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By Chris Kavan - 04/25/13 at 09:53 PM CT
I have been a video game fan from pretty much day one - from playing Atari at my babysitters to happily opening my very own Nintendo one awesome Christmas morning. You have a lot going for you when you are young - boundless energy, an inquisitive mind and that feeling of invulnerability that only comes from not knowing any better. One thing you don't have: money. Unless you are amongst the 1% you have to rely on parents (and maybe an allowance) to get by. Unfortunately, it also means, as the Rolling Stones so eloquently put it: "You can't always get what you want."
I have made a great list detailing just how many games I not longer have. Other than the two PS2 games and Chrono Trigger, I can say that all the NES and SNES games were sold for the simple fact I needed money for the latest and greatest system. That's right, gems such as Monster Party (a more obscure title), Blaster Master, Maniac Mansion (R.I.P. LucasArts), Gauntlet, Shadowgate and many Mario Bros. and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Games all sold for probably obscenely low amounts just so I could scrape together a bit of money to buy... new games. It makes me quite sad looking back on this and a bit angry. If I could go back in time, I would smack myself upside the head (and give my self a $100 bill and say "Don't sell a damn thing, kid! You'll thank me some day.").
Granted, this is the same person who crushed multiple Hot Wheels cars with a hammer and took great pleasure in blowing up and/or melting damn near anything with firecrackers. I was a very destructive child. Yet the regret over selling those games - sigh - it just breaks my heart a little. It's not the monetary value - it's not like they were in pristine condition - it's the nostalgia and knowing that even if I went out and bought all those games again... it just wouldn't be the same. I think that's the reason why I never sell a game today - I mean, it has to be a real stinker (see Enter the Matix and Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings on my list) to get me to sell it. I even kept Duke Nukem Forever and Bayonetta despite the fact that the former is a stinking turd and the latter I couldn't make myself get through the fourth stage before giving up. Plus the money problem is no longer an issue.
Out of all the regrets one can think of, in the long term this is pretty trivial. Yet it's something that would have been so easy to avoid if I just had patience (something no child has... ever) and restraint (also something rarely encountered in the young). You can emulate every game imaginable - buy up insanely expensive copies of games on Ebay or buy up a lot of cheap used games and relive your youth - but I still want those original games back and I doubt the store I sold them in down in Kansas still has them.
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