If you're looking to expand your gaming options, you may already have free access through Amazon.
What is Amazon Luna Standard?
Amazon Luna Standard is a cloud gaming service 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.
Amazon Luna Standard 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 Luna Standard gives Prime members access to a curated library of games and exclusive games only found on the platform.
For access to more games, you can upgrade to Amazon Luna Premium. At $9.99 per month, Premium includes all of the games from Standard plus an expanded game library.
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How do you get Amazon Luna Standard?
To get Amazon Luna Standard, 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 Amazon Luna (but Prime Student members only receive a Twitch channel subscription).
You may also be eligible for Luna if you have a Prime for Young Adults 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.
Gaming Prime Day deals
Amazon often releases new free PC games for Prime members in the days leading up to its Prime Day sale.
How do you budget for Amazon Luna Standard?
Entertainment services, like games and streaming, typically fall into the “wants” category of a budget, which means they’re not essential to living and working.
If you’re paying for Amazon Prime already, then there is no expense for Amazon Luna Standard, since it's free with membership. If you opt for Amazon Luna Premium, it’ll be an additional $9.99 per month in your budget.
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.
You can also try before you buy with a free trial, which gives you access to all of the Prime benefits for 30 days before being billed.
