What was the first game you ever bought ?

Pitfall by Activision for the Atari 2600. I’m old.

With my own allowance money instead of asking for it as a gift?
Sim City 3000

First game as an adult with a job?
Halo 2

Orange box, everything before was pirated lol

My older sisters both had several games before I got one for myself. I think the first one that was actually mine wasn’t until Burnout 3 when we got a PS2. All the PS1 games were hand-me-downs.

Myst was the first game I bought with my own money

Super smash brothers mele, gamecube

Purchased was Tomb Raider II. So worth it because I loved Indiana Jones.

I don’t know for sure if it was my money or just my choice, but I went with Strife (1996). I chose it in the store after a long deliberation, my uncle was trying to get me to go with Half Life but I was drawn in by something on the back of the box. PC games used to come in big empty boxes with a lot of art and info on them.

It was unforgettable. Basically if you made an RPG in the old Doom engine with the sensibilities of the nineties and an overly ambitious art department. It was surprisingly well written, and I’ve been chasing that sense of an expansive, dark yet cartoonish, novelistic RPG ever since.

Colin McRae Rally 2.0 for the PlayStation.

I wanted a PlayStation so much but simply didn’t have the money. I was saving for it.

But bought the game so I could go to my friend’s house and play it on his PlayStation.

Riven: The sequel to Myst. Had to visit a whole new world and write down my adventure.

The first game I ever bought ‘by myself’ was a sealed copy of Phantasy Star Online for GameCube long after its hayday in like 2011. I worked all summer for it, and it was 200 fucken dollars for an unopened copy. Worth every penny I still have it today, just used the disc to load it into Dolphin.

Very first that I bought? Deus Ex. By that time I already played it quite a lot, but I felt that it deserves buying even though I didn’t have any income at that age. Looking back at that seems nostalgic. It had a proper manual and everything. It even seemed somehow “magical”, because as kids we weren’t really used to owning games (as in our “own” games, not just something borrowed from a friend which was usually just burnt on empty CD). Good times.

I don’t remember.

However, I gave up gaming when I was around 18 and preparing to head off to college. Then after I graduated, I was at a store and saw Quake Arena on deep discount (b/c it was a very old game at that time) and based on the hardware requirements, it looked like my crumby ancient tower computer could play it. I don’t know why, but I decided to buy it, and I guess that sort of got me back into gaming (ish).

I was in my 20s and although I barely remember the game now, yeah, it was worth it. The graphics and performance were far superior to anything I’d played up to that point. It had online play, which was entirely new to me at the time. And a few years later, I got major “friend points” when I gifted it to someone who was a game collector and had offered many times to buy the game from me.

First game I got or first one I bought for my own money? The first game I ever got and played was Super Mario Land for the GameBoy. I remember when the hype around Pokémon Red/Blue coming to Europe was building I was trying to calculate how many weeks of allowance I would need to save up to afford it, so that might have been the first one I actually purchased, I can’t remember for sure if I bought it myself or got it as a gift. Diablo 2 launched a year later and I know I bought that one as I vividly remember the car ride back from the store, so otherwise that might be it.

All of these were of course incredibly worth it. I would never have gotten into video games without that GameBoy and Super Mario Land I think, and Pokémon was a formative experience for me as I got to participate in the whole Pokémania phenomenon. And Diablo 2 is one of the games I have the most hours in over my childhood, it kept resurfacing over my school years as me and the other gamers in my school would randomly get the urge to start playing Diablo 2 again randomly almost yearly over the course of like 8 years after its release.

Can’t remember if I purchased it or asked for it, but it is the first game that was just for me and not anyone else in the family and would have been in my early teens. Wanted it as a computer version of the tabletop Battletech game that I was introduced to by a friend’s older brother.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BattleTech:_The_Crescent_Hawk%27s_Revenge

The play speed was tied to the CPU speed, so when we upgraded the family computer a couple years later all the movement happened at ludicrous speeds! Good thing it was turn based.

BATTLETECH 2019 was like a modern version which was pretty awesome and hit all the nostalgia buttons!

Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater for N64

https://www.lemon64.com/game/skate-crazy

All was pirated, because nobody actually sold games. Some shops specialized in electronics slowly started having random C64 titles. This was one of the first ones I ever saw.

Never had actual original covers on any of my pirated casettes.

Game was shit.

Fallout 3, when I was 15. I had read the strategy guide (with no pictures) at my library, and struggled to even comprehend a game that expansive.

Hell yeah, it was worth it.

Croc

With my own money? Chrono Trigger, shortly after it was released in the US. Took a while to save up my meager allowance.

I was a tween, and it was very worth it.

Xenon 2 Megablast for the Atari ST, with my saved-up pre-teen pocket money. Was it worth it? Fuck yes.

I don’t remember exactly, but it was definitely a Valve game. I think it was Portal 2 or Half-Life 2 Someday we’ll see the 3

Pokemon SoulSilver for $20 when I was 8 or 9 years old. I don’t have the cartridge or PokeWalker anymore and I weep at the value lost

I think it was KotOR 🤔

For my own allowance, it might have been a space shooter, Bosconian, on the C64. I must have been 12. The game was pretty bad unfortunately.

I remember my mom bringing me to Best Buy in spring 2004 right after I had gotten my Gamecube the previous Christmas. I bought Smash Melee and Mario Sunshine. I was 7 years old.

I had gotten games before then but those were the first two I was taken to the store to buy myself.

I still remember holding them as I walked down the aisle toward the registers. Aaaand that was the cheapest those two games ever got lol

Sonic the Hedgehog for the Sega Genesis. Still one of my favorites so definitely worth it.

X-wing.

First game I specifically asked for from my parents: Stunt Driver. Must have been in the first half of 1990.

First game I saved up for and bought myself: Super Mario Bros 3. Much of the money I saved came in the summer of 1990, so that would have been in late summer of that year.

When I was ~7, I got a Super NES bundle that included both Super Mario World and Super Mario Kart, as well as a second controller. Absolutely worth it.

I don’t remember, but it was one of those yellow cartridges the size of your palm. I think they were knockoffs. Can’t say for sure.

It was a side-scrolling fighting game with tiny martial arts dudes. It could be played co-op. I think the bald character was overpowered, or I just felt like he was.
It was either a tournament style, attacking a rival dojo or both. Or something else.

I liked the cool art on the cartridge.

It probably would’ve been something on the Sega Genesis but hell if I know now

Colecovision pong in the early 80s for console. Commander Keen would be my first for PC.

Stonekeep with my birthday money! It was fantastic.

Pokemon platium for the old nintendo ds, at the age 13-14 years old. Before that I useally got my copied games, on floppy disc and later on CD’s.

I mean it had to be a puzzle book or something from the hobby shop but im not sure and it would have been single digits. Even ones that were a bigger deal im not sure. My friend intrduced me to d&d with the box version and im not 100% but I think the first rpg I may have bought is star frontiers. man that seemed so cool at the time. Honestly its still sorta cool thinking about it.

I don’t remember the name of the title. It was probably an Atari 2600 game sometime in the 80s.

In 95 I was stationed in Germany and I know I bought a number of PC games from the post exchange but again I don’t remember any of the names.

Sometime around 98 I know I bought Doom. That’s probably the first game I bought when I remember the title.

Me and my brother combined our money to buy Cyberia (1994). This was a fmv (full motion video) game, which still seemed like a pretty cool concept at the time. We bought it because we were really impressed with the demo, which came on a CD-ROM that was bundled with PC Gamer or some other magazine.

The demo was a section of the game where you were flying around in some sort of aeroplane. The only thing you controlled was the gun. The enemies were superimposed on top of the video, which was fixed.

I enjoyed the flying sections in the full game, but there were also parts where you controlled the main character on the ground. You could only move him between fixed positions and postures, because fmv. In some places you had to shoot enemies, which required very precise timing. This was too hard for me at the time.

I think I kind of regretted spending my money on it at the time, but only a little.

One of the first paid ones was Crazy Machines a puzzle game where you have to solve rube goldberg machines, i must have been around 8. I only know about this now because I have only recently dusted off the old PC I was playing on. Its fun, I like that they always added a small backstory to every puzzle. The puzzles I have created were no real puzzles and I have just built what I felt like building. Definitely worth it (the newer ones not so much.)

Mario and duck hunt for the original nes. My parents got it for me when I was VERY young. And I was terrible at both for years. So much fun.

Links awakening on the Gameboy, great first game to own

Starfleet Command: Gold Edition

it STILL gives me fun playtime

Well, bought FOR me… Atari 2600 Combat (came with the system). I think I was 8 or 9? Totally worth it!

Worms Armageddon! I vaguely remember being disappointed by the absence of some features I liked from Worms 2, but can’t remember exactly anymore. I think I still have the CD somewhere.

First with my own money was Rygar for the NES when it first released in 1987. My brothers and I had already played the original Zelda to death and we craved another fantasy action/RPG type of game. It was different but great - totally worth it.

Ultima III for Apple ][ in 1983. Paid with months of saved up allowance. So damned worth it.

Fun side note… I bought it from the same computer store where I nearly bowled over Robin Williams in 1984 (Santa Rosa, CA). I was very aware of who he was, having grown up watching Mork and Mindy and watched one of his standup specials a LOT of times.

I was wandering around the games case, fixated on said games and noticed a person out of the corner of my eye right before slamming into them. And it was HIM. I couldn’t say a word. And he looked as if he couldn’t figure out this weird nerd and just moved around me.

I still think back on that day frequently enough.

Had games before on the ZX Spectrum but probably Prince of Persia (original) on our first PC. But it was a pirated version as that was all you could get in the country I lived in. First boxed game I bought was Sim City.

I was about 8 or 9ish. And yes, to both.

Majora’s Mask. I preordered it and saved up allowance for months. It came to like $100 CAD with tax. Played the shit out of it and finished it in 2 weeks. The game was good, but I was quite disappointed because LttP and Ocarina both took me at least a month each. MM only has like 4 dungeons. Ended up trading it to a friend for Smash Bros.

The first game I ever bought was, the still absolutely brilliant, 1997 Blade Runner point and click made by Westwood Studios. Still one of my favourite games ever. I was 12 when I bought it.

I wqs pretty young, not sure how old but definitely still in middle school I wanna say. But the first game that I bought with my money was a game called Blockland, which was kind of a fusion between roblox and garrys mod that leaned more into the lego visual aesthetic. I remember doing a lot of map exploration solo to find secrets the mapmakers put in. Fun times.

I have no idea. I was probably 5, and had birthday money.