End 1993 / Beginning 1994: Frontier: Elite 2
Why?
- Great review in PC Gamer (UK)
- It was a BIG game.
Sure I loved P&C adventures, but sometimes you got stuck in those and that meant waiting weeks until I could take a trip to the nearest big city / game store to take a peak in one of the game guides they sold.

I was a relatively poor 16 year old teenager and could maybe buy ONE game per year. I had a few illegally copied games, but those were really hard to find - almost nobody played PC games in my part of the world.

It was no coincidence that this coincided with the first release of PC Gamer (the first serious pc games reviewing magazine I've ever found (for sale)). Games were really expensive back then and by the time they should've been discounted, they disappeared from store shelves. No way that I dared to make a purchases just based on the pretty pictures on the box.

It was a good choice and I played it a lot. Nowadays my time is/feels a lot more limited and I have no interest in huge sandbox games with barely a story. My first love was story/lore heavy games and that has never changed.

So... what was yours?
I can imagine younger people's motivations differ a lot from mine - especially if you grew up in a time of digital distribution.

It was either Lode Runner or Aztec for the Apple//c.

Dragon Warrior. Because RPGs.

My own first computer is an IBM PC/AT clone.
It bundled with a legal copy of Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? (1985)

The first computer game I bought was a pirate version of Gunship (1986, by MicroProse)

It was not possible for me (and others at my area) to buy legal original games at that time.

$5 for Heretic. Shareware disk. I was young and stupid.

Second game I bought, Duke Nukem 3d, was a much better investment of my funds.

You're from Taiwan... was it possible to buy legal original console games back then?

Civilization II.

Da game.

It was possible, about NT$ 1,000~3,000 per original console game.
But for PC games, only pirate versions were sold.

If I really want original ones, the only way I could do was ask my aunt to buy those games abroad, and send them to me.

Pokemon Red for the original Nintendo Gameboy. Game still works, but the front screen fell off.

That's a tough one. In my youth I mostly just had public domain, shareware and freeware games, with the occasional illegal copy provided by classmates. The first game I bought was most likely some title from the bargain bin for 5-10 DM, at the end of the nineties, but I can't remember which one. Maybe Voodoo Kid (obscure Infogrames adventure)? Or Tomb Raider 2?

I wanna say Autoduel, for the Apple ][e I had at the time. If it wasn't that one then it was Roadwar 2000.

A bargain bin original release? Or a budget re-release with crappy box artwork and almost nothing inside the box (like e.g. the Virgin white label)?
Yeah, I cared about such things...

Elite, for the Schneider (Amstrad) CPC 464. It had much better graphics than my -pirated- version on the C 64.

I once (94? 95?) asked my parents to order a game for me abroad (UK). It was Starlord (1993), and it took several weeks to arrive...

Yeah, sorry, I meant the latter. A budget edition, just a cheap CD case without box. As attached.