Immediate Purchase Regrets

[fcgamer | 4,734]

Despite all of my drunken purchases and impulse purchases from junk shops, it is rare that I bought something that made me stop, ponder for a bit, and then realize that I made a mistake; however, there are a few times of near immediate purchase regret.

A few weeks back I was visiting Hard Off and I purchased an unauthorized / bootleg drum thingie for the PS2. Paid $5 for it. When I got it home and looked at it, I felt underwhelmed and thought (A) Where am I going to store this thing? (B) How can I ever sell this thing to someone else (C) Why did I spend the whole afternoon dragging the damned thing around? I forgot about it, then tonight as I was disassembling my game room (I'm turning it into an office), I saw it and once again thought "What should I do with that damned thing and why did I buy it to begin with?"

Anyone else have any stories of immediately regretting a purchase? I'm not really talking about a scenario of spending too much and feeling buyer's remorse, rather just realizing that you chose poorly.

[Ankos | 450]

Buying that GP2000 PCE clone I showed off earlier was a mistake. It was way bigger than I realized, and while though it does not look like it, the body is metal. That thing costed a ton to ship. No point in getting rid of it now though

[wongojack | 217]

At this point it is usually about the space that something will take up.  I am attracted by things described as "as-is" or "untested" thinking that I can get them to work.  I probably can in many cases, but where am I going to put them until I'm ready to work on them?

An example - I went through a phase of buying plug and play systems because I turned a couple into joysticks for other systems.  That was cool, and I enjoyed the project, but I still have a supply of those things that I move around when cleaning or organizing.  Oh well.  Live and learn I guess.

 

[xelement5x | 67]

Normally my immediate regret is if I've jumped on a BIN or something that came up quickly and it looks like a great deal but is more damaged than I first saw in the pictures or the like.  In person I used to have regret all the time, I'd go to the thrift and if it was cheap enough I'd buy it, get home and be like why did I buy this and where am I going to put it.  Breaking the FOMO cycle with collecting is hard, but watching my space dwindle has also made it easier to be more selective.  I always ask three questions before I buy.

1) How much is it?
2) How much space is it going to take up?
3) Is this going toward my defined collecting goals right now?

If it doesn't fit all three I'll normally pass, but sometimes if is a really cheap price and it's smaller I will still pick it up to trade or sell toward items for point #3.

[Mega Tank | 967]

Anytime I look around and I'm on the higher end of known sales makes me nervous. I always have to remind myself certain items are limited and don't get listed as often or may never be seen again in as good of a condition as I'm looking at. When it's all said and done and the item arrives, I'm over the regret of spending whate ever I did, provided the item arrived as described.

[Hammerfestus | 3,865]

I’m definitely guilty of smacking the BIN button before I double check the condition.

[DefaultGen | 5,414]

I drove 14 hours in a rented truck with a rented trailer to pick up a 1960s big ball bowler in working condition. When I got there it was "kinda working". But I bought it anyway because I wasted a whole day of my life getting there and they're pretty rare.

[GPX | 1,370]

I usually only regret when I buy a “near mint” or “mint” item, and then the seller packs in a care-free manner such that the item becomes a downgrade “VGC”.

Particularly annoying when they charge maximum dollars for postage fee. You assume they’d do a stellar job with the packing but only to be disappointed with the game received inside a plain padded envelope and nothing else.

[glazball | 172]

I paid $1.5 million for a sealed Super Mario 64, but now I kinda regret it.  It doesn't seem to be very rare after all.  Did I get a good deal?

 

(totally j/k btw)

[RH | 4,925]

1 hour ago, glazball said:

I paid $1.5 million for a sealed Super Mario 64, but now I kinda regret it.  It doesn't seem to be very rare after all.  Did I get a good deal?

 

(totally j/k btw)

Dude was that OG $1.5m a reseal????

I know you are joking about buying it but was that part of the schtick real?

[Brickman | 3,999]

Great topic idea and I love the story.

I think for me the two most common are being too trigger happy and not fully checking the condition on BIN items and the other is not consulting my list and just winging it only to find out I do have the game.

21 hours ago, DefaultGen said:

I drove 14 hours in a rented truck with a rented trailer to pick up a 1960s big ball bowler in working condition. When I got there it was "kinda working". But I bought it anyway because I wasted a whole day of my life getting there and they're pretty rare.

Never heard of this thing but after a google search I see it is huge! Do you have this set up in your house? It must take up a lot of room. 

[DefaultGen | 5,414]

1 hour ago, Brickman said:

Never heard of this thing but after a google search I see it is huge! Do you have this set up in your house? It must take up a lot of room. 

Yeah it's a 16' lane. There's one singular spot in my house it fits, and I have to open the garage to be able to work on it from the back

[Nintegageo | 582]

@DefaultGen so dope. Was looking at those and a dart board machine. Then I remembered am in an apartment :(. Do you use it all the time?

[Gloves | 11,801]

31 minutes ago, Nintegageo said:

@DefaultGen so dope. Was looking at those and a dart board machine. Then I remembered am in an apartment :(. Do you use it all the time?

The man has a bowling alley in his home and you think he doesn't live, sleep, and breathe bowling day and night?

[AirVillain | 490]

11 hours ago, Gloves said:

The man has a bowling alley in his home and you think he doesn't live, sleep, and breathe bowling day and night?

 

[xelement5x | 67]

18 hours ago, DefaultGen said:

Yeah it's a 16' lane. There's one singular spot in my house it fits, and I have to open the garage to be able to work on it from the back

Gotta agree this is amazing, looks like you were able to get it fully working again as well.

Is that a pachinko machine on the left next to the homer bucket as well?

[Tanooki | 4,942]

My habits of buying changed, but the last one I can totally relate to was eventually caving after over a year and buying an Evercade.  I didn't keep it a year.

On paper, in video, in conversation it is amazing.

 

The problem is when I had it, a good number of problems started to brew up some personal based, some reality, and I ended up dumping the thing at a local store at the time that was paying 60% of VGPC which means I got out of it even thankfully.

- Too many games at one time, hard to focus or commit so it's unrewarding.
- Many collections have a game or a few worthy in the larger so you waste money on a lot of mediocrity to crap
- Some are just a game or two, kind of a waste given vs price against the others
- Sketchy release dates and times, dates falling behind months or more, a LRG like experience w/out pre-pay blues
- Some stuff just not shipped to one store or country at all or in accceptable numbers causing online grifters to scoop

I could list most, but between those I had this failed christmas bundle someone had I got for a steal and I enjoyed it for a bit but that first and second became an issue and time wasn't there to enjoy it or attention either.  THen when I started trying to get stuff, the other crap came up, everyone with their own prices or countries with stuff that should have been in the US according to the company, then some key stuff slipped 6-12mo and I packed it in as I got fed up with the antics.  I wish I never owned it but happy it didn't cause me a loss at least.

[JamesRobot | 5,808]

I probably have more regrets when I don't buy stuff.  Prices just go up for the most part.  I scoffed at a $62 Duck Tales 2 some 10 or 12 years ago.  Whoops.  

After all, it's only money.  But I'm certainly not spending $300+ today.  *Scoff scoff.

[DefaultGen | 5,414]

6 hours ago, xelement5x said:

Is that a pachinko machine on the left next to the homer bucket as well?

Yeah this pic is super old. I used to have a few pachinko machines from different eras but I didn’t play them enough to justify the space they took up,

[inasuma | 1,203]

I bought a Majesco print Mega Man X at the height of the boom in 2021. Yikes.

[Reed Rothchild | 9,555]

No regrets.  If I didn't buy those original Xbox games back in 2012, the butterfly effect/parallel timeline could have (probably would have) resulted in me getting hit by a bus while crossing the street at some point.  I had to buy those games to save my life.

[Andy_Bogomil | 815]

I bought a large lot of Wii games that were 100% filler on a whim. Unless you were going for a full set it was about 100 games you'd never play or want to play. I've traded and sold some but wasn't worth the time or effort to buy in the first place. I was typically a quality over quantity kind of collector.

[Guest]

I don’t have much regrets with my purchases for my collection. Whenever I’m finally able to get my hands on an expensive game or a game I’ve been looking for for a while, I have a giant feeling of satisfaction. That definitely wears off after a couple of days, though, as you kind of move on or forget the fact that you have it.

 

From my experience, I’ve learned that I enjoy the journey more than the destination.

Edited March 31 by GamerSmith548

[portabello | 99]

No regrets… just some bad purchases along the way

[Sumez | 2,969]

I don't usually regret purchases, but if I end up spending too much money on something that wasn't what I thought it was, or I buy stuff that takes up a lot of place but which I end up never using, that's pretty much an immediate regret.

In recent memory, two games stand out to me, both were my own fault for not doing some basic research:

Devil May Cry Trilogy on Switch. I bought a physical copy because I wanted to own the game, and a real copy of especially the Switch port of DMC3, which by most fans is regarded the ultimate version of that game.
What I didn't realise at the time, is that the physical release only includes the first game, and the other two are download codes. Completely useless garbage.

Uncharted Waters on SNES. I've never been interested in this game on any platform. But @Reed Rothchild's insane praise of the game in his SNES Rankings list (better than TNWA? must be really fucking great) convinced me to shell out for a game that's unfortunately an import exclusive, meaning absurd shipping, customs, etc.
Buuuut it turns out there are apparently two Uncharted Waters games on the SNES, and the game he praised was the other one, which is also an import exclusive. Sucks. I'm never going to play this game.