<p>The worst investment I've made so far in my life was in the online TCG (trading card game) <em>Hex</em>. &nbsp;I was trying to get in on the ground floor on what looked to be a long overdue competitor to <em>Magic: The Gathering Online</em> (a.k.a. MTGO), which had a less-than-stellar reputation amongst its players. &nbsp;So when <em>Hex</em>'s Kickstarter was announced in 2013, I tried to perform my due diligence, including consulting a friend of mine who had plenty of experience in both physical <em>Magic</em> and MTGO (including a couple of <em>Magic</em> Grand Prix wins). &nbsp;I decided to invest and contributed $1240 towards the Kickstarter to secure 4 reward codes for the future game.</p>
<p>In the beginning, things looked swell with the game. &nbsp;I started playing <em>Hex</em> during its closed beta, and I felt satisfied with the progress that Cryptozoic Entertainment (<em>Hex</em>'s developer) was making and the path that Cryptozoic wanted to take with the game. &nbsp;When the time came to start forming card collections for real, I redeemed my reward codes to begin working on my path towards recouping my investment.</p>
<p>Things seemed to go smoothly through the game's initial commercial release and its first two card sets. &nbsp;Unfortunately, Wizards of the Coast (<em>Magic</em>'s publisher) decided that it would be a better use of their financial resources to try to screw over Cryptozoic with a lawsuit claiming that <em>Hex</em> was for all intents and purposes, a clone of <em>Magic</em> (which Hex absolutely was not), than it was to fix issues that had been festering with the <em>MTGO </em>user client for a long time. &nbsp;Somehow the lawsuit ended in a settlement between WoTC and Cryptozoic, and it was right around that time when Cryptozoic began making a series of decisions with the future direction of <em>Hex</em>, that went against the principles that initially attracted me to invest in the game in the first place. &nbsp;The most critical of these decisions was how Cryptozoic intended to crack down on real money trading of in-game currency, which happened to be exactly the path that I wanted to use to recoup my investment in the game.</p>
<p>Combined with other decisions made around the time of the release of <em>Hex</em>'s third card set that would affect gameplay in a way that I didn't like, I lost faith in the game and saw it as a lost cause. &nbsp;I simply abandoned my account because the trouble that I would've had to go through to use my in-game currency to purchase cards, and then flip those cards over the Internet just to salvage part of my invesment, was simply not worth it. &nbsp;The irony is that if I had simply held on to my reward codes and never redeemed them, and never played <em>Hex</em> in the first place, I would've had an easy time selling those codes for a solid profit.</p>
<p>And that's how <em>Hex</em> came to be my worst and most regretful investment.</p>