10 Video Games That Owned Themselves

There's a fine art to advertising. Stopping short of self-proclaimed superlatives, most games nevertheless make fanciful, boastful claims on their marketing literature, hoping to convince the sap with sixty smackers in hand that the latest live service experience is well worth all of them. Few games ever truly deliver on their bluster. One ZX Spectrum title however, released in 1985, did so dramatically - and not exactly to the delight of anybody who bought it.

Don't Buy This: Five of the Worst Games Ever does exactly what it says on the cassette inlay. Rather than bin the utterly abysmal submissions sent to their studio, the publisher instead decided to package them into a sort of Greatest Sh*ts compilation, and flog it for £2.50. The liner notes warned that the unholy quintet disgraced the Speccie, whilst they encouraged buyers to "copy it at will". Any unhappy customer who wrote to complain earned a badge or sticker.

And wouldn't you know it, a set of games so bad that even the publisher discouraged people from buying it turned out to be a commercial hit. Nothing resonates with the British public quite like irony.