10 Video Game Purchases That Left Me With Nothing but Regret

I have made some bad decisions when buying video game-related items, and I know I’m not alone. While buyer’s remorse is not a valid reason for a refund, many purchases I’ve made make me wish it were.

While it can be a big financial hit to buy a console that didn’t pan out, the pricing doesn’t always matter. Sometimes, regret can come from a video game that ended service too early, and sometimes, it can come from a $1 microtransaction on your phone. It’s always painful, but these mistakes make me a much smarter shopper.

The battery life for the Meat Quest 3 is a big problem, especially for gaming. It lasts up to about 2 hours, which makes you stop a fun session early just to charge. You can buy a pricey external battery pack or a strap with a built-in battery, but that’s paying more money just to play longer when that probably should have been taken into account.

I bought this thing mostly for work, so I am happy that I can use it as a mobile office, but if I used it mostly for gaming, I’d be uncomfortable, too. The default head strap puts too much pressure on the forehead and cheekbones and can make my face hurt if I’m not in a good position all the time. It’s easy to regret this purchase when it takes a hidden cost of many more purchases to make it work for gaming.

9

Evolve

Right from the start, I felt let down by Evolve’s heavy focus on DLC. The game featured many paid cosmetic DLC packs, many of which weren’t even included in the Season Pass. Unfortunately, aside from the money issues, the actual gameplay was also bad. Evolve’s setup had four hunters face off against one monster.

This was different and strategic, but it got old really fast. The game didn’t have enough variety to keep players challenged. Even with different modes, the main experience felt the same, and the maps, though well-made, were very similar, making the game less fun to replay. The way you had to keep playing to unlock characters also felt like a pointless grind. While I messed up by buying this, I feel worse for the people who bought deluxe editions.

Evolve

Released

February 10, 2015

ESRB

M For Mature 17+ Due To Blood, Strong Language, Violence

Developer(s)

Turtle Rock Studios

Publisher(s)

2K

8

Brink

There was a lot of hype before Brink came out. Brink was advertised as a groundbreaking new multiplayer first-person shooter, but the final version did not live up to those promises. Instead, the game was full of bugs and technical problems when it launched. The online multiplayer was described as laughably bad, with terrible lag and choppy performance that made it nearly unplayable. These were not small issues; some were so serious that they still had not been fixed months after release.

On top of that, the single-player mode was barely there. It just reused multiplayer maps with dumb AI bots that would often walk straight into enemies or get stuck in endless loops of failure, making it frustrating to try and make progress. You could tell this one was doomed after release, and it’s mostly forgotten now.

Brink

Released

May 10, 2011

ESRB

T For Teen due to Blood, Language, Violence

Developer(s)

Splash Damage

Publisher(s)

Bethesda Softworks

Engine

id Tech 4

7

Cyberpunk 2077

Cyberpunk 2077 had a disastrous launch, filled with major technical issues and a deep feeling that the game did not live up to what was promised. When it first came out, especially if you played it on older consoles like the PlayStation 4 or Xbox One, you probably found the game almost impossible to enjoy.

The game was full of bugs, glitches, and performance problems, such as very low frame rates that could drop to around 10 to 20 frames per second, blurry graphics, objects suddenly appearing out of nowhere, and the game crashes often. You could refund your purchase, which I did, but I regret refunding it as well. The game did a complete 180 and is now a masterpiece again. So, two regrets in one purchase.

Cyberpunk 2077

Released

December 10, 2020

ESRB

M for Mature: Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Nudity, Strong Language, Strong Sexual Content, Use of Drugs and Alcohol

Developer(s)

CD Projekt Red

Publisher(s)

CD Projekt Red

6

South Park Snow Day!

South Park: Snow Day! took a very different direction from the previous games in the series. It seemed shallow and lacking in content. One of the biggest reasons people didn’t like it was a departure from the turn-based RPG format seen in The Stick of Truth and The Fractured But Whole. Snow Day! tries a 3D hack-and-slash roguelike approach, which was not as fun.

The 3D graphics often looked cheap and rough compared to the paper-like style of the show, missing the charm that made the other South Park games feel like playable episodes. Another issue is the humor, which is usually a big part of South Park. There were almost no clever jokes and sharp satire, with fights filled with the same tired lines that were basically loading screen hints spoken aloud.

South Park: Snow Day!

Released

March 26, 2024

ESRB

M For Mature 17+ Due To Blood, Strong Language, Violence, Mature Humor

Developer(s)

Question

Publisher(s)

THQ Nordic

5

Shadow Tech

Shadow Tech, also known as Shadow PC, is something I’ve used on and off again for gaming over the past few years. I do not recommend it for gaming. There are so many technical problems that make using Shadow PC difficult. Despite having great internet, I always had lag, stuttering, and mushy controls.

I’ve dealt with customer service, which doesn’t always help, and it was overall a bad idea for gaming. Shadow Tech doesn’t work with VR games, the microphone use isn’t good, and there are just so many issues there. I eventually moved over to NVIDIA GeForce Now, which doesn’t let you play as many games as a remote PC would, but at least it’s cheaper, and it works when it should.

4

Fallout 76

Fallout 76 had a famously terrible launch, which was full of technical problems and nothing like what was promised before release. To sum up, it felt like the messiest, most broken release of a major game ever at the time. It was filled with bugs, glitches, and constant server crashes.

All that was fixed, and the game is a far better experience now, but I still regret buying it. I subscribe to Game Pass, and Fallout 76 ended up being free on Game Pass since almost every Bethesda title is on there. So basically, I spent money that I could have saved if I had just waited.

Fallout 76

Released

November 14, 2018

ESRB

M for Mature: Blood and Gore, Drug Reference, Intense Violence, Strong Language, Use of Alcohol

Developer(s)

Bethesda

Publisher(s)

Bethesda

3

Nintendo Wii U

To be honest, at the time that I bought it, I wasn’t sure what the Wii U even was. Nintendo’s marketing focused a lot on the GamePad controller, which made me think it was more of an extra add-on or an “improved version” of the original Wii. It was cool to have a whole new console, but the console lacked support due to its choppy launch.

The Wii U had long periods with few new games and almost no support from other game companies, leaving people like me with a small selection of truly great games. While Nintendo’s own games were usually good, there just weren’t enough of them. The Wii kept being popular until the Switch was released, so people like me just had to deal with a bad purchase.

2

Every Mobile Game Microtransaction I’ve Ever Made

I never feel good about spending money on microtransactions. I sometimes get wrapped up in needing a few more in-game dollars or a boost or two, but adding it up shows that I’ve spent more than I feel comfortable with. There’s no subscription or extra purchase in a mobile game that I think is worth it.

It’s easy to get caught up in spending more than planned on microtransactions. Those odd bundle sizes and fixed exchange rates are designed to make you pay more than you intended just to get what you want. Don’t make the same mistake I made by realizing this too late, buy full mobile games instead.

1

PlayStation Vita

My PlayStation Vita purchase hurts me to this day. It was $249.99 when I bought it, and I always hoped it would eventually get more support than it did. It had the weakest game library I’ve ever seen, especially for big-name AAA titles. While the Vita had a good selection of indie games and Japanese RPGs, it didn’t get many high-budget games like you might have hoped from a Sony handheld.

There were mostly low-quality ports and forgettable spin-off games to play, and it hurts me to this day to know I wasted that much money. What’s worse is, I also had to buy its overpriced memory cards because of the Vita’s small 1GB of built-in storage. It’s easily my most regrettable purchase.

You learn a lot as a gamer, but I feel like having wasted so much money has taught me a lot about what I need and what I want. I now wait years to get onto the next console, and I always do a lot of research before making big purchases.

I am sure plenty of readers have their own list of games that they regret buying, but that list should be a lesson. While we can’t always get our money back, we can try to make sure the next purchase is worth the cost.