Buy three items, pay for two—the cheapest one vanishes
As the holiday season stirs consumer appetites, Target has stepped into the pre-Black Friday moment with a buy-two-get-one-free promotion spanning video games, toys, books, and board games. The offer—quiet in its mechanics but potent in its pull—invites shoppers to reckon with the arithmetic of desire: the cheapest item in any trio disappears from the bill entirely. In a retail landscape where Amazon briefly floated a competing deal before pulling it back, the promotion signals that the annual commerce ritual is already underway, and the terms of generosity are being negotiated in real time.
- Target's early Black Friday deal creates genuine urgency for gamers eyeing 2022's biggest releases, from the freshly launched Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II to the anticipated Resident Evil 4 remake.
- The promotion's quiet power lies in its simplicity—no coupon codes, no percentage math, just a vanishing price tag on whichever game costs the least in your cart.
- Amazon briefly entered the arena with a competing buy-two-get-one offer on games, only to pull it almost immediately, leaving shoppers uncertain whether a better deal might resurface.
- Retailers are clearly stress-testing bundled promotions ahead of Black Friday, using early windows to capture shoppers before the season's loudest deals drown out the quieter ones.
- For anyone building a holiday game library, the deal lands as a practical windfall—a thirty-dollar title becomes free the moment two others share the cart.
Target has launched an early Black Friday promotion with a straightforward premise: buy three eligible items—games, toys, board games, or books—and the cheapest one is free. For most shoppers, the games section is the real draw.
The timing is well-calibrated. The sale catches several of 2022's biggest releases in their prime: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II arrived just days before the promotion, Gotham Knights launched in October, and Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope has been one of the year's standout Nintendo Switch titles. Perhaps the most compelling hook is the inclusion of preorders for the Resident Evil 4 remake—a future release that can effectively become free when paired with two other purchases.
The sale also reaches back into recent years for those who missed earlier windows. Resident Evil Village, Mass Effect: Legendary Edition, and the eccentric Mario Kart Live all appear, offering a range of experiences from survival horror to sprawling RPG trilogies to a racing game that literally unfolds on your living room floor.
Target isn't alone in sensing the opportunity. Amazon briefly ran a competing buy-two-get-one promotion on games before the deal vanished from the site—whether by error, experiment, or inventory constraint remains unclear. The episode suggests retailers are actively probing the pre-Black Friday window with bundled offers, testing what sticks before the season's loudest sales arrive.
The math, ultimately, is what makes the deal work. No percentage discounts, no slashed price tags—just the quiet disappearance of your cheapest item at checkout. It's the kind of arithmetic that turns browsing into buying.
Target has launched an early Black Friday promotion that works like this: buy three items from the sale, and the cheapest one is yours free. It's a straightforward deal, and it applies to video games, toys, board games, books, and more—though the real draw for most shoppers will be the games section.
The timing is sharp. The sale includes some of 2022's biggest releases: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II arrived just days ago, Gotham Knights launched in October, and Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope is among the year's best Nintendo Switch titles. Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga is there too, a sprawling compilation that's held up well since its release. But the real hook is that Target is also offering preorders on the upcoming Resident Evil 4 remake—and you can snag it for free if you buy two other games in the promotion.
For those who missed the initial release windows, the sale digs back into the last couple of years. Resident Evil Village remains a genuinely unsettling experience. Mass Effect: Legendary Edition bundles three acclaimed RPGs into one package. There's even Mario Kart Live, the peculiar hybrid that projects a racing game onto your floor using a physical kart—the kind of thing that works better in theory than in practice, though it does make for memorable chaos if you have the space and patience for it.
Target isn't the only retailer sensing opportunity in the pre-Black Friday window. Amazon briefly offered a competing buy-two-get-one-free promotion on games, but the deal disappeared from the site quickly. Whether that was a pricing error, a test run, or simply a matter of inventory, it's unclear. But the pattern suggests retailers are experimenting with these kinds of bundled offers as the holiday shopping season kicks into gear.
For anyone looking to stock up on games before the November rush, the math is straightforward: pick three titles, pay for two. The cheapest item in your cart vanishes from the bill. It's not a discount in the traditional sense—no percentage off, no dollar amount slashed from a price tag—but it's effective. A thirty-dollar game becomes free when you're already buying two others. That's the kind of math that makes people add items to their basket.
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
So this isn't actually a discount on the games themselves—it's a bundling trick?
Exactly. You're not getting twenty percent off anything. You're paying full price for two games and getting a third for nothing. The catch is you have to buy three items.
Why would Target do this instead of just cutting prices?
It moves more volume. If you come in wanting one game, you leave with three. The retailer makes more money overall, even though one item is free.
And the Resident Evil 4 preorder being free—that's a big deal?
It is. Preorders are usually full price, no negotiation. Getting one free just by buying two other games is unusual enough that it's worth mentioning.
Did this work for Amazon?
Amazon tried it and pulled the listing almost immediately. Could've been a mistake, could've been a test. But it didn't stick around long enough to matter.