Welcome back to GameSpot Q&A a weekly section where we ask our staff and readers an interesting discussion question about video games. Look at this as a forum where you and others can discuss and compare your opinions of this beloved hobby of ours. Let us know what your answer is to this week’s question in the comments below!
This week’s question is:
What’s the first game you bought with your own money?
Money wasn’t an easy thing to come by when you were younger. If you had any, you most likely didn’t have much. This didn’t bode well for us being young gamers at the time. That’s why buying a videogame, which seemed to cost a fortune back then, was a pretty big deal. So what was the first game you ever bought with your own money? Whether it was bought with a Toys “R” Us giftcard or the hard earned cash from a first part-time job, here are all the first game purchases we’ve ever made!
Pokemon Yellow | Eddie Makuch
I think the first game I bought with my own money was Pokemon Yellow. My mom took me to KB Toys (RIP KB Toys) on Black Friday and it was a madhouse. I think I also bought a skateboard that day for some reason. As for the game, I definitely got my money’s worth, as I certainly sank over 100 hours into the now-classic RPG.
Crash Bandicoot | Mary Kish
I received most of my games as gifts when I was a kid, but I do remember getting a gift card to Best Buy and making a decision to buy Crash Bandicoot on PlayStation. I was drawn to the colorful box art and I always liked playing as an animal. I will always remember the xylophone intro music with the Naughty Dog doghouse logo. Good purchase decision, little Mary.
Crash Bandicoot (1996)
…A bunch of PC Games | Daniel Hindes
It wasn’t a single game, but rather a whole bunch of games all at once. I remember receiving about $100 for a birthday (I don’t think any 12-year-old kid had ever seen so much money at once) so I went to the local games store and bought, all at in one purchase: Blade Runner, FreeSpace, FreeSpace 2, Wing Commander: Prophecy, and Dune 2000.
Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? | Kevin VanOrd
I am so old that it’s hard to remember! My mother bought most of the Commodore 64 games I pleaded for, even though we scraped by through most of my childhood and teenage years. If my declining mind is to be trusted, however, it was Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?, which I would have bought with money earned from my high-school job. I worked as a dietary assistant in a nursing home!
Body Harvest | Rob Crossley
If we’re talking about money I earned from my first ever job (making sandwiches all day long), as opposed to pocket money, then I think the first game I actually bought for myself was a second-hand copy of Body Harvest on the N64. It was actually the very same cartridge that I had traded in a few weeks prior. There was something about this game–which was technically Rockstar North’s first GTA-style 3D action title–that lured me back.
Body Harvest (1998)
Comanche: Maximum Overkill | Ty Root
Most of the games I purchased were through gift cards for Christmas and my birthday, for Toys “R” Us for my NES back in late 80s. However, I do remember that the first game I ever bought with my allowance was Comanche: Maximum Overkill. (1992) I believe the game was published or developed by NovaLogic. It was a military helicopter simulator. I even bought a flight stick for it. It was one of my first PC games. I played the crap out of it.
The Sims | Lucy James
The first game I bought with my own money was The Sims: Collector’s Edition, which included the base game and the first expansion pack Livin’ It Up (Livin’ Large in the US). I became utterly besotted with The Sims after playing it at a friend’s house, so I saved up my birthday and pocket money to buy it myself.
Quest for Glory IV: Shadow of Darkness | Edmond Tran
Quest for Glory IV: Shadows of Darkness. As a kid, I spent lots of time at my friend’s place continually marathoning this life-defining Sierra RPG/adventure game series over and over. When I started getting an allowance, the first thing I saved for was the CD-ROM version of QFG4. It was my favorite installment, and it was enhanced with some great voice acting which wasn’t in the floppy disk version I was used to. The John Rhys-Davies narration was the bomb.
Quest for Glory IV: Shadow of Darkness (1993)
Jurassic Park | Chris Watters
Jurassic Park for the Sega Genesis is the first one I really remember. My friends and I were SUPER into Jurassic Park, so when I brought the game home and invited them over, it was a big event. I put the game in the system and draped a tissue over it, and when we were all assembled, I whisked the tissue off dramatically. Obviously, that move wasn’t as cool as I thought it would be, but we had fun with the game!
Star Control | Peter Brown
The first game I ever purchased with my own “money” was Star Control on the Sega Genesis. With a Toys “R” Us gift certificate that I got for Christmas in hand, I perused the aisles looking for anything that jumped out at me. Being six or seven at the time, I didn’t know better than to judge a game by its cover. Looking back, I have no idea why I chose Star Control. The cover features a clawed hand clutching a galaxy, which means as little to me today as it did back then. So, I bought Star Control and tried to play it, but being too young to understand what a sim was, I played it like a shooter. I can appreciate the game now, but at the time, I thought it was a complete waste of an opportunity to get a new game.
Star Control (1991)
SimCity 3000 | Zorine Te
I’m actually having trouble remembering this. I think it was SimCity 3000, which I purchased from my local EB Games at a discounted sale price of $50. It was a lot of money to spend, particularly because my parents didn’t believe in giving out pocket money. I feel like I got every cent’s worth out of that game! Prior to that, I practically lived off the demo discs that came with the PC PowerPlay and PC User game magazines. When a full game was included, it was like Christmas.
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