Impulse buying (best and worst)

[shawnbo42]

Anybody out there ever just pick up something "just because it's there"?. Basically what I am asking here is:
1. What's the best impulse buy you ever made? (In terms of best price, best time to buy, best friend/family member to acquire it from, etc), and :

2. What's the worst impulse buy you ever made? (Way overpriced, bought something that was DOA, beyond your financial means, etc.)

I think my best was Stadium Events for NES. Bought it via Evilbay for $500 buy-it-now several years ago. Basically had to beg borrow and steal to come up with the money (I bought it without actually HAVING the money yet. I figured, I've got seven whole days to pay for this thing, I'll figure out something. Thankfully, I did.) Of course, we all know what that's more or less worth NOW. So, in my humble opinion, it was a GOOD impulse purchase.

My worst? Well, some here may argue with me on this one, but I picked up a Neo AES 3 or 4 years ago at a game store. Spent $250 for a boxed system (1 controller), and another $80 for 2 games (no, not Metal Slug). Riding Hero, and Fatal Fury. Before everybody hits "reply" and flames me for saying a Neo is a "bad" purchase, let me try and explain. I really didn't have the money at the time to buy it, but it was the first and ONLY time I have EVER seen a Neo "in the wild". Secondly, knowing full well that games are tough to come by, as well as stupidly expensive (in the average gaming world), I STILL bought the damn thing. And third, as if I didn't have enough to collect for, now I have another (and very expensive) addition to collect games for. It is for these reasons I say it was a "bad" impulse buy. If I could go back and do it all over again....Well, I'd still buy it. I guess that's why we are collectors.

Who's next??

[zemmix]

Funny thing about the Neo Geo is that I saw one (gold, boxed system) at a local game shop maybe 8 years ago (yikes I'm getting old!) for the same price, $250. I could have bought it, but I ended up passing. I kicked myelf about it for a few years since I never saw one in the wild again. Then about two or three years ago I stopped caring about having to have everything so now I'm happy I never spent that much $. I would have only played it maybe two hours at most anyway.

Best purchase was just over two years ago. From a Japanese couple that were moving back to Japan I got, Famicom (boxed, old style with everything, 20+ games some boxed with guide books), Disk Drive (no box), Super Famicom (boxed, 20 or so games), Neo Geo CD (boxed, 3 games) all for about $60. My wife actually found it and I jumped on it.

[cyberfluxor]

Best: Diablo II. Yeah, I was 14 and bought it for $55 new at Best Buy around launch knowing full well I couldn't play it on my PC. It was a hyped game for me and never regretted having that unopened copy for the months leading up to Christmas when I would get to play it. I knew my parents would buy a new computer because I spent too much money on a game.

Worst: I have two.
1) Buying my first Sega Saturn. I spent $40 on my first system over 3 years ago instead of hunting for a cheaper one. I've found several complete systems under $20 and a few under $5 since then. I still have that system and plan on coloring it so all in all it'll stay with me.
2) Also around 2 years ago I won an Atari 2600 auction with a bunch of loose carts, several controllers and everything but a power cord. I ended up buying an "Official Atari 2600 power cord" on eBay for another $4 shipped. Ended up being some cheap ass multi-voltgage adaptor so poorly made that I had it set correctly to turn on my system however it suddenly pushed too much power onto the system and blew it after only several minutes of playing. I got a decent deal on the lot but now I have a broken system that needs a replaced capacitor still (I'm lazy). I threw the adaptor out to avoid other issues and the Atari has been hanging out in my closet while the carts have been cluttering my shelf.

[vintagegamecrazy]

I've got a worst that turned out to be a best.

Around five years ago when the Music Recyclery was still in business in Illinois, I bought tons of games from them and one day they had a Turbo Duo with one controller for $139.99, it was a great price but they were shady and I didn't do my research. I sold a ton of valuable PSX RPGs to get it, I didn't get to test it with in 7 days and then told an employee that I bought it. He told me he wanted it but it was broken and they knew it and sold it anyway and didn't care. Sure enough, the controller was shot and the CD drive was broken. I sat on it forever trying to find a place to repair it, finally OSG repaired it and region modded it and I can sell it for more then my entire cost for it. It turned out good in the end and I found Super Air Zonk for $2 at Goodwill.

Bad

I knew a big time collector quite well and he'd let me take car loads of stuff home and make payments to him. I had just started collecting and I wanted Action 52 and Maxi 15 so bad. I paid $70 each from him knowing full well how bad they were and how much I overpaid. If I waited I would have gotten them at half that price.

Good

I went to Goodwill and saw several PSX longbox games for like 2 or 3 bucks each. I bought everyone on a binge and didn't know how much they were worth. I got home and found out that the X Com UFO Defense I bought was worth $60 and Ebayed it for just that!

[7th lutz]

The worst is Dragon Warrior 7 or Shining Force 1 used.

My best is crusader of Centy. I found it used at Funco Land in 1997.

[steeniekins]

Best:
Hmmm. Most of the games I own now were bought off of impluse buying. Probably my Wii system. I went looking everywhere for it. My friend and I spent a whole day trying to find it. We finally gave up and went to see a movie, we got there about 1hr too early..so we went to wal-mart..and I immediately ran to the electronics *sigh*. And I saw it...almost glowing in it's own awesomeness (woo making-up words!)...so I bought it. I was broke for the next two weeks.

Worst:
Very recently actually...I just received my VERY WELL AWAITED Croc game for PS1 today...I get it and it's only the disc..not only that but it's not the original disc...it's the greatest hits. I only paid about 10bucks for it in total...but still. I got my hopes up, and now I have to buy another one for about 20bucks.

[jwm2]

My worst was a nintendo wii about 6 months back. I still don't have any games for it worth playing :/

[kaedesdisciple]

Best: Picked up an original Final Fantasy Tactics for $34.99 at retail. This was before I knew anything about the game, I just thought it looked cool.

Worst: Resident Evil: Survivor. I need not speak about this game again.

[Family Computer]

-Famicom Disk System Super Mario Bros. 2 (Japanese Lost Levels), working & complete for $1

-Famicom Goonies (Boxed Complete), $4

-Splatterhouse Wanpaku Graffiti (Boxed, Decal Set, NO MANUAL), $4


I don't really have too much rare stuff but I'd say those are the best deals I have had.

[YoshiM]

Best: Diner for Intellivision. Saw it on the shelf when I was at Goodwill. It didn't ring any bells but I bought it anyway. When I got home I read the DP Guide and saw that it was pretty hard to come by. Then I actually played it and loved it. Probably the best $2 I spent at Goodwill in a long while.

Worst: it's a toss up between my old Atari Jaguar and a loose 32X. I saw a Jag at a game/toy store in Green Bay for $50. I have never seen on "in the wild" and I was really curious about it. I think it came with Kasumi Ninja. I picked up other titles for it and I just loathed that system. Tempest 2000 was the only real GOOD game out of what I had.

I picked up a loose 32X from Goodwill. Not knowing too much about it, I figured cables would be easy to come by. Wrong. I couldn't find one to work with my system so I shelved it. Granted it was only $10 but still. Then when I got a working setup (complete, bought from Kamino), I really didn't like the system.

Worst to Best (or at least Better): I told my wife that during my lunch I was going to go to Blockbuster Video to see if they had a used Yoshi's Story for N64. I saw it there but didn't buy it. Well, BB had bought out some smaller video chain and was selling their goods in a tent. I walked through and saw Sega Saturn systems for $30 with all the hookups. And they had Yoshi's Story. I had limited funds then so I couldn't get both. My collecting side took over and I bought the Saturn, making up some lame story that they didn't have Yoshi's Story. Well, later in the week we stop there to rent something and my wife saw the game in the bin and gave me an evil look. I didn't have the cash for the game but I picked up Bust a Move 2 Arcade complete for $5 to try and appease her. She fell in love with it and that got me out of the fire.

I was so young and stupid.

[HYB]

I've had so many good deals in the past I'll just say on of the newer ones. Journey to Silius, pal B CiB and in if not mint, very good condition with minor shelfwear. All for 25 euros.

My worst have got to be pirated games and some loose carts (Lylatwars and LoZ). Pirated games just generally and loose carts because they look ugly on the shelf. Maybe buying CV Symphony saturn version without th spine card.

[shawnbo42]

Great responses, got some good laughs out of some of the experiences, keep it coming!!

[zektor]

Well, I recently purchased Musha (Genesis) complete and near mint condition. I asked around in these forums to see if anyone had one to sell, and searched ebay for quite some time with no hits except for pricey loose carts. I finally hit on this one on ebay as it was just listed, and paid $70 BIN. So, best purchase I have made in awhile since I *love* this game, but one of the worst recent purchases because I jumped at it even at the high price. I can just feel it coming...now I'll find one for $5 or $10. It always works out that way, doesn't it? So, that is my combined recent best/worst purchase all wrapped into one :)

[Cornelius]

Well, I recently purchased Musha (Genesis) complete and near mint condition. I asked around in these forums to see if anyone had one to sell, and searched ebay for quite some time with no hits except for pricey loose carts. I finally hit on this one on ebay as it was just listed, and paid $70 BIN. So, best purchase I have made in awhile since I *love* this game, but one of the worst recent purchases because I jumped at it even at the high price. I can just feel it coming...now I'll find one for $5 or $10. It always works out that way, doesn't it? So, that is my combined recent best/worst purchase all wrapped into one :)
Not trying to be an ass... just sayin': Isn't this the definition of what ISN'T and impulse buy?

I don't have any memorable ones, so I'll just go with the best and worst of today: Worst: At a thrift I came across PS2 Future Tactics still in plastic w/ the sticker on top, but slit open probably to make sure the game was in there (idiots... clearly not a re-seal). Anyway, I'd not heard of it, it looks interesting from the description, so I grabbed it. Get home and then find all the shitty reviews. Oh well, only 6.80 before the 25% off day discount.
Best: Namco Guncon at Goodwill for 3 bucks. I don't have any PS gun games at all, so know nothing about the guns, but it was in great condition and looks cool, so I snagged it. Now I just have to get a game to use it with.

[Sailorneorune]

Best: Pulseman on ebay, new for $50; Shining Force CD, complete for $5

Worst: Slayers Royal, complete for $8. No English walkthroughs. :(

[zektor]

Not trying to be an ass... just sayin': Isn't this the definition of what ISN'T and impulse buy?




Yes and no. Yes, I have been looking for the game which can be taken as this NOT being an impulse buy. BUT, paying that much and hitting that BIN button on the mere sight of it was impulse for sure. It was a sudden desire...which is actually the definition of "impulse" :)

[mnbren05]

Worst: Boxed Jaguar system with 2 games (cybermorph and iron soldier) for $75 shipped.

Best: 3 Conker's Bad Fur Day carts for $9.99

[Ed Oscuro]

Worst: too many to list, I'm afraid.

[Fuzzball24]

Worst: Super NES Super Scope 6. I thought it might be worth something. Nope. Then I go home and try to play it. Apparently it ONLY works the Super Scope. The killer? I only have LCD TV's.

Best: Super Mario 64 for 3 bucks.


I just started game collecting, so yeah.

[boatofcar]

Worst: Final Fantasy X. Not only did it suck, but two months later it went GH and was only $20.

That was the last time I ever bought an RPG on impulse.

[spoon]

Two Worst

NES Dash Galaxy for my Birthday.

I was in second or third grade. My parents took me to the "World of Nintendo" inside of a Meijer department store and told me I could pick out a game for my birthday. I immediately picked up Wolverine as I had been eying that game and it had just been marked down as well. Since it had been marked down, I asked my parents if I could pick out another game. After much "Please mom, I'll do anything, I won't ask for anything again I swear" my parents agreed. I honestly can not even remember what other games I passed over. As soon as I saw the cool ass cover art to Dash Galaxy, I just had to have it. No matter the back of the box had pictures of the crappy Intellivision quality graphics, I had to have it. Needless to say, this game was shelved shortly after the first time I played it.

Best:

My brother and I always had some certain luck of picking out games that either had got bad reviews, we had never heard about, or just plain looked cool and ended up being so. Back then we didn't read game magazines for quality reviews or articles. We just wanted to drool over what was next. I can remember buying NES games like The Punisher, Nintendo World Cup, Nightshade, Yo Noid and Captain America and the Avengers without a second thought. Getting them home and truly enjoying/playing the hell out of them.

My all time favorite has to be us deciding to buy Gunstar Heroes for his birthday. Never heard of it, was only 20 bucks. We figured, why the hell not? We probably played through that cart 500 times.

[2Dskillz]

Best: Just over 2 years ago a coworker was going to put a Sega Genesis on Ebay because it did not sell at his Garage sale. He only wanted $20 bucks for the system(with hook ups and six button controllers) and about 15 games. I offered to take it off his hands immediately and thanks to that purchase I not only got into classic gaming, but I found the digital press when trying to look up over classic titles I should get for the system. It did make me regret the time I had left console gaming and I have been making it up every since, even resurrecting my old NES from childhood and scoring numerous other systems. That $20 introduced me to not only a wonderful hobby, but also an amazing online community here at Digital Press.

Worst: While at a shop that I frequent for old carts I ask by chance if they carry anything for the Jaguar (after just getting one of my own) The clerk pulls out two games, a copy of Cybermorph (already had it) and a game I had never heard of must be a lost gem this "Trevor McFur" I dropped $12 bucks cart only and was happy to have a new game to experience. Happy until I got home that is, man I thought something was REALLY wrong. Did I just get an unfinished copy of a game? A little net reading filled me in and all I could do was laugh. I am still amazed that this was released...unbelievable.

[Xian042]

The most random big impulse buy I made was a second hand, but complete and used once, Steel Battallion for Xbox. I certianly didnt have the money working on an EB Games salary, but how could I turn down a complete used SB with my employee discount?

Best Impulse Buy... Panzer Dragoon Saga complete / mint at a Funcoland for $40. 'nuff said

Worst?..hmm.. Maybe the TWO Playstion 2's I picked up at launch day. I held on to the other one too long to make any money off it.

Also, one impulse buy fluctuated as time went on. Before my days of scouring magazines for reviews and such, I would buy NES games based on the cover and game description. Karnov **Spoiler ahead** looked pretty darn cool, this russian guy that looked like my dad that could spit fire. Sounded cool. When I got him home I was pretty let down. I didnt play it much but then out of boredom I picked it up again and got used to it. A buddy started playing with me that had a bit more determination and he finally beat the game. We anticipated a cool ending for such a cool, difficult game. What did we get instead? "Congratulations!" I cant tell you what it took to keep us from destroying that cartridge.

Mystic Defender for the Genesis was another game I bought based on the cover and description. I hated it at first and regretted picking it up, but eventually got used to the gameplay and actually started to really enjoy it. This one kept the satisfaction going and is still a favorite Genny title of mine.

[Slate]

I'd say that my best is a Brand new copy of Tank brigade for the Atari 2600. They had five new atari 2600 games (Four of them were commons and I never saw tank brigade before then) And I couldn't get all of them but I bought the cheap ones - Tank brigade and night driver. I didn't even look tank brigade up for a month or more! When I found out about it, I was very surprised. It's an R7 and I bet I have one of the last If not the only brand new copy left.

My worst, Well, Uhhhhh...... :?

I honestly don't know.

Maybe a sega genesis with 15 games for $72 shipped. But it was my first genesis and I thought that It was worth it. Or perhaps my first virtual boy for $50. Yeah, the virtual boy. It's the virtual boy, Because I found two of them the next year for $7 or so.

[tritium]

Worst purchase on impulse? Rez from an online store. It was part of the bad printing so to get it to play i had to abuse my dreamcast. takes 2-3 hours to get it to even work. Love the game, hate the mission.

Best purchase on impulse:
Sonic Adventure 2 Anniversary from Lik-Sang for $10. I played the hell out of that game. Particularl the knuckles levels. Value of it actually went up instead of down. So I'm happy I got it when I did.

[otaku]

I've overpaid for games numerous times sadly. The latest was a copy of IKaruga at 70-80 bucks then they announced the xbxlive release and the price dropped to 50! Also sorta regret my wii purchase since I've only owned one game for it since I bought it.

Good buys? I dunno I've had alot of games I've bought and sold for more than I paid so those were all good

[Sparkster]

Best - $20 Genesis and 12 games. The kicker - the games included Aerobiz Supersonic which is rare enough to cover the entire cost.

Worst - Final Fantasy VII... hang on, hang on, I'm not done. I saw it at a pawn shop, remembered that it's a highly praised game, but wasn't aware that there was more than one disc for it. So there's $5 for 1 out of the 3 discs.

[ScourDX]

I have a lot of great purchased over the past 6 years. My best purchased would be Vay for $5 and Dark Wizard for $2 complete. The worst purchased I made was bought bootleg copy of Dragon Warrior Monster 2 Cobi for $25 at EB. I didn't realize it was fake until 6 months later.

[BetaWolf47]

Best: Battle of Olympus for NES. I did give it some thought, but I didn't know **** about the game, so either way it was a gamble. Now it's one of my top 5 favorite NES games of all time, I think.

Worst: Nintendo World Cup Soccer. Mistaken identity. Don't lie, you've done it too.

[Game Freak]

I am one of the worst when it comes to impulse buying. I have usually bought everything I can in the past, but now I limit it by running down the following.

System - if NES/SNES and not a sports game I already have I buy it. If it is for a cartridge console I buy it.
Price - anything less than 5 dollars for a game (not combat-common of course) I most likely will buy
Cover art - does it look interesting?
condition - label, box, disc, etc
box - i usually buy boxed games over unboxed, even if they are sports titles

I haven't really had a crazy good deal, although a while back I got an atari 5200 for free and a TRS-80 CoCo 2 for five dollars (the TRS80 was boxed and all, rarely if ever used)
EDIT - also got a Genny boxed with about 15ish games, as well as another 30 ps1 games/demo discs for...*drumroll*..............$2

The worst buy I probably make is when I go to the flea to buy games, theres this one seller that has a 5 for 20 deal. I ended up spending 20 on bad games just for the notoriety >_>

[Ed Oscuro]

I shudder to think what my impulse buys add up to. Oh well, ya live and learn. I can peg my "worst" as being at least $500. Yep, one game.

I haven't made any "impulse buys" in a while now. I tend to consider them more carefully than I used to.

[TonyTheTiger]

Since this is about impulse buying (something I don't do often) I won't list the things that I actively planned to buy only to learn they were terrible (ex. Mega Man X7, and yes, I did finish it because I love Mega Man that goddamn much). Unfortunately, that means the absolute best and worst purchases won't make the list.

Best:

Magic Knight Rayearth. This might be somewhat cheating since I wasn't the one who actually paid for it. It was a gift but one I picked out. I was in what was once Electronics Boutique in the Willowbrook Mall in NJ looking for Saturn imports since I had heard EB was dealing in them for a period of time near the end of the Saturn's life. The guy I spoke to didn't know anything about that and said they didn't have any Saturn stock left except for one thing in particular. He took me in the stock room and sitting all alone on a stack of boxes was a single copy of Magic Knight Rayearth. I was enchanted by just the appearance, the Working Designs flair, so that's what I chose.

Disgaea: Hour of Darkness. I was in Toys "R" Us looking to buy a Christmas gift for my little cousin and happened to spot it there after it had been out for a couple of months. I figured "why not" and was thrilled with the game.

Tobal #1. I was browsing through the used Playstation games at the now defunct Funcoland in Willowbrook when I stumbled upon a perfect copy of Tobal for $5. It even came with the FFVII demo disc.

Dragon's Lair/Space Ace/Dragon's Lair II DVD Box Set. This is an interesting one since the DVDs themselves suck. But I was encouraged to buy the set (which happened to be in the store at the time) because of the Daphne emulator and how by using the DVDs to prove you own them, Daphne permits the user to download legal rips of the original laserdiscs. I haven't been happier. Flawless versions they are.

Sega Dreamcast. I was sitting at home one night. Must have been around 5 or 6. It was September 10th. It just popped into my head, "Oh, yeah. The Dreamcast came out yesterday. I think I can afford that." Within about two or three hours I was playing Soul Calibur.

Sega Wondermega. I was browsing Ebay for random Sega CD games and this thing showed up. I didn't know what it was at the time but it was there with a Buy-It-Now of $30 and $15 shipping. I basically bought it not knowing what I was buying. And now it's one of my favorite consoles.

There are probably others but these stand out at the moment.

Worst:

Kartia: The Word of Fate. Pretty much the same situation as Tobal. Found it in a GameStop (also now defunct) in Willowbrook Mall. It's in great shape but is missing the manual. I didn't even know the game existed at the time but Yoshitaka Amano's artwork caught my eye. It was cheap enough so I grabbed it. Turns out I can't stand the game.

Saga Frontier. This is a weird one since I knew I didn't like the game before I bought it. My friend had owned Saga Frontier for a while and each time either of us tried to play it we couldn't find anything redeeming about it. The night before I went off to college a bunch of us went to a mall, this time not Willowbrook. I was there to buy a backpack but of course we wandered into an EB. Saga Frontier was there for $10. My friend basically goaded me into buying it as if it were a kind of hazing to own the game. I complied.

Tales of Destiny II. This I admit is unfair. I bought it when it came out on a whim since I remembered reading good things in Game Informer. But I just couldn't get into it. I was a few hours in when I just stopped playing. It felt soulless to me. But, despite that, in retrospect I'm actually glad I bought the game when I did since I know I'm going to want to give it a second chance.