Your most pathetic purchase? (regrets about wasting money)

[BryanM]

I could say that Hellgate London is a ripoff at $50, however that's not all you got by buying it. You also got to join a community where 70% of the playerbase hates the game. Ripping on it as a group was probably the most fun I've ever had with a given game. It's so bad, and I have to restrain myself from going on for paragraphs about it here.

Got my parents to buy me Warcraft: Orcs and Humans when I was a kid. It was my first RTS and I enjoyed it, but... $50. And Warcraft II came out a few months later. Dude, the speed of development and improvement of games back then was crazy.

In all my life the biggest waste of money probably was going to see Steve Martin's Pink Panther in the theater at the behest of my girlfriend at the time. We sat down. Steve did his parallel parking scene where he hits the car in front and behind him repeatedly. We stood up and left. I should have asked for a refund, and it pains me to have let that money go, but I was too humiliated to admit I bought tickets to this thing to a living breathing cashier.

No Man's Sky preorder.

Bwahaha, suckered in by the hype. Just like when they were talking up Spore, I was like "That's great. Now, what's the game?" At best the coverage indicated a Walking Simulator, that didn't live up to the likes of LSD Dream Emulator, Yume Nikki, or Ocarina of Time.

I love those kickblaster projects with supposed ambitions that would be sky high even in a mere ASCii game, let alone something that demands spurious luxuries like art and music. The cruelest probably go along the lines of the idea of making a new 'good', worthwhile Star Wars movie (which is impossible to do): Trying to make people feel the same way they did the first time they played a game they really liked. Like with Ashes of Creation.

[GaijinPunch]

ed: gaming wise, it would have to be a replica Fa-mas softairgun rifle (like the one in metal gear) I bought off yahoo many years ago, instantly regretted it, dont know what i was thinking, gaijinpunch thought i had gone mad when he saw it, threw it in a dumpster within a week, was not cool at all just pathetic..

You have no idea how close I was to mentioning that... and then when I read the top of this post, I was certainly going to. That sale often crosses my mind... for some reason or another.

I also got into a very expensive bidding war on a Big Fighter kit that i wish i hadnt won, altho with todays prices ill proboably still come out on top if i sell it..

For sure! And yeah, I remember that one too. Those were good times.

[emphatic]

I bought a Commodore CD-32 thinking it would have some fun games on it. Ended up using it as a audio CD player in the end.

[Jameson Rook]

My most pathetic purchase was a few weeks ago where I bought a replacement memory card door cover for the original PS3 which cost $40 shipped, which I thought was fair because these these door covers are hard to come by on its own. On the EXACT day it arrived in the mail, I was at a flea market where I saw a YLOD original PS3 in immaculate condition complete with the door cover for $25.

[Mischief Maker]

No Man's Sky preorder.

Bwahaha, suckered in by the hype. Just like when they were talking up Spore, I was like "That's great. Now, what's the game?" At best the coverage indicated a Walking Simulator, that didn't live up to the likes of LSD Dream Emulator, Yume Nikki, or Ocarina of Time.

Hey, the final game turned out shit, but I hardly see how anyone could watch the previews and come away expecting a walking simulator. The first E3 trailer showed a person scanning and identifying new alien species and resource deposits, facing attack by gigantic fauna, then getting swooped into a multi-planet-spanning starfighter battle. The live demo at the following E3 showed massive fleet battles between warring factions with the promise, "I can join in, I can take sides."

I was expecting a cross between Star Control 2 and Space Pirates and Zombies where the player would go down to planets and scan for new life and valuable resources then sell that data (ala. ProspectorRL) to buy ship and weapon upgrades so they could side with one faction and earn some sort of key to access the next random system in a long chain to reach the center of the galaxy. Not a deep game, but one with plenty of precedent in previous gameplay iterations.

In fact a title with almost the exact gameplay loop I was expecting from No Man's Sky was created, it's called Approaching Infinity. Unfortunately the developer signed a devil's bargain with Shrapnel Games to publish, so the game's massively overpriced and stuck behind some pretty draconian DRM.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Non-gaming related, my worst purchase has to be the Varier Thatsit chair. It looks like this (mine was in blue velvet):



I foolishly thought that it could alleviate my back pain, but it did nothing for me. I didn't like it one bit. Dumped it for nearly 50% off on ebay (the stupid chair cost me €580 used).

Did you try it before buying? I struggle to believe MOST chairs I tried in stores find any buyers who intend to use them.
It's really not difficult to make a decision whether you want a chair or not - all it takes is seating oneself on one before making purchase (vast majority of chairs out there is no good for me, therefore my final decisions are easy to make). As a rule of thumb, you're not seeing it when sitting on it, so the looks matter the very, very least. Most comfortable chairs look the plainest.*

Having seen a plenty of snake oil "gamer's" furniture in my latest workplace, I've intended to start a whole thread about chairs for a while (feel free to separate it from this one). The very best I own is a heavy duty German model commonly used as guests' chair in offices and such around here. I also like two foldaway chairs quite a lot, but they won't likely outlive the former (then again - it's a fair price to pay for space-saving).

As for back pain and such, no furniture will completely supersede excersise (and I'm not talking about weekend excersise, but everyday practice at workplace or anyplace where you sit most of the time). I doubt one topic can be seriously discussed without discussing another.

*) One way to think about it is - a real good chair is your strongest ally, so you had better grow to like its warts.

P.S. Oh, and it's EXTREMELY gaming-related for those who play any game with a mouse & keyboard.

P.P.S. It appears that one I used to think of as the "German model" may not be German after all, but I'm not peddling any particular model here - in a nutshell: take a seat and if it feels good - that's the test stood.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Buying all of the DLC for Fist of the North Star: Ken's Rage 2. In my defense, I do really enjoy the game and it's a way of supporting the developers, but it's a ton of money to dump on what is mostly costumes compared to something like Strania's DLC which is relatively cheap, and is literally another full-length complete, new game.

[BryanM]

Hey, the final game turned out shit, but I hardly see how anyone could watch the previews and come away expecting a walking simulator. The first E3 trailer showed a person scanning and identifying new alien species and resource deposits, facing attack by gigantic fauna, then getting swooped into a multi-planet-spanning starfighter battle. The live demo at the following E3 showed massive fleet battles between warring factions with the promise, "I can join in, I can take sides."

Okay yes that was too harsh - I was expecting a walking simulator with the World of Warcraft mining minigame attached to it.

The whole point of advertising is to show your product in the best possible light. What did they show, really, game wise? Some beautiful savannas with pre-placed flora and fauna that created a painting-like scenario that couldn't possibly be replicated throughout the game 24/7. They didn't show any serious shooting or dogfighting elements. They didn't show any political, story, or character elements either. Ergo from prior knowledge of things like Spore and APB (What a great character creation tool APB had. The flying car videos are more fun to watch tho.), one would know well enough to not expect what was not shown.

Focus was mainly on the randomly generated terrain and modular creatures. Since these are matters of aesthetics and obviously where almost all of their money was put into (were they really secretly hiding 99% of the stuff that could be called "the game"?), I can't see how one wouldn't think of it as a game where you go around looking at pretty things. Though if they weren't looking closely at it, yes I do understand how someone could think it was a first person 4X game at a glance.

It's actually not an unpopular idea in the dark seedy world of webnovels, these first person strategy games.. They all include NPCs that can do things as a basic feature.

[cj iwakura]

The collector's edition of Hellgate: London. What a mess.

Also, a really crappy 1:64 Moto Slave with Nene Romanova I bought at a comic shop once. Really poorly made, cost like $70. I'd had it on my list for months and finally bit only to be disappointed.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

In all my life the biggest waste of money probably was going to see Steve Martin's Pink Panther in the theater at the behest of my girlfriend at the time. We sat down. Steve did his parallel parking scene where he hits the car in front and behind him repeatedly.

Being a huge fan of the 1964 A Shot In The Dark as well as the Pink Panther, I've never seen this one cause it immediately looked like an American-ified version of a British classic, where the subtle, dry wit and humour are replaced by bland, shallow, physical comedy. The originals had physical comedy too mind you, but never anything that idiotic. I deeply regret looking up a clip of this to see what you were talking about, because it truly is unamusing and depressing.