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Himanshu Jain
Himanshu Jain

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How to Build a Discord Bot that Tracks Free Games (Epic & Steam)

#webdev #discord #epicgames #steam

We all love free games. But we all hate remembering to claim them.

Every Thursday, Epic Games drops a free title. Steam randomly makes paid games free for a weekend. If you aren't glued to Reddit, you usually miss it.

Today, we fix that.

We’ll build LootBot, a simple Discord bot that checks for active freebies and posts them to your server.

❌ The Old Way

Scrape the Epic Store website using Puppeteer:

  • Slow
  • Heavy
  • Gets IP banned

✅ The New Way

Use Game Deals & Freebies API:

  • Free
  • Fast
  • No scraping headaches

Let’s get coding. 😺

🧩 Step 1: The Setup

1. Create a Discord Bot Token

  1. Go to the Discord Developer Portal
  2. Click New Application → name it LootBot
  3. Open the Bot tab → click Add Bot
  4. Scroll to Privileged Gateway Intents
  5. Enable Message Content Intent
  6. Copy your Bot Token and save it

2. Initialize the Node.js Project 

npm init -y
npm install discord.js axios dotenv
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🔑 Step 2: Get Your Free API Key

We aren’t scraping websites today. It’s 2026 — we use APIs.

We’ll use Game Deals & Freebies API from RapidAPI. It aggregates data from Epic Games, Steam, and GamerPower into a clean JSON feed.

  1. Go to Game Deals & Freebies API on RapidAPI
  2. Click Subscribe to Test (Basic tier is free)
  3. Copy your X-RapidAPI-Key

🧠 Step 3: The Code

1. Environment Variables

Create a file named .env:

DISCORD_TOKEN=yourdiscordbottoken_here
RAPIDAPI_KEY=yourrapidapikeyhere
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2. Bot Logic (index.js)

The bot listens for !loot and replies with currently active free games.

require('dotenv').config();
const { Client, GatewayIntentBits, EmbedBuilder } = require('discord.js');
const axios = require('axios');

const client = new Client({
    intents: [
        GatewayIntentBits.Guilds,
        GatewayIntentBits.GuildMessages,
        GatewayIntentBits.MessageContent
    ]
});

async function getFreeGames() {
    const options = {
        method: 'GET',
        url: 'https://game-deals-freebies-api.p.rapidapi.com/epic',
        headers: {
            'X-RapidAPI-Key': process.env.RAPIDAPI_KEY,
            'X-RapidAPI-Host': 'game-deals-freebies-api.p.rapidapi.com'
        }
    };

    try {
        const response = await axios.request(options);
        return response.data.active;
    } catch (error) {
        console.error('API Error:', error);
        return [];
    }
}

client.on('messageCreate', async (message) => {
    if (message.author.bot) return;

    if (message.content === '!loot') {
        await message.channel.send('🔍 Scanning for freebies...');

        const games = await getFreeGames();

        if (games.length === 0) {
            return message.reply('No free games found right now. Check back later!');
        }

        games.forEach(game => {
            const embed = new EmbedBuilder()
                .setColor(0x0099FF)
                .setTitle(game.title)
                .setDescription(game.description)
                .setImage(game.image)
                .addFields(
                    { name: 'Original Price', value: game.originalPrice || 'Free', inline: true },
                    { name: 'Status', value: '🔥 Active Now', inline: true }
                )
                .setURL(game.storeUrl)
                .setFooter({ text: 'Powered by Game Deals & Freebies API' });

            message.channel.send({ embeds: [embed] });
        });
    }
});

client.on('ready', () => {
    console.log(`😺 LootBot is online as ${client.user.tag}!`);
});

client.login(process.env.DISCORD_TOKEN);
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▶️ Step 4: Run It 

node index.js
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Invite the bot to your server (via OAuth2 in the Discord Developer Portal), type:

!loot
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And watch the magic happen ✨

🤔 Why Use an API Instead of Scraping?

Scraping works — until it doesn’t.

  • Speed – APIs respond in milliseconds
  • Maintenance – HTML changes break scrapers
  • Bandwidth – Clean JSON instead of heavy HTML
  • Reliability – No IP bans or CAPTCHAs

🚀 What’s Next?

You can expand LootBot to:

  • ⏰ Auto-check freebies every Thursday using node-cron
  • 💰 Track discounts via the /deals endpoint
  • 🔑 Find Steam beta keys using /freebies
  • 📢 Auto-ping roles when new games drop

🔗 Resources

Happy coding! 😺

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