Have you ever wanted an elusive game for a while only to discover that you actually own it already?

[Emperor Megas]

I've purchased a lot of random duplicate games accidentally, but I'm talking about specific games that were high priority wants. I can't think of a specific game, but I know that I've done it before and felt like an idiot.

[goldenband]

Only once, and it may have been because of an error in my database. I traded (rather generously) for several Vectrex games, and somehow overlooked that I owned one of them already. For some reason, I find it really hard to keep track of what I own for Vectrex.

Otherwise, I think the only doubles I've accidentally and intentionally bought have been Game Boy manuals, oddly enough. IIRC I bought the Tennis manual three times.

[Gameguy]

From the top of my head Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers for NES, I was actively trying to find a copy of this at various thrifts and came across it while going through some games I packed away. I just didn't remember buying it.

Also Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Eagle Watch for PC. I had a set that was missing a few discs so I tried to find loose copies of those discs to complete it, somehow I thought I needed Eagle Watch but I really needed something else instead. Now I have an extra copy of Eagle Watch.

I'm sure I've done this a few other times as well.

[Edmond Dantes]

I've done this quite a few times, and I can't even remember all of them. A few occasions I do recall:

-I was trying to get a boxed copy of Simcity for SNES with the manual, and it had specifically to be the Player's Choice edition. After I got it... I found out I already had one. So now I have one Simcity Players Choice cart and two boxes/manuals. Same happened with the re-release of Sonic 1 for Genesis.

-I wanted to buy a copy of Torin's Passage on ebay a few months back, but before committing I looked through my game library or something to play and it turned out I already owned a copy. I don't even remember buying it.

In fact, in general I suffer from this when it comes to PC games, because due to the varieties of ways they come in (boxed, jewel case, disc-only kept in CD wallets, or even digital downloads) I often forget what I already own.

[mailman187666]

I keep a list on my phone of Saturn games I don't already own for this reason. Luckily the only times I've bought games twice were for common NES games. Usually they are only a few dollars so that's probably why I forget that I previously bought them.

[Nebagram]

I think I've bought ToeJam and Earl twice on the Mega Drive but that's it as far as games go. I'm forever buying duplicate Doctor Who DVDs, though.

[BetaWolf]

Blaster Master, for some reason. Got it mixed up with The Guardian Legend.

[Niku-Sama]

I'm sure there has been but at the same time I am of the mind set if I own it already I can use it to trade for other things I want too

[SparTonberry]

Not an "elusive" game but I just bought a used CIB copy of Cross Edge for PS3 from GameStop.
Forgot that I actually a bought, I think it was a new copy but I can't remember for sure, from amazon in the last year, but it arrived in a damaged case. Only time I had that happen so I should've remembered it. :P

[Steve W]

I've only done it once, really. I found Guardian for the Atari 2600 in a store for $1.99, got it home and put it in my uncommon-to-rare Atari 2600 storage box only to find there was already a copy there.

I usually only do that with uncommon games, not anything I've been looking for deliberately. For example, I bought Coconuts for the Atari 2600 something like four times before I realized I already had it and I needed to stop buying it, dammit!

[The 1 2 P]

I'm not sure about elusive but there were a few games that I wanted to play for awhile and when I finally grabbed one I realized I already had it although for me at least this usually applies to demo disc. I've gotten quite a few trade demos only to realize that when I was about to store them that I already owned a copy. But when you have literally hundreds of demo disc this is bound to happen.

[BlastProcessing402]

I've never done that with a game, but last year I did accidentally buy the same transformer twice.