Most Regrettable Video Game Purchases

I can't imagine how much money I've spent on video games in my life time. My current collection at retail prices as tracked by my list on IGN's website says that it's totalled at almost $5,000. I'd say that with considering that there are quite a few Atari games that aren't on their list, the price of buying consoles (some multiple times because I sold them when I was a kid), and of course the games that I just don't plain have anymore, I'd say the figure is somewhere closer to $7,000 in my lifetime (I have owned every major Nintendo console/handheld at one time or another).

But as I was taking back a third Wii-mote that I purchase this weekend and decided it was a waste of $40 for someone who barely uses two at a time, that there have to have been some pretty stupid purchases down the line. And I bet that most of them weren't even as a kid who couldn't research games online before he before bought them. No, I'd say that as an adult with a pretty big disposable income, the time between I graduated college and when I got married probably had the highest chances of buying something stupid. Especially when I went on a shopping spree for about two years and bought almost everything back that I had sold when I was a kid. That included an NES and games, a SNES and games, and a handful of Atari 2600 cartridges.

But I still can't think of a boneheaded purchase that I truly regretted and actually kept. But here are some of the purchases I made that I think stand out the most and the price I think I paid for them:

• A PS2 and Madden 200(ish) so I could play with Brian online. $200+
• Farcry 2 so Brian and I could make online maps together. We never did and I barely touched the game. $60
• Dance Dance Revolution 3 Ultramix because punishing myself with 1 and 2 wasn't enough. $50
• Devil May Cry just because it was hyped so much. I hate that game. $20
• Earth Defense Force 2017 because I wanted to see how bad a game really could be on purpose. $20
• Full Spectrum Warrior has to be one of the worst games on my list that I still actually have. $40(?)
• Hotel Dusk: Room 215 completely didn't meet my expectations. $30
• LEGO Indiana Jones proved that not all games are good LEGO material. $50
• Lost: Via Domus I knew would suck, but my wife is a serious tv junkie. She played it for an hour. $15.
• Two copies of each of the following DS games: Mario Kart, Tetris, Nintendogs. Having two DS's is murder on your wallet. $180.
• Need for Speed Underground 2 is a classic sequel of suck. $40
• Nightcaster was really an apology from Microsoft for losing my console in the repair center. Free
• X-Men Legends had mutants in it. And suck. $30

So there's my big regret list. And those are all games I still have in my possession. I can't even begin to remember how many games I would buy and then sell on eBay because of retail stores refusal to take return video games because of pure dissatisfaction. When you buy things purely on hype, marketing and review scores, your taking a huge chance with your money and there's no safety net except for eBay.

But in the last couple years I decided that I was going to quit that practice and not sell anything ever again. It's worked pretty well so far and I've only ended up with a couple of novelty lemons.