How come nobody has mentioned Wizardry? In Wizardry 1-3 and 5, teleporting into solid rock (by miscalculating MALOR, or in console ports, being unlucky with a teleport trap) will wipe out your entire party, causing the party to be deleted (the game autosaves so you can't just reload an old save). (This can happen in Wizardry 4, and it has to me, but fortunately you can just reload your save in that game. The same can be said of Elminage Gothic, though in that game an enemy can teleport your party with the Miracle spell; I have twice had my party ambushed and teleported into solid rock before I could do anything; do you think that's fair?)

Red Faction. I had gotten to the very end of the game, literally the very end, there was less than a minute of gameplay left. What happened? I had apparently gone the wrong way, or did something out of order that prevented me from getting to where I needed to go. So why not just load a previous save? I...had saved after I had (unknowingly) doomed my playthrough.

I was less than a minute away from the end.

I don't have it in me to restart Red Faction nor to just view the ending on Youtube...I just...can't.

I think told this one before, with my experience with Codemasters games, not exactly catastrophic. I was playing Colin McRae Dirt and unlocked almost all the cars and stages. I had to do a format or upgraded Windows something like that, so I backed up the game saves.

When I reinstalled the game I found their savegame have unique identifiers so it did not accept my backup save games. I had to play all over. I was pissed, but I went and bought their all cars unlock code for $5 not realizing the code is a onetime use as well (wasn't very careful back then).

So that's the last time I ever bought anything from Codemasters.

How about unintuitive bugs?

Went back to replay Warcraft 3...one mission I was having trouble with (playing Hard), you don't get a big gold mine and because of upkeep costs it makes sense to "migrate" your base to a new location (playing as undead).

This game I did a great job defending my first base and had a lot of gold saved up (more than I had been getting). I cleared the way to set up the new base with my new forces near the next gold mine with a minimum of losses.

I move my units there in defense and start building while I leave one Acolyte to "sell back" my old buildings...

Game ends..."You have no buildings remaining"

I sold the last building before the first new building was completed...

First time I played Wizardry 6. Reached the Amazulu temple, activated a fireball trap, saved and quit.
Next day when I loaded the game the fucking fireball trap set off again, killing my already heavily wounded party.
But I completed the game nearly 20 years later.

They were big on Games for Windows Live.

What a disaster that was, a disaster like only Microsoft can.

I've just found my savegames. I am fool. The Legend of Grimrock 2 is completely innocent. The blame is on Wine, which sometimes uses My documents and sometimes my home folder for it's "My Documents" window folder link. I've started playing it again, because it's so good but luckily I haven't invested much time in 2nd play-trough.

Argh!

Also Final Fantasy for me. I was on the moon when my neighbor came to check out the game and saved over me five minutes in. I didn't have the heart to keep going.

I... I am not alone...

We've all heard how bad the disc drives in the Original Xbox 360 were.

What you don't know is that it happened to me. I lost a perfectly good game and console because the laser extended out far enough to leave a ring shaped gouge in the disc and ruining the laser in the process.

I let kids play The Sims 1 on my machine and then that stupid decensor patch suddenly kicks in ...

1) Almost finished Zelda game on SNES and next day my saves are gone. Opened the cartridge and found stupid cold solder joint... unexpected for original cartridge of just released high profile Nintendo game. Why it didn't fail when i just started the game... Fixed that stuff but well, finished the game 20 years later on emulator lol. Funny thing is that battery is still holds the voltage...

2) Suikoden II - first time PSU in console failed killing memory card. Second time - saves got corrupted for unknown reason. Third time i made backups after every hour in the game...

Sorry for ur lose, nice idea for a thread +1

I had the same feeling two years ago. My awful experience was with Dragon Quest VIII. I was in the last dungeon and looking for the recipes for craft the ultimate weapons.
Memory card corrupted and bye bye the entire progress.I was very sad that day.... I've played a lot and collected every single hidden coin... and collected items (not selling for get money... just for fun) too much work lose

90-100 hours gone

pS: I'm also playing legend of grimmrock but i get stuck too hard in like the 5th or 6th floor... I couldn't figure out what to do but I don't like spoils or guides.. so... I rage quit (lol.. embarrassing)

Don't worry, I eventually found, few days later, that the Wine just used a new folder for the saves and the original saves are intact.

Grimrock riddles can be sometimes brutal, don't worry about looking into some guide. I think I've used some hints it once or twice in the first installment. I regulary show my wife about some riddles in the second one. Sometimes she tell me some remark and then I instantly know solution. It's just a game and the enjoyment should be in the first place. If it is too frustrating, there is no shame using guide.

I had to leave 90+ NES games, 10+ SNES games, a handful of N64 carts, a stack of GBA games, and all their respective consoles and controllers behind when we moved from Texas.