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What was your luckiest day ever in gaming?

Luckiest: Getting a Turbographx-16 for xmas and games I had never heard of before.
Unluckiest day, a year later, having said system stolen from friends living room while we are off at the creek/woods goofing off. Had around 20 some games and all gone :( ).

Notable mentions,
1. mom buying us a 386 pc in 1991, it had SVGA, with cd rom and sound blaster. Imagine going from a hand-me down 8088 with 4 color display to that and playing ultima underworld /wing commander./civiliaztion/sim city.
2. Getting a ps1 for xmas when i was 20. Greatest Jrpg machine ever... so many great games

Unluckiest, having my house broke into and my Nes, genesis, and snes and games stolen, probably by people that I knew. I used to throw parties in my apartment in the late 90s. Lots of weed, substances and alcohol were consumed. Some became hooked on smack and broke in. Came home from work to find all my childhood systems gone. Would be the 2nd time I had consoles stolen from me.
 

RoboFu

One of the green rats
When the nes landed in my little town as kid. A few weeks after The local " general " store had Zelda, Metroid, Kid Icarus, and Mach rider for $32 each and my parents bought all of them. So my first nes experiences was those games plus super Mario bros.
 

Crayon

Member
I wasn't planning to get a ps4 but when it was about a year old, but then there was that kmart pricing error. I drove over an hour to the closest one and had to get a little crazy to pry it from their hands. Not my proudest moment but I at the time I really couldn't afford one otherwise and had to jump at that chance. I helped another guy get away with his so that makes me feel a little better. He was getting all hot headed.
 
Randomly got asked to switch to a different server in FFXI by someone I'd never met on my 1st day playing it, killing rabbits outside San d'Oria. Eventually led to making a few lifelong friends, and probably changed the whole trajectory of my career, school and life plans in a butterfly effect.
That's incredible. Literally made me go :messenger_open_mouth:.
 

TintoConCasera

I bought a sex doll, but I keep it inflated 100% of the time and use it like a regular wife
Found a GBA cart lying on the street. It was a repro tho but hey, it's something.

Also managed to get Bloodborne a few days before release. The loading times, holy shit I still remember how bad they were before the patches.
 

larrybrady

Member
Yea Right GIF
He meant giving,not getting, it was just a simple typo
 

RaZoR No1

Member
I found an OG Xbox lying here on the street, only several meters from my house away.
I picked it up, checked it, drive was jammed and I was able to fix it and it works without any issues now

I don’t know if any of the newer neighbours lost it while they moved in, but a huge console like that falling down would be noticed by the whole street or even city ..

So I got a console for free.
 
A friend bought me a PS4 for my birthday with Bloodborne. I didn’t want to accept it at first because she spent so much money. Her birthday is coming up so I’m trying to think of good ideas.
 

Brucey

Member
Asking my friend to also jump in the queue for pro anni and him scoring one and giving it to me for list price. He's crazy lucky with poker machines and stuff.
 

SkylineRKR

Member
One of my luckiest days with games was when I bought Zelda Links Awakening for GB way back in 1993.

I wanted this game badly, but it was too expensive. So, we got an idea and it wasn't ethical but we were about 13. We would rip the price off some discounted trash, and place it on Zelda. The toy store had no scanners yet, and we did it when they were busy with other customers. So I was totally expecting them not to fall for it, but then the woman at the counter told me, that'll be (the equivalent of) 9 bucks. I was thinking is this really working? I handed over and walked out straight without looking back.

We eventually returned and did the same with Kirby for the NES and my friend bought some GB game.
 

BlackTron

Member
I don't know about luckiest ever but the other day I got a modded backlit GBA from a funcoland type store for sixty bucks...the guys that worked there didn't realize it was modded but the colored buttons were a dead giveaway in the glass case.
 

Rudius

Member
Ordered a PS5 digital and they sent me a disk version. Not sure if it counts as I only play digital, lol.
 

Holammer

Member
I think I told story in another thread, but it fits the theme.
Back in the 90's I worked at a mom'n pop brick and mortar videogame store (before the big chains). I went to check the competition, a nearby toy store which also sold games, take a look at their pricing because they did not follow Nintendo's MSRP at all.
The owner was downstairs where they had video games and some model stuff, we had a chat and he offered me their unsold Neogeo which collected dust on the shelf, with all the games they had. I ran to the bank and withdraw the cash. Took the bus home with a Neogeo, memory card, Magician Lord, League Bowling, Cyberlip, Blue's Journey, Top Player's Golf & Puzzled.

All that for 3000kr (roughly 300$), even if we adjust for 30 years of inflation, it was still dirt cheap even at the time. I think I paid more for KoF94.
 

Leviathicus

Member
Playing World of Warcraft I got the left azzinoth warglaive on my first attempt. I went back the next week and got the right hand. I don't know how likely that is.

552557-illidan-tempestira-updated-model.jpg
 

Calico345

Gold Member
This is actually a cool question. I suppose my answers will be mundane and unimportant, as usual. But I'll see what I can think of...
 

digdug2

Member
Back in 2017, I was exploring a city in Belgium (I'm from the US) and came across a video game / collectible store. Of course I went in, and while I was looking around, they had a copy of Super Mario Bros. 3 complete in box for 40 Euros. Instant buy. Here's the kicker though: It was a US copy.
 

Gamerguy84

Member
Truthfully I was playing socom. All 5 of my team members were dead and it was only me.

We were playing a clan and they had their strategy and we're laying prone in their spots waiting to ambush me.

Went to a house in the middle of the map to throw a grenade in. Saw a guy getting up from prone so I threw it at him. Ran Into the house and one was coming through so machine gunned him, out the other side and another one was coming, got him. Kept running straight and last one was running sideways so gunned him down.

This all happened in about 4 seconds. Game over all the mics clicked on and both sides were saying wow, and damn.

I started laughing because it was all luck and just left that room.
 
Castlevania Symphony of the Night being 20 bucks at Toys R Us and me buying it. I read EGM at the time, maybe I remembered the praise they gave it but it wasn't really on my radar.
 

RookX22

Member
If the Pokemon card game is considered "gaming" I have a good one. I was just a kid in middle school,6th grade I think, Pokemon was huge just came out and everyone wanted a Charizard. My family was poor growing up usually only got stuff for birthday and Christmas but my parents new how big Pokemon was to me and my brother so they would buy packs from time to time. One time we were in Walmart and I grabbed to packs and started begging like usual but Mom didn't have enough money so for some reason instead of putting the packs back I went to the tissue paper towel isle and hid the two packs under a bunch of boxes on the top shelf. A week or so goes by and we were back at Walmart and my mom and dad said I me and my brother could have a pack a piece so I run and check and the two packs were there we get them and as we are leaving I open one pack BOOM a Charizard me and my brother started jumping and cheering it was awesome we finally settle down and open the second pack and BAM a second Charizard. I was so pumped I toke them to school and someone stole one out of my binder when I wasn't looking lol learned a lesson.
 

John Marston

GAF's very own treasure goblin
Playing Everquest back in 1998.

I was messing about in the noob zone with my level 4 Dark Elf Shadowknight when a level 60 fellow Dark Elf approached me and Hailed me.

He was quitting the game and gave me all his stuff + a couple of Rallic packs (They were weightless bags with more storage). Along with 25K Platinum.

3 years later when I quit I paid it forward.
I observed from a distance for 30 minutes this little Dark Elf feller tirelessly hacking away at snakes, spiders and orc pawns.

Gave him all my stuff + 50K Platinum.

Good times 🙂
 

Aesius

Member
1. Going to Blockbuster on Mortal Kombat II's release date and of course not finding a single copy in stock for Genesis. So my mom drove me and my brother to a mom-and-pop rental shop across town and we managed to snag their last copy.

2. Randomly refreshing newegg on the Xbox 360's launch day and seeing "Add to Cart" pop up after seeing "Out of Stock" for hours. Bought it instantly.

3. Randomly refreshing one of the "in-stock" tracker websites on the 3080/3090 launch day and getting a 3080 for MSRP when they came back in stock for precisely 3 seconds.

Honorable mention: When gametrader.com was a thing, someone traded me their copy of Final Fantasy Tactics (original, non-greatest hits edition) with strategy guide for Sonic Adventure. I was like 13 years old and the guy who traded it was probably in his late 20s. I remember he actually included a brief letter in the package wishing me luck with the game and hoping I enjoyed it as much as he did and thanking me for the trade. That left a big impression on me and I still think about it years later.
 
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Laptop1991

Member
From what i can remember in the summer 2018 i signed up for Intel's gaming thing and they gifted me AC Origins base game free, then i bought the dlc and enjoyed the game start to finish, i bought Odyssey and Valhalla on release, that's a different story.
 

hinch7

Member
Oh another one is that I managed to win a Microsoft Sidewinder mouse from an IGN competition lol.

Good timing as well as my Razer Deathadder decided to brick itself upon updating.
 
Met some dude on Reddit who had edited his Elden Ring save file on PS5 and casually dropped me billions of runes to level up 12 characters to 713 and every item in the game

And when I pulled off this glitch in Bloodborne (very annoying to do)

 

DonkeyPunchJr

World’s Biggest Weeb
1. Just happened to be walking past the electronics section at Target shortly after Wii launched and they were opening a big box of new Wii consoles. I bought one on the spot (so did 2 other people)

2. Radeon VII was probably my worst video card purchase ever (loud as fuck), but I was able to sell it for $2000 (more than double what I paid for it) during the big shortage in early 2021.

3. Preordering Final Fantasy VII and getting it 9/4/1997, 3 days before launch, because retailers apparently didn’t GAF about street dates back then
 
This game made me sell my PS3.

Happy Fresh Prince GIF by Nick At Nite
Haha i liked it alot although obviously it was just a preview of GT5. Being the first HD GT game (not counting GT HD concept downloadable) i was hyped as hell.

I still listen to the soundtrack of both GT5P and GT5 ocasionally, the music that plays in the menus is just perfection.
 

bellome

Member
I remember me and some friends were striving hard to collect all the legendaries weapons (in all elemental variants) for Borderlands 2. We used to farm all the loot/drop locations like crazy and we reached a point where we missed just a bunch. The process were very repetitive, sometimes even boring and often disappointing (loot rates for some of them were reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeally low)

One lucky day the devs released an hotfix which broke the legendary loot rate in specific chests (ramping it up to "almost guaranteed" legendary loot). The devs fixed it with another quick hotfix but you had to restart the game to apply it.

Needless to say, i didn't close the game for 4 days in a row, PS3 always on until i found all the missing weapons.

What a glorious time we had!
 
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Putonahappyface

Gold Member
Haha i liked it alot although obviously it was just a preview of GT5. Being the first HD GT game (not counting GT HD concept downloadable) i was hyped as hell.

I still listen to the soundtrack of both GT5P and GT5 ocasionally, the music that plays in the menus is just perfection.
The ultra realistic driving game doesn't allow for Ayrton Senna style racing, which completely took me out of immersion penalising me by reducing my acceleration. I was so pissed off I sold the console and games the following day.
 
It was that day, man, when I was lucky encough to snag both WipeOut and Doom for PSX for 20 USD each, during their launch window.

To this day I don't believe it and I remember fondly as the day I was luckiest in gaming.

I think the price was definitely wrong, LOL... Good Ol´Days of these bigger PSX cases with full fledged manuals, black discs, etc. It was like living in some sci-fi bright utopian future in the 90´s.

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GymWolf

Member
When knack 2 was free in digital for a short amount of time.

Also, having friends at the gamestop that made me preorder a ps5 before preorders were even official.
 

Trogdor1123

Member
I totally forgot one thing! Here in Canada Microsoft and Pepsi did a win every hour thing for the Xbox 360. I won one and got it around 2 weeks before release. I sold it for like 1k and used the money to buy Christmas presents. I never win anything so that was awesome.
 

John Marston

GAF's very own treasure goblin
I was also lucky at the beginning of one of my Skyrim walkthroughs.

I escaped the dragon with the Imperial guard.
Meet up at his uncle's small house.
Roleplaying my Khajiit I proceed to steal everything on the dining room table and then some.

Uncle yells at me and attacks.
I flee and jump in a nearby river.
As I turn around the guard shoots his uncle in the back with an arrow.

I guess a relationship of over 20 years isn't as important as some stranger you just met a couple of hours ago 😆
 
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