Free steam games that drop cards for free

There are actually quite a few "free" licenses as handled by Steam. "Free on demand" is the licenses assigned to most free games on Steam - these games do not grant library increases as you are not considered to own the game, and since you do not own the game you must find other ways to qualify for cards, most commonly with in-game purchases. "No cost" games are a purchase made at no cost - once activated you are considered to own the license; Steam does not allow "no cost" games to have cards, as the intent of the cards is to incentivize purchase (plus, with the marketability of cards, money from nothing is a tax hazard in many regions), and it is through this loophole that NMRIH originally dropped cards as a free game. Then you have the demo and "free weekend" flags, which also each carry their own account limitations. This is why F2P games bought during early access, or by activating purchased keys, grant drops, - your license is treated as fully purchased and you are granted all the rights of a store purchase. Relic Hunters Zero is a special case: they "sell" the key for free on Nuuvem, and Valve cannot determine if that key was purchased or free as it was not handled by its storefront.

Grimm, and its DLC, should be labeled "free on demand" under normal circumstances. As of yet, I have seen no cases of purchasing DLC grant full drop rights outside of the above mentioned EA loophole. I have seen a single instance of purchased DLC granting a single drop, but for the life of me I cannot find it in my badge library again, meaning it may have been an error and revoked. DLCs have their own licensing... theoretically, they could have their own cardsets beyond their base game as they have unique appids - the only problem there is registering playtime or coming up with a method to allow the drops, but I digress. The only way for Grimm to drop cards would be to purchase a paid DLC and have that purchase switch your license on Grimm from "free on demand" to "Store or CD Key", which signifies purchase, but as of yet I have never seen this behavior; even with Relic Hunters Zero, you have to delete your free license you activate the key and get "Store or CD Key" status.