Fortnite is Generating More Revenue Than Any Other Free Game Ever (recode.net) 162
Fortnite: Battle Royale has brought in more revenue in a single month than any other game of its kind, industry estimates suggest. Recode: The free-to-play game hit a new revenue record of $318 million in May, according to SuperData Research. That puts Fornite well ahead of other breakout games like Pokemon Go and Clash of Clans, and it's all the more spectacular when you realize the multi-platform game launched on consoles just eight months ago and on iOS just three months ago. Since then, Fortnite has brought in more than $1.2 billion in revenue, all of which comes from nonessential in-app purchases, for stuff like clothing and dance moves.
Plenty of children using parents money.. (Score:5, Interesting)
..for $20 cosmetic items. Yeah, as in two-zero.... ten plus ten.
People that work at gamestop cant believe how many kids are dragging their parents in just to purchase these gift cards that let you buy skins.
Not to mention the fact that the game is on nearly every platform now. It's a digital clothing store in the form of a video game.
It's also pretty fun. I grew tired of it fairly quickly, but I'd never say it's a bad game. When you consider epic is pouring all their resources into it, it better be doing okay
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It kind of makes sense. Real live is also "pretty fun" no matter what clothes you war, and the real life fashion industry makes a lot of money, too.
Re:Plenty of children using parents money.. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a digital clothing store in the form of a video game.
So in many ways it's a virtual dress-up doll. All these teenage and pre-teen boys are paying money for a virtual Barbie (with a gun).
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I think you mean G.I. Joe.
Was GI Joe's main mission to be dressed up in different clothes? I think that was GI MASH.
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It's more about peer pressure. It's like not being able to afford brand name trainers or clothes with the right logos on. The other kids at school will notice.
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But yeah, it's fun even though I don't like the cartoonish look and feel. I also tried PUBG (which was not free, but sadly the devs really dropped the ball on that one. What a seriously frustrating buggy mess of rampant cheating that was...
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At the very least EPIC have a large conflict of interest in releasing a "copy cat" product in direct competition of a highly successful customer. Whether that is actionable in court, I don't know but I certai
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They sell gift cards for skins?
Not specifically, but the game is on console so you can use the standard PSN/XBOX cards to purchase the in-game premium currency.
Re:Plenty of children using parents money.. (Score:5, Interesting)
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All Hail Shareware! (Score:3)
Back in the 1980's and 1990's we had Shareware. These were programs that you can download, copy with other and use. Some of them had a Trial Time Period, where you can use the full version for a period of time, then you have access to a reduced features, or not work at all. But most others Offered additional Levels, and other goodies if you were to actually purchase the software.
I see many of these free to play games with extra purchases as just an extension of the Shareware concept. However the problem that I feel is most concerning is the lack of a cap in how much you are going to pay for it. Say an $80 fee (The cost of a good console game) where everything is unlocked, and you can use the game and stay current. But that isn't the case, because it is easy to nickle and dime your way into people paying much more. Often for just something fun at the moment.
Granted this is still probably better then what people will pay for beer where they drink it, get a buzz, and then feel sick in the morning.
Re:All Hail Shareware! (Score:4, Insightful)
Back in the 1980's and 1990's we had Shareware. These were programs that you can download, copy with other and use. Some of them had a Trial Time Period, where you can use the full version for a period of time, then you have access to a reduced features, or not work at all. But most others Offered additional Levels, and other goodies if you were to actually purchase the software.
I see many of these free to play games with extra purchases as just an extension of the Shareware concept. However the problem that I feel is most concerning is the lack of a cap in how much you are going to pay for it. Say an $80 fee (The cost of a good console game) where everything is unlocked, and you can use the game and stay current. But that isn't the case, because it is easy to nickle and dime your way into people paying much more. Often for just something fun at the moment.
Granted this is still probably better then what people will pay for beer where they drink it, get a buzz, and then feel sick in the morning.
The old shareware games used to give you a pretty decent amount of playtime on the free version too. They didn't cut you off the moment it got slightly interesting; and it was usually a pay once and you get the whole thing when you did pay... it wasn't the constant microtransaction trickle that most places try to get nowadays.
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Fortnite purchases are purely cosmetic and the store interface makes this clear.
One cannot purchase a better experience/advantage, it's a level playing field. It's a good system in my opinion.
That said, my son still bothers me to purchase the cosmetic stuff (and if I do then I deny actual physical purchases to drive home what "cosmetic" means - good ways to get him to do chores...).
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One cannot purchase a better experience/advantage, it's a level playing field.
This idea that cosmetics necessarily dont offer an advantage, it doesnt seem justified to me. Military's around the world have invested big in real life cosmetics for soldiers, an array of different camouflages for different conditions.
I know in Mech Warrior Online, they even charge a premium for the paints that match predominant map textures such as white (a lot of snow maps.)
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However the problem that I feel is most concerning is the lack of a cap in how much you are going to pay for it. Say an $80 fee (The cost of a good console game) where everything is unlocked, and you can use the game and stay current. But that isn't the case, because it is easy to nickle and dime your way into people paying much more. Often for just something fun at the moment.
The norm for free to pay games is that most of their revenue come from a few "whales". Beyond the normal 80/20, some games get 95% of revenue from 5% of players, or even 99% from 1% of players. Kudos to Fortnight for not being pay-to-win, as it leads to that sort of imbalance. There are seriously people who pay $30,000 for this sort of shit, and many games that exist only to harvest those whales.
It's awesome to have such vivid proof that you can make more money with a level playing field than the normal
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Not having a cap in order to nickel and dime is done by design. With all the mobile games, I think the industry has learnt that there's a very small proportion of people who spend the most on this sort of stuff. If they capped it, they would end up getting a lot less money. The industry refers to these high spenders as whales, just like the gambling industry. They concentrate and put their effort in them, after all they're a business.
From what I can see, they treat their game more like an addiction to these
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FortNite is crapping gold bricks... (Score:1)
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It's interesting to me that the hardware requirements (PC anyhow) are that of about a 6-ish year old machine. According to gamespot all you need to run it well is a 3570K (2012) and a 970 (2014).
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Most people only upgrade their PC gaming rigs every six years now. If a smartphone costs $600, and a high end gaming rig costs $4000, then they expect a similar lifetime.
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Spot on - if you can go 6 years, you're not challenging much and probably don't top $1k. You're not buying the highest end stuff and you're not worried about playing at the highest settings and resolutions.
Why have we let ourselves come to this? (Score:2)
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How pointless does your life have to be to see value in buying, with actual money, no less, some fancy virtual clothing for your virtual character?
So pointless that you have loads of disposable income. Must be a really shitty life.
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OK, I'm glad that we agree on what disposable income means. People spend their money on all kinds of things that bring them no real benefit. This is no different.
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In Soviet Russia, credit card disposes *you*!
Re:Why have we let ourselves come to this? (Score:5, Interesting)
Some people may not have the ground space, energy, or money to afford a real landscaped garden, mansion home, or even toy railway set, but they are happy with a virtual version that they can upgrade in their spare time.
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Re:Why have we let ourselves come to this? (Score:5, Insightful)
Good for you to have strong opinions. Me, i'm not sure anyone is more right then the next person as far as entertainment is concerned.
Person A might spend 100 grand on a really nice sports car. Person B might spend 10 grand on Fortnite cosmetics. "A friend" spent somewhere in the neighborhood of 5 grand on World of Tanks since 2011 - and still does buy premium tanks "for collecting purposes". Meanwhile person C loaned money over and over and spent them on trips all over the world, now he's proper fucked by banks. All while person D poured tons of alcohol down their guts and person E smoked their lungs to Hell and back. And the list can go on forever.
None is better than the other, they simply spend their money on whatever floats their boat. Small condo and pixel-rich versus big mansion and never played any PC games, there's no objective difference.
The money almost unimportant (Score:1)
All are equally stupid wastes of time.
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So, tell me then... what do YOU do with your disposable income (if any)?
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That's not DISPOSABLE income.
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If your monthly mortgage is $1,000 and you pay $1,200 then you spent $200 of your disposable income on your mortgage. That extra $200 is discretionary spending on your part even if the payment is made at the same time as the mandatory portion of the mortgage.
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Oh that makes sense. He should have said pay extra on my mortgage”. Or maybe I am not familiar enough with English to have caught the obscured meaning.
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Whoosh.
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None is better than the other, they simply spend their money on whatever floats their boat.
Yeah, though I feel like a lot of people let their wallet dictate how fancy it gets rather than whether it actually gives them more pleasure, as if spending the money was the ends and not the means. I could afford to go to a Michelin star restaurant, but honestly I'd be just as happy at a good steakhouse or eating spicy Thai food. Just because I'm currently running a surplus doesn't mean I have to find a way to spend more money. It's nice to have the freedom if I want it and I realize there's like a base co
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Me, i'm not sure anyone is more right then the next person as far as entertainment is concerned.
Except these massively profitable games have undermind game ownership completely and are encouraging outright destruction of videogame history. AKA all games will now be pushed towards online only for mtx money all because of kids. I can't say I like the direction gaming has gone in as a PC gamer from the 90's. These kids don't know anybetter, but the internet has enabled companies to steal games using ignorant kids.
These f2p games are essentailly fraudulent games - you get to pay for an item in a game y
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Kids' clothing is more expensive.
Kids' stuff (shampoos, toys, etc) are more expensive compared to similar adult-specific products.
It was always like that, only you didn't notice it. I'm a parent of two, I'm very well aware of it.
And it's not mostly kids paying for microtransactions, as a matter of fact a big F2P with MTX game is supported mostly by players over 18 (a bit over 60% of the total amount of money spent is spent by people between 18 and 45 and a bit over 20% is spent by people older than 45). Can
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Person A might spend 100 grand on a really nice sports car.
And then he'll drive it through a school zone at 30km/h. Quite an apt comparison to what the GP quoted: "No, you can't really wear it or put anything in that pocket, but look at the face of the other players when they see how fabulous your character is looking now!* Note: Other players' faces may or may not be visible."
Many of the activities we do in our live are pointeless by the GP's standards.
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Objectively, there is no difference. people value entertainment differently, a sports car and Fortnite are both entertainment. A family car, now that's different, there's an undeniable usefulness factor to it (although not universal, mind you!).
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It's not how long it took someone to make, it's what its worth to you. It's pretty reasonable to spend 10 or 20 dollars for something that enhances something you play 20 hours a month.
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No, you can't really wear it or put anything in that pocket, but look at the face of the other players when they see how fabulous your character is looking now!*
Girls have been buying clothes for their dolls and boys have been buying guns and accessories for their action figures since the dawn of time.
Some 3D model that's probably re-used again and again with different textures, took half an hour for some game artist to produce a shitload of them that the company can now charge you premium for
So you think the mass-produced physical toys are sold to you at cost?
Anyway, you aren't paying for the 30 minutes of the designer's time. You are paying for the infrastructure of developers, designers, servers, admins, and bandwidth that allows you to run around in a world with those goodies.
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1. They're not selling me any toys at or above cost, not for a couple decades now.
Our ability to think about concepts abstractly it what separates us from the lower life forms. It's why most of us come here to post. This is opposed to just telling the internet facts about our boring lives.
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if it is something that makes them happy for even a moment, doesn't cause you or anyone else physical harm why is that bad?
While it's not "harm", it is annoying that the best game companies are chasing new and interesting ways to attract whales to buy oodles of virtual trinkets instead of trying to make the best gameplay they know how to. The market is speaking loud and clear and I disagree with them. I am basically resigned to the inevitability that the gaming future will be streaming, games-as-a-service, gachapon-loot-crate, microtransaction, online-only, time limited mobile games tied to social features. And I don't like it.
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No, you can't really wear it or put anything in that pocket, but look at the face of the other players when they see how fabulous your character is looking now!*
Are we still talking about a game, or are you reflecting on life itself?
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Cosmetic vs. pay to win (Score:5, Interesting)
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If someone else pays money for that, how does it infringe on you?
Are you asking "how does pay-to-win hurt a competitive multi-player game"? Because that's a foolish question.
Fortnight claims to gameplay advantage but... (Score:5, Insightful)
So to start with, I think Fortnight is doing this free to play right. You can truly play as much as you like, any items you can buy are pretty much just fun graphical enhancements for your avatar.
However I would quibble slightly that the graphics only re-skins give a small advantage - simply from a camo standpoint, if you buy a darker outfit you are going to be harder to see from a distance against the landscape or in a shadow. Almost all of the really good players I've seen have darker outfits... with the occasional exception of someone showing off wearing a hot pink teddy bear or something else really vibrant.
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True, but this falls under the "unintended consequences" part of the game. It's unavoidable.
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Agreed - and the default skins are relatively stealthy from a distance. If the only free options were hot pink or neon green, it would rub me the wrong way.
Is somewhat avoidable. (Score:1)
I don't think it's entirely unavoidable - for instance you could have different skins for purchase, but let the player chose a basic color tint so any outfit could be tinted black (or rainbow or neon pink).
However it is a pretty minor point, I don't think it's a big deal, and I hate to take away design freedom from a game that does a good job with variety in art and color. So nice to play a game that is not all browns.
Really my only issue is simply in saying "items offer no competitive advantage" which is
Holy hell (Score:2)
Its fun for the first few match, but its boring to play and community sucks.
Hey... (Score:1)
It's better than the Loot Box system for extra in-game revenue that EA came up with.
Hell... EA does that shit with both their paid games and their "freemium" ones now.
Don't bother with it, no text chat (Score:2)
After the last slashdot adstory for this game, i decided to download it and fire it up to try it. My advice? don't bother. The game does not have text chat. You have to use voice. And are banned (allegedly) for turning off voice because you don't want to hear a bunch of prepubescent american teenagers talking to eachother. This was a conscious decision by the developers apparently.
This is a new thing to me in games, that they would not have text chat. Is that the way of the future? totally sad.
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It's a genre thing, I think. PUBG doesn't have public chat either.
And you don't get banned for turning off voice, don't know where you get that from.
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Real-time shooters usually move kinda fast to rely on text chat.
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As for getting banned, no you won't get banned for not using voice chat. Otherwise most of the EU players would be banned by now (they really don't like using it over there).
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We like voide chat ... during combat.
But it sucks if kids start chating private stuff and miss that we are in combat again.
Out of combat I prefere radio silence or talk about tactics.
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They don't have public text chat because it universally ends up being toxic. That's a smart move.
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Okay... I don't know what games *you* play, but I play CS:Go and it's usually Russian teenagers screaming "Suck my balls" at high volume at each other. But do tell what in-game paradise of intellectually stimulating discourse you discovered in voice chat. I'm very curious.
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I didn't say voice chat wasn't toxic. I said chat is toxic. This thing about voice chat is you can turn it off. I guess you could also put tape over your screen on the chat window though. Fair enough.
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I didn't say voice chat wasn't toxic. I said chat is toxic. This thing about voice chat is you can turn it off. I guess you could also put tape over your screen on the chat window though. Fair enough.
Okay, I deserved that :)
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you said they actually could care less than they do.. you mean couldn't care less.
It's the streamers as well. (Score:2)
I've been following one person, but there are many out there making a living off of Fortnite.
Since graduating this year, decided to spend all their time streaming, putting college off till next year.
Renting a 2 bedroom very nice apt with the donations they make. People are throwing money at these streamers.
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I'm fine using the default skin for my beer, and my FortNite characters. That's all you pay for in the game: cosmetics.
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"My wife wears a fine cloth coat!"
"My wifi character wears a fine brown outfit!"
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"My wife wears a fine cloth coat!"
"My wifi character wears a fine brown outfit!"
As long as your wife is real, and not just a wifi character. The days when someone will have a wedding ceremony with an AI character online are surely not too far away.
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I'm not sure about a wife with artificial intelligence. I'm still working on one with artificial boobs. You know, the big, round, nice kind.
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Wouldn't it be easier to get a RealDoll?
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"I'm not sure about a wife with artificial intelligence."
Une femme stupide est donc votre marotte ? - Tant, que j'aimerais mieux une laide bien sotte, Qu'une femme fort belle avec beaucoup d'esprit
MOLIÈRE,
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Nah, man. French women don't shave under their arms.
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Some games like MMORPG's already do that.
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I'd like an invisibility skin. That should make it easier to win.
Re: "free" (Score:5, Interesting)
Well fortnite is as legit free to play as it gets. I don't like the game but can't knock their business model.
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But if you want it served in an elegant stein, a decorative glass, or delivered by a hot barmaid, then you can pay $$$$ for it.
The fact that they've made $1.2 Billion off that business model is amazing. Good for them, but damn the average person is a complete idiot.
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Exactly this. They aren't withholding anything central to the game from players. They're simply charging for inessentials. The AC's take on the analogy is significantly more apt than the GP's.
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Why is the average person an idiot (I assume you're referring to players who buy cosmetics in the game).
Are they any worse than a person that pays $50-$100 for a game outright? Sure they don't have to, but it increases their enjoyment of the game and/or supports the company which will likely result in game improvements, or a future version.
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I think this pulls the issue out of the realm of stupidity and into the real of poor priorities.
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Or a racist.
Nah, nobody needs the benefit of the doubt.
I'm guessing you don't either.
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Good for them, but damn the average person is a complete idiot.
Just proves there are thousands of suckers born every minute.
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Good for them, but damn the average person is a complete idiot.
Just proves there are thousands of suckers born every minute.
This is a country of people who literally buy a religion from a SciFi writer who wrote "The way to get rich is to stsrt a religion." and select political candidates from reality TV stars who writ "The art of the deal is to tell people what they want to hear."
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More like "free as in soda". So you tell your kids that they can have a soda. And then they spend 5 grand on bendy straws and colored ice and stickers for the cup upgrades. Only they get them from trading card packs, so there's fun gambling involved too, causing some adults to put everything into getting that one skin.
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Micro-transactions in games isn't inherently bad. If it's implemented the way that Fortnite (the game mentioned in this story) has done it, it seems like the best-possible business model for any game (and clearly it's working). The game is entirely free-to-play for everyone, you never have to spend a penny on the game if you don't want to (meaning there are far more players in the game -- which is essential in a PVP game), but those who are willing to shell out a little cash for some cosmetic items can do
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Fortnite purchases are purely cosmetic, they don't help you win. And they aren't random loot boxes either, you buy a specific item, not a random item.
You don't need to pay a cent to play Fortnite, and there's absolutely no disadvantage for players who spend nothing.
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It's only free once you can get it on Linux. Currently you still need Windows to play it.
Get off your high horse and accept that Windows is usually a sunk cost when buying a PC.
Using your rules, Fortnight on Linux wouldn't be free as you need hardware to install Linux. Even if you scrounge enough hardware for a working system that Linux may support, you still need to get internet access somehow to get the Linux ISO or install something like Gentoo.
If you take your scrounge built PC to an internet cafe and don't buy a coffee, use their free wifi, download, install and update Linux, well you s