm$ but you can't really afford that if you want to experience more of the game. (Prices for licenses taken from Elk as an example. As stated, price can vary between species)

Since the shotgun is an absolute necessity in order to hunt most animals your total potential earnings are now capped at 41,501gm$.

From here on out everything is a tradeoff, and no matter what choice you make it will end the moment you run out of gm$.

At this point, you need to pick what your priority is:

• Experience hunting all the animals
  
• Skip 2/3 of the animals in favor of extending time for the remaining ones
  
• Skip a few for a good balance between gm$ and huntable animals
  
• Some other tradeoff

Note: Ducks and Geese are not an option if you're not spending money as you need to buy a call at the very least to even be able to hunt them. To hunt them effectively, you'll also need the addition of short range calls, decoys, and maybe even a hunting blind. All of those are only available for purchase with money, not with gm$.

Now on to what to expect with each choice.

Unfortunately, this is the option that gives you the least game time in return for the most experiences. If you're considering purchasing and want to see what almost all of the game is like then this is best way to do it within the narrow constraints available to you.

First, the math.

Starting off do the mule deer and cottontail missions first as those licenses are free already. This gets you the gm$ to buy the shotgun and some ammo. Also go ahead and pick up the first one or two for all of the animals (it varries) because they usually only involve tracking, spotting, or identifying a call and not shooting. The Whiteheart Island travel missions gives another 1,000gm$ and is quite the long relaxing walk. (protip: Q is the autowalk key, C to toggle run)

A 1 day license for each of the game's animal species totals up to 29,986gm$.

That only leaves you with 11,515gm$ if you complete every mission and a single 4,999gm$ 7 day license for a particular animal to drop you down to 6,516gm$ afterwards for ammo expenses during missions (and for later if you want to stock up for long term bunny hunting as their license is free) or another 7 day license for another species. If you know ahead of time that you want to use your 7 day license for a particular animal then you don't have to buy the 1 day license for it too, which will save you a bit more additional gm$.

So, 14 licenses later and you've got about 20 or so days of total gameplay out of the license only animals, and hopefully plenty left over for a birdshot stockpile to hunt bunnies with for a little while at least. They're free to hunt, but the only ammo you have access to hunt them with is not free. Again, once your gm$ runs out that's all there is, so plan accordingly.

After this grand (and rushed) tour of animal slaughter, it's up to you to decide if it's worth a membership. If not, hope you like mule deer.

Not interested in seeing everything? Welcome to the land of cost/benefit analysis!

Certain animals are just not cost effective to hunt. The moose, for instance, only has one completable mission and it doesn't require shooting it to earn 100gm$ so you might decide it's not worth it to buy a license. Well, while I personally think that's missing the point of playing, it's still a valid position.

So this means you're in it for the highest scoring mission chains even if it only means hunting 7 of the 18 animals in the game. Since the mule deer (10,600gm$) and cottontail (1,600gm$) don't cost anything to hunt (aside from shotgun/ammo for the rabbit which you'll need anyway) those are your first goals. Max them out before taking one step further.

Since this is still the point where you're on free unlimited licenses for those two animals, the time spent here is the same as any other method and you can do it in a weekend or take 4 years if you so choose. That's why I don't include these in game time estimates since this is the default demo state of the game. This is a good time to go get the first missions for every animal (which can range from 100gm$ to 300gm$ before you need a license to shoot them) and the Whiteheart Island travel missions which require no shooting at all (1,000gm$)

You now have more than enough to buy a 7 day license for whatever will get you the most points. After you've got those points, buy the next 7 day license. Wash, rinse and repeat until you, as always, eventually run out of gm$ and end up back where you were the first time you loaded up the game.

Note: a * next to the score indicates that it can be hunted with the .243 rifle and therefore has no ammo cost

Elk - 8,500
Turkey - 5,200
Whitetail Deer - 5,100*
Pheasant - 3,400
Feral Hog - 2,400
Coyote - 1,800*
Black Bear - 1,600
Red Fox - 1,600*
Brown Bear - 1,000
Red Deer - 1,000
Wild Boar - 1,000
Roe Deer - 600*
any other remaining animals can only earn 100 and you should've already picked those up

This can get you about 40 days of hunting, but you'll miss out on quite a bit in trade for that extra time. Depending on ammo consumption or if you decide to buy scent lures to help out or such you're looking at around 7 animals that you'll be hunting, and two of those are always free to hunt.

If you grind through the missions in one day, you've essentially wasted the extra expense of the 7 day license. To get anything out of the remaining 6 days by hunting for the fun of it, you'll end up spending more on ammo for most of them. Just keep that in mind when making your decisions. Some animals it may still be better to only buy a one day license for.

So we've seen the two extremes, what's in the middle? Well, don't buy a license that costs more than what you can earn from a species unless you just want to try hunting it for your personal enjoyment, and mix the two above guides any which way you want.

As for time, think of it like a party. If you only talk to a couple close friends, you can spent the whole party with them. If you want to talk to everyone, you don't get much time with each person. Either way, when the party is over you can go anywhere you want but you can't sleep here. Or you can go home with the mule deer for as long as you like. Ok, this analogy just became awkward... moving on!

Pay up.

You've got 4 choices remaining to you:

• Cough up the dough
  
• Enjoy mule deer
  
• Uninstall the game
  
• The "OfferWall"

Now let's be realistic. If you've made it this far and haven't already just bought a membership you might want to make sure you really want to go any further. I'd already sorted out what the smallest membership options I could start from was that would give me a range of equipment I needed to enjoy all of the game content within the first 2 days of playing. I already knew I wanted that stuff and I bought it.

For those curious: 3 month wayfarer pack with pump 12GA and pistol, and the Summer Fiesta Party Animal Bundle (which is probably gone by the time you read this) which included a deer grunt call, the Blaster R8 rifle for the larger deer that the .243 couldn't handle, and a red dot sight for it. I later got a .300 since it shared the same scope as the .243 so I didn't have to buy a gun and a scope at the same time. (or at least that's how it started... then came the bow and the...)

It's not that much money per year for an ongoing game when compared to buying a new copy of a hunting series that just has the current year slapped on the end of it and never gets new stuff.

If you don't think it's worth it, you don't have to buy it. You're not going to be able to play it (except mule deer) but you don't have to buy it either. Unless...

Welcome to the desperate tiny shred of truth behind the words "free to play". Sponsors.

For 1 cent you can watch a video. For 7 cents you have to give the video website access to your facebook so it can auto-spam advertisements using your name. For 30 cents to a dollar you can do a 40 minute survey that usually doesn't pay out at the end. And for a whole 3 dollars you can infest your system with more spyware than an illegal CIA monitoring operation, and then not pay anyway.

Yes you can slowly get a few bucks here and there but I wouldn't count on paying your way with it. If you have a membership but don't want to reach for your debit card for a rifle scope then have at it but be careful what you click on. I've experimented with the system a bit to be able to have an idea how it works.

There are a few suggestions floating around to protect yourself if you get desperate enough to trade your computer's security and stability for a couple dollars.

1. Only go for simple video offers that don't ask you to link your facebook/twitter/google+ accounts. They won't nickle and dime you, they're not worth that much. They'll one and two cent you. It'll be slow going and you'll likely find change faster looking in your couch as there are only a few offers available at a time and doing the same one if it pops up again rarely pays twice.

2. Expect more than half of them to never pay at all.

3. Use a sandbox utility to keep programs from actually messing with system files. - Doesn't work. I never got paid for anything I installed, but I did get a good look at the horrific amount of stuff each installer snuck in even if I told it not to install any extra stuff.

4. Only install things in a virtual machine. I've heard this one several times actually. Up to you if you think it's worth the trouble for a dollar or two from the few that actually pay out after they've infested your virtual system. Be sure to factor in occasionally having to wipe and recreate the virtual machine when it gets completely hosed. UPDATE: Finally tried this, which took a while since VirtualBox is having issues with Windows 7 for some reason and their attempts at resolving it doesn't work for everyone yet. VMware Player works though. Anyway, I only got paid for a single thing I installed. That's a couple hours down the drain just to help you guys out, but at least it's more data.

5. Use the android emulator Bluestacks to keep from infesting your phone. Unfortunately I've found no iphone/ipad equivilent. I did find one that claimed to be, but it had the exact same installer that the spyware infested promotions used and tried to install most of the same ones.

6. Throw caution to the wind and just pray your antivirus can handle it. Your choice, but no way I'd risk it.

Factoring in all of that, while it squeaks by and just barely technically fits the most liberal interpretation of the word "free" it's still a tight fit.

Nope, and a casual browsing of the rest of Steam's "free to play" category doesn't have a single game that is so restrictive and ultimately cuts you off anyway. That's a real shame because this truly is a wonderful game and I've become quite addicted to its slow paced and relaxing gameplay. It's a good change of pace from modern games that try to make almost every moment packed with excitement.

So it's not free to play, it's not free at all unless you dress up your computer in a short skirt and leave it on the street corner of the internet, and I bought a membership anyway so why would I complain?

The principle of the thing, for starters. The fact is that if anyone really wanted to push the issue, the Federal Trade Comission might just have a field day over this. One look at the reviews for this game and you can plainly see that most people know this is being handled wrong. It's borderline, but man oh man is it right on that border. Hopefully no one has to go that far to make this right.

The saddest thing of all is that it would be so ridiculously easy to fix, but it won't be. Why? Well to get a developer to fix an issue, especially an issue with their business model, you have to have a community level outcry. The problem is, if you haven't given them a cent why should they listen to you? Why should they listen when they have their rabid attack-fanboys waiting in the wings to pounce on anyone, and who will blindly defend them no matter what they do? Why should they listen when only a few voices ever point this out without demanding the entire thing be freeware?

If you love the game, buy a membership. The title of Paying Customer carries a little more weight than Random Person. After that, having paid for membership, continue pointing out the shady business practices instead of falling for the sunken cost fallacy and being afraid of any change that might effect the money you've just spent. If you think they shouldn't get your money at all as a matter of principle then tell them why you would have gladly paid but cannot do so because of the situation. Then, just maybe, they will start to listen.

After that, the game is so close to what it needs to be that it's painful to see it faceplant right before the finish line. They've got the 2 currencies. The earned currency is worth significantly less than just throwing money at your monitor, and it takes hours to earn what you could've just bought in moments. So far it's like every other "free to play" game out there. Where it falls apart is that gm$ isn't a renewable resource. You don't even get a single gm$ for a perfect heart shot at 200 meters. Some source where you can earn gm$ through gameplay that doesn't suddenly run out is absolutely necessary.

All that's left is to have more things be buyable with gm$ even if that means adding some crappier versions of some of the stuff. You don't even have to let everything be buyable with gm$ since there's no balancing issues to worry about. The earnable shotgun is a great example of a limited weapon. It works, you can buy it with gm$, and you can play the game with it. Sure the other shotguns are all better, but that's fine. You don't have to buy them if you don't want to, but they'll be waiting there if you change your mind. Many people will go ahead and drop a few dollars here and there for a better play experience and by opening up a true free to play system you increase the potential pool of players that might throw $5 at a shiny new toy on an impulse. Leave the good stuff cash-only like it is now, just make the lesser quality stuff gm$ purchasable.

It's not a drastic change by any means. Heck, it looks like that's what they meant to do and just forgot to finish it. Fix those minor issues and suddenly all this bad will over people feeling like they've been lied to goes away.

Here's hoping. Right now the largest obstacle is the community itself wanting to bury its head in the sand or go full on fanboy rage. Must be nice to have fanboys. I should get some. A gal could make good use of that kind of loyalty.