Altered Beast came free with the Sega Mega Drive I bought as my first console.

Orange box, everything before was pirated lol

Bought for me: the NES deluxe kit with console, controllers, light gun, and Mario/Duck Hunt.

I first bought Super Mario Bros 3 as in, with my own money.

the first I remember buying with my own money probably The secret of monkey island

Can't remember the specific one but probably one of the Dizzy the egg games for the Spectrum.

Rad Warrior.

Ran like a slideshow on my 8086 monochrome.

I think, it was Duke Nukem 3D, or Warcraft 2, and I'm pretty sure it was on a pirated CD of 100 in 1 games, but maybe those were later

Pretty sure it was Quake

That I bought myself? Dragon Warrior. I bought it from a teenager who lived nearby for 5$ (a couple hundred when adjusting for inflation). He even threw in a cut out of a Nintendo power article on how to beat it.

Was it worth it? Absofuckinglutely!

It might have been a used copy of Guild Wars 1.

StarCraft. I tried to make friendly AI by messing around with the editor, to make the AI do what I want at certain times, mimicking an ally.

Myst was the first game I bought with my own money

i bought "sensible soccer" to impress my dad, how cool my amiga 600 was. he was not impressed. and i never was into soccer.

It’s been a long time ago….

For a console: probably https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaboom!_(video_game)

For a computer: for my C64 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultima_IV%3A_Quest_of_the_Avatar

Pokemon Blue. I saved up then learned about sales tax at the cashier, so my dad bailed me out with the extra $5

The Settlers 3

A PC game called Iron Helix. I was really young when I got it and it has already been out few years at that point so I'm pretty sure it was a discount re-release I found in a bargain bin.

Back in the FMV craze of the nineties, it was one of the better titles. It's an incredibly tense cat-and-mouse game, kind of like a 3D Pac-Man. You control a scientific research probe navigating a drifting deep-space battleship in an attempt to prevent it from autonomously attacking a peaceful planet, all while trying to work out what happened to the crew and deciphering the clues they left, and the whole time you are being hunted by the ship's security robot with nothing but a chiming proximity sensor letting you know when it's approaching. Brilliant game, super tense.

First I rember buying with my own money is zelda oracle of ages for gbc I would have been about 13, and it was absolutely worth it.

With my own money, it would have been some ZX Spectrum budget title. I clearly remember Fantasy World Dizzy being mine and I think I bought it with my own money rather than it being purchased for me, so I'm going to go with that.

Holy shit am i the only minecraft generation kid here?

I lived in a pretty rural town at the time. This was the best game zcmi had for our brand new 386. World Gamee

I had games brought for me, but the first game I brought was GTA III (cos I was 12ish and my parents refused to buy it for me)

And yes it was worth it, blew my mind back in the day.

I think it was new super mario bros for the ds

Final Fantasy 7 for the PS1.

The Ball. Because at the time I played only cs on steam being a kid with no income. The Ball was 99$, couldn't run at all and I needed to buy something at the time to actually add people to my friendslist.

Rise of the Triads. It was not worth it because there was a fault on the 5th floppy disk so it never worked and I couldn't bring it back to the store because I was 13 and wasn't supposed to be buying violent games but I bought it without telling my parents. So I couldn't take it back without them finding out.

Secret of Mana. I was 12, and went and worked under the table stripping tobacco. The game was well worth what I paid, the job wasn't.

Back when I was 12 or 13, I saved up money for a PSP bundle. It came with a leather case and... Ridge Racer . Unfortunately, I didn't think of a proprietary Sony memory card so I had to play it from scratch every time I turned the PSP back on. Once I got the memory card, I also got myself Ghost Rider which was surprisingly good for a licensed Marvel game. Basically, it alternated between hack & slash/beat 'em up levels and racing segments with obstacles to avoid and enemies to beat up with your chain. It also had unlockable comics for collecting certain skulls in levels/during challenges, so I spent hours with it either playing or reading comics on a tiny LCD screen.

I don't know for sure if it was my money or just my choice, but I went with Strife (1996). I chose it in the store after a long deliberation, my uncle was trying to get me to go with Half Life but I was drawn in by something on the back of the box. PC games used to come in big empty boxes with a lot of art and info on them.

It was unforgettable. Basically if you made an RPG in the old Doom engine with the sensibilities of the nineties and an overly ambitious art department. It was surprisingly well written, and I've been chasing that sense of an expansive, dark yet cartoonish, novelistic RPG ever since.

My older sisters both had several games before I got one for myself. I think the first one that was actually mine wasn’t until Burnout 3 when we got a PS2. All the PS1 games were hand-me-downs.

I'm pretty sure it was Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II. I don't actually remember buying it and might have played Warcraft 2 beforehand, but I spent many ... Many happy hours on DF2. One of those two was my introduction to multiplayer gaming, but for sure I spent a lot more time on DF2.

As for whether it was worth it, it arguably shaped a lot of my life to date. Also I met at least one friend whom I still talk to (though rarely) to this day. I would say yes.

The Legend of the Red Dragon (L.O.R.D.)

(A BBS "door" game.)

Absolutely worth it.

With my own money? Chrono Trigger, shortly after it was released in the US. Took a while to save up my meager allowance.

I was a tween, and it was very worth it.

Riven: The sequel to Myst. Had to visit a whole new world and write down my adventure.

It was either Lost World: Jurassic Park, or Williams Arcade's Greatest Hits for the Game.com. I think I was the only kid in the world who had a game.com lol

Space Quest IV: Roger Wilco and the Time Rippers.

The 3.5" floppy version for PC.

In a box, off the shelf at Kmart.

Tales of Symphonia, GameCube.

Ultima Underworld.
Saved a whole year for that one. Took a whole day to figure out how to configure the EMM386 line that would enable me to have enough memory to run the damn thing (tears of frustration were shed).

Absolutely worth it. Blew my little mind. Never got to finish it though, because of a bug in the quest in the last level T_T

Nifty Lifty!