I thought it would be fun (and maybe even cathartic) to start a thread where we can share our personal "biggest Atari blunders", in the broadest sense of the term. This can include collecting mistakes, sales/purchases we ended up regretting, opportunities not taken, game disappointments, etc. Anyway, here's mine;
When I was in fifth grade (bout 30 years ago) I persuaded my mom to take me to Kiddie City so I could get a new game for my 2600. I think I was looking for Enduro, because the commercials were on all the time and the game looked great on TV. When we got there, I discovered a bargain bin with games priced at $2.99 each. Realizing that my hard-earned allowance would net me two bargain games instead of one at regular price, I dug through the bin and ended up buying Journey Escape and Springer for a total of about six bucks. I liked both games reasonably well, but they didn't exactly make my top ten. At the time we were trading and loaning 2600 games in school all the time, and a few weeks or months later I loaned Springer to one of my classmates and got Donkey Kong in return. I really loved Donkey Kong. (By now you know where this is going, right?) It turned out that my classmate really loved Springer, so after a few days he asked me if I was interested in a permanent trade. I agreed immediately. I thought I was getting the best deal of my life; I was trading an unknown bargain bin game for an actual ARCADE classic that still retailed for about $20. At the time I couldn't have been happier. Now I wish I could go back in time and kick 11-year old me. I was blissfully unaware of my blunder until about 4 years ago, when my parents asked me to finally clear their attic of all of my "old junk", and I rediscovered my long-forgotten Atari. I got into collecting, and found that Springer was the only rare game that I had owned. It was also one of only two games in my collection that I had ever traded away as a kid, the other one being Riddle of the Sphinx after I had solved it. Needless to say, Riddle of the Sphinx was very easy to replace, but in almost four years of collecting, I have not once come across a CIB Springer in decent condition. Even if I did, it would probably be slightly more expensive than the $2.99 I paid for it back then. As a small consolation I still have the Donkey Kong, though.
So, that's my sob story. What are yours?