Collecting Horror stories. What are yours?

[AppleQueso]

I think the biggest one I can think of is probably selling Secret of Mana before even trying the multiplayer.

I'd gotten it for like $6 though so I figured it wasn't a whole lot of money lost or anything.

There are countless other games I've had over the years that I've sold to buy other games. Usually it was just other used games (often from the same era), but I still sorta wish I'd kept those.

[DaGamingMonkey]

Gamecrazy moved into town.
In my eagerness to get new games for my newer consoles I lost quite a few good games for the snes and ps1.

Diablo (ps1)
King Arthurs World (snes)
Donkey Kong Country
Mario Kart
Mario Allstars
Street Fighter 2
plus many more
Crippled my collection

Luckily I never pulled the trigger on
Secret of Mana
FF3

[Cassidy]

I've sold my NES, SNES & N64 all mint & complete with all pack-ins & ditto for games, for peanuts.

I've regretted it all and bought back sealed games & brand new systems at great expense (ie: new SNES - the Mario World one - for $400. Ouch). I have everything back, but I could have saved money if I just bought the latest, next-gen system out of pocket instead of trying to finance it.

But the following story tops it all.

I was dating a girl for a few years and we moved in together. We were both gamers and amassed a huge library of PS1 games.

We had, to name a few, every Tomb Raider game, FF7 & 8, MGS, every Res Evil game, Parappa, Um Jammer Lammy, Xenogears, Vagrant Story, Castlevania: SotN, Valkyrie Profile, Bust-A-Groove 2...I can't go on.

All were first run games, no green labels & Res Evil 1 was the long box (had the Director's Cut too).

Anyway, we broke up and moved apart, and we had packed all of the games & system in one big box, which was going to my new house since I had bought 95% of the collection.

So, I move and a couple of months go by and get the itch to play Parappa. I search everywhere for the Playstation box and can't find it. Guess what? She had grabbed the box and moved extremely far away, so there was no chance ever I was getting it back.

I've only managed to re-buy about 5% of the collection which saddens and angers me, but lesson learned.

[dedalusdedalus]

I've only managed to re-buy about 5% of the collection which saddens and angers me, but lesson learned.

You should call her up and tell her that you have a venereal disease, and she should get herself checked.

[Hobie-wan]

I know one of the games was Contra, which is currently on my "need to find again" list. But of course, nobody wants to sell it for less than $15. So I'm waiting until I see it for under $10

Just gotta pay attention. It took me over a year to pick up Contra cheap. At the time it was always $20+ for a bare cart and $35+ complete all the time. I waited and waited and then finally got a complete one for something around $20 shipped. At least its gone down a little the past few years.

[BakaTanuki]

I am thankful to have grown up in an environment where collectables get respect. When my parents would buy me a star wars action figure, they also bought a sealed one for themselves. My dad would always make sure I wasn't throwing my game boxes away or anything. I have never sold a single game and have all my brother's NES/SNES as well as my acquisitions.

My family, however, does have a collecting horror story. When my dad went to college, his mother sold all his comics and baseball cards. He had a massive collection with plenty that would be very valuable today. She doesn't care that she did it at all.

[BoringSupreez]

I don't know how many of you have no siblings, but I have an older brother and our parents made us take turns choosing which game to buy.

Anyway, he really had poor taste in games. I remember being at EB, lobbying him to buy Tactics Ogre, and then he ends up buying some ridiculous NBA game.

I had a similar situation once, except it was a younger brother. But he had similarly bad taste. The situation was that we would play each other's game we bought. But what happened was that I bought good games, he played them, and then he bought junk that I had no use for. I broke off the agreement, of course.

[LBJeff]

I know this is wash, rinse, repeat, but when I was younger I got pissed at my parents so decided to move out on my own. I needed funding so in my rage I sold off everything I had...almost. My PS1 collection including a modded PS1 and about 70 games - 15 or so imports. My Saturn collection - including Panzer Dragoon Saga, Dragon Knight, Burning Rangers, Christmas Nights, D&D Collection, Elevator Action Returns, etc. N64 - Gold Zelda, OoT and Majora's mask. Dreamcast, blah blah blah. Anyways, you get the picture.

Years later, I'm almost back to where I was, but with a way harder hit in the pocket book. It sucks. I give myself 100 lashes twice a year as a way of self-punishment for my transgressions.

Thankfully I kept some gems - Final Fantasy III, Chrono Trigger and Secret of Mana all in boxes w/manuals, Final Fantasy box/manual, stuff like that.

[Duane Dibbley]

I have generally held onto my collection over the years. Back in the day I sold a few Game Gear games and some Genesis accessories to FuncoLand, and recently I started weeding out my collection, but I don't have any regrets there.

My real regret is from my freshman year of college. The guy across the hall from me had a Genesis 1, Sega CD 2, and 32X that I don't think he once powered on during the school year. Toward the end of the term, he announced that he was throwing them out, because they didn't work, or something like that. I remember walking by them, sitting there on top of the trash can, and wanting to take them, but for some reason I didn't. I already had a Genesis 2 and Sega CD 2, and maybe his consoles didn't have any cables or something. In any case, I regret not taking them, since they might have worked, and then I would have gotten a free 32X. Alas, they are probably at the bottom of a landfill now.

[Rounin]

not really a horror story but I constantly have to thin out my collection I have no idea why I do it but I'm the complete opposite of a hoarder. I love to the process of collecting but not the end result I enjoy the hunt not the kill I can get annoying when you go to play beyond good and evil and realise you sold it a few weeks ago because it was taking up space