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About a year ago Age of Empires: Definitive Edition was released but I couldn't find it on Steam, about six months ago, I found it on this thing called the 'Microsoft Store'. - I still wanted the game but I didn't want to pay for it, and I didn't want it on a non-gaming platform, trying to find various methods of getting the game for free, I found the Microsoft Rewards program, where you can rack up points using Bing and use them to redeem gift cards that I could use to buy the game with.

The first two or so days I did this in the brief down time I have during or just before starting my work-hours, but I didn't want to be seen doing something that wasn't a productive use of my time, so I went home and wrote a simple Bash script that used User Agent strings and the Chromium web browser, put it on my Raspberry Pi, that is always on, and runs double duties as an ad-blocking DNS server via Pi-Hole, but the servers not being used at 3am, so I set a Cron Job to trigger the script every day at 3am.

And then I forgot about it.

Until this morning when I got an email from the site and decided to check my balance.

I bought the game using the $25 gift card, but don't ever intend to play it as the Steam version is out, probably better, not a UWP app, probably supports mods and probably doesn't require me to provide my home address in ordered to pay for it using gift cards.

The moral of the story is that if you have a stupid but elaborate scheme to get something for free it may sometimes work.