What's your worst gaming memory as a kid?

[nmlss]

Gaming for so long means that we all got lots of great memories. Finally finishing a game we thought it was impossible to beat, finding that secret that nobody else knew at school, just having fun playing with friends… But there are also many bitter ones. Let's talk about those. What's your worst gaming memory as a kid?

Mine was not having the Game Gear. When I was around 7 or so, most of my friends started receiving their first communion, which got them lots of presents. But not me. I was never baptized, been raised in an atheist family and my parents said that if I wanted to do it just for the gifts, I better forgive about it, and if I wanted to do it for the religious belief, I could wait until I was an adult and decide for myself. But a friend close to my family still did it, shortly after The Lion King game was released, a game we all wanted. And not only that, it released on the Game Gear!! Imagine playing The Lion King on the go! That's all I wanted.

So my friend received the first communion and guess what my parents bought him as his gift. Exactly. A Game Gear with The Lion King. Imagine my face when I saw that, I never felt so betrayed before. I think I actually learned what betrayal is in that precise moment. Nowadays I joke about that with my parents, telling them that when they're old enough to need a nursing home, I'll remember that and find them the worst one.

So yeah, do you have any bad gaming memory as a kid? Like that little sister/brother that gnawed that controller cord and left you unable to play for some time? Or that cousin that threw away your Nintendo 64 and you almost kill him?

PS: I remembered another one. Also as a kid, I had very religious uncles (Jehovah Witnesses) and they were completely against violent games. Both me and my cousins had a Sega Mega Drive with mostly the same games, except one. I had my 3-in-1 that included Columns (my mom's favorite), Super Hang-On and Italia '90 (a soccer game) and my cousins had Last Battle, that western renamed version of Hokuto No Ken. My aunt saw that game and ask my did (her brother) to interchange the game, so he gave her my 3-in-1 and I got that shitty one. All of this without asking, of course.

[ruscoe]

Every time I accidentally overwrote a saved game.

[Bella Desiare]

My worst memory is being handed leadership of a kinship in Lotro only to have the former kin leader start passively aggressively harassing me because I wouldn't spend every moment in game keeping him and his friends entertained with events. I even suggested he could set up events (he was still an officer at the time) but was told that was /my job/. Didn't know I was getting paid to play. He finally gave up and left the kinship, only to hop from kin to kin when none of the other leaders would cater to him either. >.<

[ethansito]

My parents made me give my Gameboy to my little sister at a restaurant to entertain her, and she lost it.
I still have an unfinished copy of Pokemon: Fire Red sitting in my room.

Also, I got banned from a Minecraft server :'(

[Verhoven 69]

SNES and PSOne and Xbox360 dying on me.

[BrotherDust]

Red Dead the 1st one spent untold hours in that game 3 missions from the end , corrupted save file. Ouch ....

[Celevin]

At the age of 5, the daycare that I went to got an NES with Contra. I remember standing behind a group of older children, completely frustrated in the knowledge that it was outside of my capacity to negotiate a turn for myself. Some days later when I did finally get a turn, I could not even get half way through the first level. Though my age would double before I beat that game legitimately---on my own NES that I paid for with my own money mind you---I was totally enthralled. Thus began the addiction of a lifetime.

Back in those days "Nintendo" was largely synonymous with "video games." The selection of available titles was still on its first order of magnitude. Most of the games where awful, with a handful of notable exceptions. My tolerance for crumby design was a lot higher back then. I didn't know any better. We established bragging rights among our peers by petty standards such as who could get through the turbo tunnel in Battle Toads. Some things never change.

[TelperionST]

I remember trying to play that game and failing to get past the first level. It's hard to believe that I used to enjoy hitting my head against a wall repeatedly and thought it was a good time. These days I enjoy easier experiences like XCOM 2. That game will screw me over every chance it gets, but at least I know that it's me knowingly rolling the dice and then getting slapped on the fingers for taking a risk.

[aileron]

Corrupted disk on a game my cousin had bought me as a present. It happened in a day or two on the first or second time I played it. I was a little kid and he was older but still young. There was this look on his face. I didn't understand at the time but I do now that there was no returns on computer software back then. Those f ing Commodore 64 5 1/4 inch floppy disks would corrupt all the time but software still cost $40 or $50. That's in 1986 dollars! My poor cuz had probably been saving up money from his first job or something like that just to buy me this present and it was dead in a day.

[Animusisters]

Everything under water.

[Aerrae]

When I got a crappy Shrek fighting game as a kid and got my ass beat by the Gingerbread man with candy canes for legs.

My parents have never forgotten.

[MadMummy76]

Sorry, I have no bad memories of gaming.

[Thatoneuser]

My worst is that when I was younger I had a PSP and a ton of games but I didn't have a memory card meaning that in order to complete a game I would have to leave the game playing until I finished it, this one time I was at the end of one of the Tomb raider games can't remember which but I had to stop right before the final part of the game because I had to go to school. When I come back one of my mum's friend's kid was given the PSP to use whilst he was over and he had taken out the game completely undoing all of my progress.

[Zenryu]

the time I didn't have a memory card for my ps2 for like 2 years or so... Had to leave the games running 24 hours. I remember how depressed I got whenever my mom turned off the console... It was like a new world for me when I finally got one.

[buckallmighty]

I won't share my worst, as I think it could do more damage here than good to share publicly.

My second worst gaming experience would of course relate directly to the current season. I was young. It was a few days before and you know how kids are begging for hints and clues as to what's in store for them. Everything seemed great cause I really had my hopes up for the metroid game on nes (the original). The only clue I could pry out was that one of the gifts was a new game. I was pumped. Just knew they had got me the only game that was on my wish list to Santa's workshop. Package looked to be an nes game. But nope. It was some new damn hendheld football game. Played it for maybe 2 minutes and never touched it again.

[nmlss]

Parents buying games :_) They tried their best tho. Speaking of which, I was shocked to see Jeremy's latest live streaming showing the Xmas catalogues and finding out that the Wheel of Fortune game was more expensive than Zelda on SNES. Imagine those parents going to buy a game and being like "Idk man, my kid wanted that Zelda game, but seeing the Wheel of Fortune one is more expensive, might mean it's a better game, so..." Or just he opposite. "I'm sorry, son, I know you wanted Wheel of Fortune, but I could only get you that Zelda game thing…"

[The_Dirk_Diggler]

I think my worst feelings were similar to OP's. My brother and I were stuck on the NES while all of our friends either had Genesis or SNES. We finally caught up when we were teenagers and got PS1 when it came out. Thank god for divorced parents trying to buy their kids love.