Affiliate disclosure
The short version: some links pay us, none of them change our scores, and you never pay more.
In one paragraph
When you install a game through a Play free button on this site, the publisher may pay us a commission. The game stays free for you and costs you nothing extra. Scores are decided before any commercial arrangement, and no partner has ever been able to change one.
What actually pays for this site
Two things, and nothing else.
| Source | How it works | Where you see it |
|---|---|---|
| Partner links | A publisher pays us when a reader installs their game, or reaches a milestone in it. Paid per action, not per click. | Every Play free button, and the platform buttons in reviews. |
| Display advertising | Ad slots sold through an advertising network. We do not choose the individual ads. | Slots labelled Advertisement. |
We do not take payment for a review, for a score, for a place in a ranking, or for a mention. We do not publish sponsored articles. If that ever changes, this page changes first and the article carries a label.
How to recognise a paid link
Three signals, on every single one:
- the button is orange — on this site, orange is reserved for links that lead to a game offer;
- a disclosure line sits above the first one in every article;
- the link carries
rel="sponsored nofollow", which is the machine-readable version of the same statement.
Links to our own articles, to publisher news or to sources are never paid and never orange.
What the money changes, honestly
It would be naive to claim commercial arrangements have no effect at all, so here is the precise boundary.
What it changes: which games we get to cover first. A game with an affiliate programme is more likely to be reviewed early, simply because the site has to pay for itself. That is a selection effect, and you deserve to know it exists.
What it does not change: the score, the sub-scores, the downsides we list, or the verdict. Our method locks the score before any commercial discussion. A game we partner with that deserves a 5.4 gets a 5.4 — there is one on this site right now.
Does it cost you anything?
No. The games are free to play, and the commission is paid by the publisher out of its own acquisition budget. Using our link costs you exactly the same as typing the game's name into a store.
What happens when you click
A Play free button sends you through /go/ on this site before redirecting you to the publisher. That step records which article and which position on the page the click came from, so we know what readers find useful. The publisher may then set its own cookie to attribute the installation.
Details of what is stored and for how long are in ourcookie policy and privacy policy.
Legal basis for this page
United States readers: this disclosure is made under the Federal Trade Commission's Endorsement Guides (16 CFR Part 255), which require a clear and conspicuous disclosure of any material connection between a publisher and the products it recommends.
Readers elsewhere: equivalent consumer-protection rules apply, including the EU Unfair Commercial Practices Directive. We apply the strictest of them everywhere rather than varying the disclosure by country.