Limited Run Games Thread - We only promise our NES games will work, not your console

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LimitedRunDoug said:
What profit margin? CEs are expensive to make and that’s one of the big reasons we want to do fewer.
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Meat Boy was a $40 mark-up for a $15 Fangamer figure, a poster, an outer box, and a styrofoam meat tray. American Hero was a $30 mark-up for a poster, an outerbox, a pen, and an acrylic keychain. The Castlevania Requiem Classic edition was a $30 mark-up for an outerbox, a poster, and a soundtrack sampler. I get that everything's cheaper at scale and you're not selling God of War numbers, but I'd be astounded if you weren't making a better margin on those editions than the standard versions of those games.

I do think some of the CEs are a better value than others. The Jak ones were pretty memorable and the early Vita CEs were a nice little addition while still keeping games reasonably priced. But the value proposition just isn't there for a lot of the recent offerings, and that (coupled with current financial conditions) are why I imagine things are slowing down.

LimitedRunDoug said:
lol
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I dunno what you're hoping to gain by laughing at a comment that complimented your old CEs and talked about how much money they've given your company over time. It costs $0 to be cordial on the internet.

 
LimitedRunDoug said:
What profit margin? CEs are expensive to make and that’s one of the big reasons we want to do fewer.
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Is most of that cost the box? I get that there are some more intricate CEs (Scott Pilgrim, Castlevania, Monkey Island) that look like they'd be a pain to put together (not that any of those was exactly cheap), but then there are the ones dominated by items like "collectible" coins, pins, folded poster, and maybe a CD and/or acrylic standees. I have to assume there is someone out there that really loves those coins and pins, but I can't imagine. They always felt like items that would be giveaways at a trade show. The boxes (especially those that attempt to be more of a repro of a classic box design) are often the only selling point for me and even then I have to be really into the IP (Castlevania/Contra/LucasFilms games).

At least for me two of my favorite franchises (Castlevania and Monkey Island) got two of the best CEs. And the Monkey Island one getting re-imagined after the initial reaction was appreciated.

 
Kirin Lemon said:
I know I'd kill for the option to buy some soundtrack CDs outside the grossly-overpriced CE sets (Day of the Tentacle and Zombies Ate My Neighbors, for instance). Make it happen, Doug, and I'll love you forever!
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This is how I feel about the books. Would love to just get the retrospective / anthology / art books separate from the CEs. That Monkey Island book looks amazing, but I couldn't justify the ~$200+ price tag with tax and shipping (joke's on me since those are now $500+ on ebay)

 
I'm glad I never got into CE's.  Standard editions are my default as I just want the game experience not have to figure out where to store all the excess stuff.  They may often go for more in the aftermarket but I don't buy with resell gains in mind... I buy games to play them.  If I decide to sell later then it's easier to ship standard releases anyway.

The only CE's I ever purposefully went after were either cheaper at retail after mark downs than buying the standard edition (ex: Persona Q: The Wild Cards Premium Edition.. paid ~$20 for it new on amazon), where a CE is the only option for physical (ex: La-Mulana 1&2 - Switch) ... or stuff like Fire Emblem Fates where the CE was the only way to get all content physical (I think this may be the only example I have of that).  I've rarely ever bought a CE outside of those parameters.  The only one I can think of (at the moment) was Fire Emblem Echoes (3DS) where my oldest son is a huge fan of the series and I wasn't sure yet if I was going to dive deep into it (more a fan of Advance Wars) or not and it was only $60 at retail which made it new console game release price rather than something truly outlandish.

So yeah, I own very few CE's.

 
LimitedRunDoug said:
Legitimately the only thing that is selling less right now is CE's which is why I said we plan to pair down the amount of CE's we do. Customer spending on our normally priced stuff is where it's at every Q4 but CE's are def something we need to work out.
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As a stupid collector and former idiot collector of LEs, I can say burn out on giant boxes is real. The junk in the box loses appeal really fast.

 
WingsDJY said:
This is how I feel about the books. Would love to just get the retrospective / anthology / art books separate from the CEs. That Monkey Island book looks amazing, but I couldn't justify the ~$200+ price tag with tax and shipping (joke's on me since those are now $500+ on ebay)
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I know what you mean - that whole CE was pretty great and that is easily the best book they put together for a CE that I've seen. My CE had some minor damage to the art book. They sent me a whole new set. What I really love about LRG's replacement process is they send the replacement before the customer has to ship back the original. They include a return shipping label with the replacement. At that point, I had kinda wished I had ordered two of that CE - one to keep everything sealed and one to open. I really wanted to just not return the original CE and say "go ahead and charge me" since at that point that sure would've been a cheap way to get a backup copy. Not sure if they would've gone with that - it seemed too sketchy, so I didn't bother trying.

 
Same story here, I got really burned out on CEs, and it was in fact SPECIFICALLY because of LRG's efforts.

In the past, I would only get the "best" edition of any game. CIB over cart-only, and special edition over regular. Otherwise I'm just "missing" stuff, right? Maybe later I'd trade up to the complete version, but why not just do it right the first time?

But then along came LRG. At first, I was just buying the collector's edition version as usual. But it eventually occurred to me just how little I care about any of this stuff. Posters and cards and other artsy papers that were just copies of the same stock images used everywhere else for the game. Oftentimes literally the same exact image you can see on the box itself. And then all the cheap little knickknacks. What really broke me was thinking, what do I even do with these things? Nothing. I look at them for about five seconds, and then I'm over it. And they go back in the box, and will continue to live in there for the rest of time. So what is even the point of paying all that extra money, then?

So I modified my rules. What do I actually care about? Soundtracks. Art books. Soundtracks I can listen to anytime along with the rest of my music collection, and art books are just gorgeous to look through, and often insightful about the development process too. They also fill the hole that's been created since games are no longer coming with manuals.

But LRG broke me of that too. Many soundtracks are honestly not that great anyway, and maybe I'll pay a few extra dollars for it, but I'm not paying $30-50 more for it because I also have to buy the rest of the junk in that edition. And while I would still buy a mid-priced art book edition, it seems they are only coming with the $200 bag-of-crap editions. So pass on that too. So nowadays I just look at all editions, see the regular version with the game itself, and simply think "Man, I will save soooo much money just buying this one." Which then often leads me to going "You know, I'd save even more if I paid $0. I have enough games to play already anyway."

Incidentally, I also realized that my love for special editions also started because they weren't actually that much more than the standard version. Sure, I'd pay $10-20 more for a bunch of great stuff. Like I recently bought the Bravely Second special edition. Huge gorgeous art book and soundtrack CD containing actual excellent tracks. I paid $75. (And it was $70 MSRP.)  Someone just mentioned the Persona Q box set, which I recall getting for $50 back when it was new. The Koromaru plushie is still on my nightstand. Even the old Working Designs games I recall getting for practically the same price as any other game at the time. I see online that Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete was $60 MSRP, and Arc the Lad Collection was $75 MSRP.

So what are the current LRG games doing?

Full Throttle - $85. Soundtrack, and useless knickknacks.

Grim Fandango - $100. Soundtrack, and useless knickknacks.

Konami Arcade Classics - $65. Lesser total, but still $30 extra for just a soundtrack, and only thing else is a super-cheap replica NES cart sleeve, a box, and a poster showing the exact same image as the box.

In contrast, look at things that just came in their "distro, not part of our official numbered releases" line:

SNK Neo Geo Pocket Color Vol. 2 - $75. Retrospective book, and steelbook.

Rumble Fish 2 - $70. Art book, strategy guide, and soundtrack.

One of these groups is clearly better than the other. So the new rule is "Buy special edition if it was made by a real company, and only buy the standard edition at LRG."

 
Tothoro said:
Meat Boy was a $40 mark-up for a $15 Fangamer figure, a poster, an outer box, and a styrofoam meat tray. American Hero was a $30 mark-up for a poster, an outerbox, a pen, and an acrylic keychain. The Castlevania Requiem Classic edition was a $30 mark-up for an outerbox, a poster, and a soundtrack sampler. I get that everything's cheaper at scale and you're not selling God of War numbers, but I'd be astounded if you weren't making a better margin on those editions than the standard versions of those games.

I do think some of the CEs are a better value than others. The Jak ones were pretty memorable and the early Vita CEs were a nice little addition while still keeping games reasonably priced. But the value proposition just isn't there for a lot of the recent offerings, and that (coupled with current financial conditions) are why I imagine things are slowing down.
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The problem with Meat Boy (and I've gone over this already elsewhere) is that those Styrofoam trays weren't cheap or easy to locate. Every grocery store in our area and in the US for the most part have switched to plastic. So we had to pay a lot more for something that should have been cheap for a gimmick that ultimately didn't pay off.

You called one thing out that definitely makes costs higher which is the scale. We pay more on some stuff due to printing less. Something you are not considering though is how much time/labor goes into designing and getting approvals. It also doesn't help that during COVID everyone jacked their prices up and post COVID left most of them at those insane prices.

With all this said it's why we are cutting back.

As far as people getting burned out all I can say is, don't get the CE unless you really care about the game/IP. That's kind of the point of the CE's. We aren't expecting everyone to pick those up. We make them with the IP holder for the fans.

I personally get the complaints, too many CE's pile up in your house. I just had that problem. I used to buy EVERY CE from NISA for example. One day I realized I didn't need to and just get it for stuff I care about.

 
Xerox1919 said:
Even the old Working Designs games I recall getting for practically the same price as any other game at the time. I see online that Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete was $60 MSRP, and Arc the Lad Collection was $75 MSRP.
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I recently acquired a Lunar SSS Complete very cheap (all four discs in original box... but no slip cover and book). It's amazing the work that went into that from the box art to the disc art... the documentary disc and the soundtrack disc. Plus having so much english voice work in the game itself. And everything in one nice package that fits along side other PS1 games.

The main company I feel that came close to replicating what WD did was Atlus during the DS & 3DS releases days. Sure they had some CE's... and some odd shaped standard releases... but a lot of their standard releases included a soundtrack or something else special.

 
nightc1 said:
I recently acquired a Lunar SSS Complete very cheap (all four discs in original box... but no slip cover and book). It's amazing the work that went into that from the box art to the disc art... the documentary disc and the soundtrack disc. Plus having so much english voice work in the game itself. And everything in one nice package that fits along side other PS1 games.

The main company I feel that came close to replicating what WD did was Atlus during the DS & 3DS releases days. Sure they had some CE's... and some odd shaped standard releases... but a lot of their standard releases included a soundtrack or something else special.
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To this day the Lunar games are my favorite collector editions that I ever have gotten. I still laugh that the pendant that came with Lunar 2, is so heavy & well made that you can probably knock someone out if you whipped it at their head lol

 
Some Japanese releases get art books and/or CDs with first prints for free.  Recently Needy Girl Overdose (which was a relatively cheap release at about 3500 yen) came with a CD soundtrack and 50 page artbook for free.  Here we’d call that a LE and double the price.  

 
Oh yeah, that reminds me, the box shape also turns me off from buying any more LRG CEs. One on part of my game shelf, I have my PS4 games all together. On another part, I have my Switch games all together. So on for all other systems. But then one section, way off in the lower corner, is my area for "Oversized games". And at this point it might as well just be the LRG section.

And it is hideous. Even my PC big box game area looks more uniform than the LRG CEs. I understand that some boxes may need to be bigger due to what's inside, but at least make SOME effort to make all of your games look uniform. You're the some company making them all!

On a similar note, sometimes a special edition is small enough to fit on the main section shelf, right next to the other regular games of its console. (And of course I highly prefer this.) But one thing I've noticed is that all Switch game boxes have the red Switch logo in the upper corners and along the spine. Even your LRG specially-made outer boxes have this logo on them. So now all the games in the Switch section have a nice consistent Switch logo in the same spot across all of them, confirming that, yes, these are the Switch games.

I say this because your PlayStation special boxes do NOT have this. (And I see your new Xbox ones do not either.) Every other PS4 game I have has the blue PS4 logo at the top of the spine, except for yours. Which not only makes them look bad when lined up on the shelf, but even worse, these boxes don't even mention PlayStation 4 ANYWHERE on them. It's just this weird mystery box of who knows what system. This is going to be a huge problem in the near future when people can no longer remember what system it's for, and will have to open the box every single time just to check the real case.

And I don't know if either you want to have the logo and only Nintendo allows it, or you don't want the logo and only Nintendo forces you to include it. But in case you're confused, let me be very clear: The Nintendo method is the right way to do it!

What's even weirder is that all your standard Blu-ray case PS4 games do have an LRG logo across their spines in the same location, so clearly you do know how to do uniform branding. So why doesn't anything else? Why do my oversized boxes and smaller specialty boxes not have any sort of uniform look to them? Is this truly because you think the PS logo will ruin the imitation NES and Genesis boxes you put around the games? Because I disagree heavily. I know it's not a real NES game, and more importantly I don't WANT to think it's an NES game. I don't want it to look like one of my games is way off in the wrong section, and I especially do want to know what kind of game is inside the box without having to open it up and check.

 
LimitedRunDoug said:
lol
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Class Act™

If LRG cannot make high margins on CEs then there's obviously a problem with LRG not reading the market nor the production-side properly. One would think you would have sourcing locked down for products prior to advertising them or just been open about a substitution and/or refund.

And if you made CE for the fans, based upon feedback across multiple collection groups, you'd be making just Steelcase versions for most stuff and not locking them in $100+ bundles full of useless plastic garbage and printed stuffs.

You could probably get away with mostly junk since, again, people who buy them leave them sealed on the shelf if the resale market is to be accounted for (which is should, since folks are still speculating on this stuff, sadly).

But water under bridge, LRG'll stop issuing lopsided CEs and perhaps get back to offering neat games again.

 
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Maybe they truly are slowing down.  I don't see any games scheduled to come up for preorder tomorrow, which would be the first time in a long time on a Friday.

 
I'm at the point where I just get my stuff from Amazon now. If they don't have it oh well I missed it.

I just infinitely prefer to be charged when stuff ships. I had given up on lrg but I'm happy now I can at least get some stuff the way I want to.

It's whatever. I've grown and changed as a collector over the years and I prioritize differently. I'm not gonna point any fingers or blame anyone or even suggest changes. I just kinda don't care enough.

It'd be nice if lrg had a store of leftovers I could just buy online at my convenience instead of a leftovers sale. But with the retail store I figure that isn't feasible. So whatever. Amazon it is, or Amazon it ain't.
 
315Retro said:
It'd be nice if lrg had a store of leftovers I could just buy online at my convenience instead of a leftovers sale. But with the retail store I figure that isn't feasible. So whatever. Amazon it is, or Amazon it ain't.
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There are drop shippers that will buy stuff at the retail store for you for a small fee.

Yah know, which LRG won't actually provide, but allow others to do so.

You can message me if you want and I'll point out where you can find them.

 
TheKbob said:
There are drop shippers that will buy stuff at the retail store for you for a small fee.

Yah know, which LRG won't actually provide, but allow others to do so.

You can message me if you want and I'll point out where you can find them.
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Partner stores? Yeah the online one that's pretty handy is videogamesplus: Got Deathsmiles from them after SLG gave me a headache with them sending me the wrong item and making me spend $150 to ship back to germany... Then refunding my shipping, and never paying customs to pick up the item I sent them. They have some LRG stuff too. https://videogamesplus.ca/collections/limited-run-games

So I got the right item in the end and someone else's wrong item because they didn't pay up. Another limprint I cut buying from directly but VGP are super reliable, quick and much better than they were years ago (where using credit cards would lead to them being stolen due to them not securing their site worth a damn)

 
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315Retro said:
I'm at the point where I just get my stuff from Amazon now. If they don't have it oh well I missed it.

I just infinitely prefer to be charged when stuff ships. I had given up on lrg but I'm happy now I can at least get some stuff the way I want to.

It's whatever. I've grown and changed as a collector over the years and I prioritize differently. I'm not gonna point any fingers or blame anyone or even suggest changes. I just kinda don't care enough.

It'd be nice if lrg had a store of leftovers I could just buy online at my convenience instead of a leftovers sale. But with the retail store I figure that isn't feasible. So whatever. Amazon it is, or Amazon it ain't.
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This has been my mentality also. I’m not gonna let the FOMO take hold and make me go all in on everything. If it ends up being available elsewhere, great but if not, I can live without it.

I can kind of understand the money up front issue, if they collected on shipment I’d imagine you’d have a lot more attempted cancellations, invalid or expired cards, all that ends up leaving them with extra unsold copies then. And most obviously they probably aren’t large enough to finance all of their production out of pocket up front. Even still though, just because I understand it, doesn’t mean it isn’t a major factor in stopping my purchases. If it was only that it was tied up for a month or two, maybe even 3 then paying up front wouldn’t feel as bad.
 
Xerox1919 said:
Oh yeah, that reminds me, the box shape also turns me off from buying any more LRG CEs. One on part of my game shelf, I have my PS4 games all together. On another part, I have my Switch games all together. So on for all other systems. But then one section, way off in the lower corner, is my area for "Oversized games". And at this point it might as well just be the LRG section.

And it is hideous. Even my PC big box game area looks more uniform than the LRG CEs. I understand that some boxes may need to be bigger due to what's inside, but at least make SOME effort to make all of your games look uniform. You're the some company making them all!

On a similar note, sometimes a special edition is small enough to fit on the main section shelf, right next to the other regular games of its console. (And of course I highly prefer this.) But one thing I've noticed is that all Switch game boxes have the red Switch logo in the upper corners and along the spine. Even your LRG specially-made outer boxes have this logo on them. So now all the games in the Switch section have a nice consistent Switch logo in the same spot across all of them, confirming that, yes, these are the Switch games.

I say this because your PlayStation special boxes do NOT have this. (And I see your new Xbox ones do not either.) Every other PS4 game I have has the blue PS4 logo at the top of the spine, except for yours. Which not only makes them look bad when lined up on the shelf, but even worse, these boxes don't even mention PlayStation 4 ANYWHERE on them. It's just this weird mystery box of who knows what system. This is going to be a huge problem in the near future when people can no longer remember what system it's for, and will have to open the box every single time just to check the real case.

And I don't know if either you want to have the logo and only Nintendo allows it, or you don't want the logo and only Nintendo forces you to include it. But in case you're confused, let me be very clear: The Nintendo method is the right way to do it!

What's even weirder is that all your standard Blu-ray case PS4 games do have an LRG logo across their spines in the same location, so clearly you do know how to do uniform branding. So why doesn't anything else? Why do my oversized boxes and smaller specialty boxes not have any sort of uniform look to them? Is this truly because you think the PS logo will ruin the imitation NES and Genesis boxes you put around the games? Because I disagree heavily. I know it's not a real NES game, and more importantly I don't WANT to think it's an NES game. I don't want it to look like one of my games is way off in the wrong section, and I especially do want to know what kind of game is inside the box without having to open it up and check.
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It’s pretty simple, the two platforms have different requirements and fees for branding.

TheKbob said:
There are drop shippers that will buy stuff at the retail store for you for a small fee.
Yah know, which LRG won't actually provide, but allow others to do so.

You can message me if you want and I'll point out where you can find them.
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Sorry this bothers you so much. For now we aren’t changing that but I did let the team know for a possible change in the future.
 
LimitedRunDoug said:
This is definitely frustrating since I know for a fact you’re wrong since I have the real data, but it won’t matter next year anyway since the code will be locked. ‍♂
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Can you share the real numbers then?

Also, since you are here, one thing that has bothered me is when totally different products have identical outer packaging.

Something like those Night Trap Vinyl alternate colors, I ordered the 32x yellow and Sega CD blue and they arrived in the same package with absolutely nothing to distinguish them. At least a sticker would have been nice. I had planned on keeping them sealed since I had the other 2 variants already, but ended up opening them to make sure I actually got both colors. I think the same thing happened with some different system CE's, just drawing a blank on the titles.

So maybe at least throw a sticker on items like that if the actual packaging is the same?!

 
Does anyone know when they actually ship an item they have in their warehouse?

I’ve waited a year and a half for my order, then I get a message a month ago my double dragon neon CE is in the warehouse.

Still waiting !
 
LimitedRunDoug said:
Sorry this bothers you so much. For now we aren’t changing that but I did let the team know for a possible change in the future.
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As previously stated, as someone who understands game stores to another, y'all chose the highest cost, highest risk, lowest return maneuver in opening a physical retail versus pushing out excess product through either your already established channels of Amazon, Best Buy, and Partner Stores, or your own in-house distribution.

And the fact there's enough demand that I see one, if not two guys, sending out dozens of boxes weekly for product, in which they are making money LRG isn't, is just weird. Most companies would leverage such an opportunity to reduce costs, reduce risk, and increase returns.

Your business, not mine. It bothers me in as much as you'd rather the community fix a problem then be an active part in distributing your goods. Many people in said group make snide comments that perhaps allude to LRG's incompetence regarding it, meaning "guess the fans gotta do what LRG won't," to add insult to injury.

The real kicker is when people can order games from some dude drop shipping from your store and get their hands on new releases faster than folks who pre-ordered directly! Now that is a kick in nards and should definitely be fixed by at least not putting your new stuff on the shelf until the pre-order customers are satisfied.

Perhaps go speak to them, not me. I'll just sit here and shake my head at such a harebrained scheme you had in opening a physical store.

@Seafoam, I am not talking about partner stores, but literally randoms who live near the LRG physical shop and create weekly posts of photos of stock on the shelf and ask people for what they want. They then collect the funds, go to the physical shop, buy the product off the shelf, and ship it to those people for a small fee plus shipping.

It's the dumbest thing I have ever seen from a niche product business in that there's unfulfilled demand on the table and the company owner would rather double down on a bad decision (i.e., physical storefront!) versus putting excess product online and move it ASAP, which is what traditional business does as inventory on-hand is actually a liability in terms of cost accounting.

More so when, as you alluded to, they have partner stores who could move said product just as easily, if not utilize their Amazon page or their own website. It might break the spell of "Limited Run" titles if people could navigate to see excess titles sitting?

 
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TheKbob said:
As previously stated, as someone who understands game stores to another, y'all chose the highest cost, highest risk, lowest return maneuver in opening a physical retail versus pushing out excess product through either your already established channels of Amazon, Best Buy, and Partner Stores, or your own in-house distribution.

And the fact there's enough demand that I see one, if not two guys, sending out dozens of boxes weekly for product, in which they are making money LRG isn't, is just weird. Most companies would leverage such an opportunity to reduce costs, reduce risk, and increase returns.

Your business, not mine. It bothers me in as much as you'd rather the community fix a problem then be an active part in distributing your goods. Many people in said group make snide comments that perhaps allude to LRG's incompetence regarding it, meaning "guess the fans gotta do what LRG won't," to add insult to injury.

The real kicker is when people can order games from some dude drop shipping from your store and get their hands on new releases faster than folks who pre-ordered directly! Now that is a kick in nards and should definitely be fixed by at least not putting your new stuff on the shelf until the pre-order customers are satisfied.

Perhaps go speak to them, not me. I'll just sit here and shake my head at such a harebrained scheme you had in opening a physical store.

@Seafoam, I am not talking about partner stores, but literally randoms who live near the LRG physical shop and create weekly posts of photos of stock on the shelf and ask people for what they want. They then collect the funds, go to the physical shop, buy the product off the shelf, and ship it to those people for a small fee plus shipping.

It's the dumbest thing I have ever seen from a niche product business in that there's unfulfilled demand on the table and the company owner would rather double down on a bad decision (i.e., physical storefront!) versus putting excess product online and move it ASAP, which is what traditional business does as inventory on-hand is actually a liability in terms of cost accounting.

More so when, as you alluded to, they have partner stores who could move said product just as easily, if not utilize their Amazon page or their own website. It might break the spell of "Limited Run" titles if people could navigate to see excess titles sitting?
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You know perfectly well why they don’t put the excess online. They are attempting to manipulate demand by making it appear that the supply is limited. FOMO goes away if you see you can just click through and order an item.

Although manipulation of the supply/demand curve usually doesn’t work out in the end. People catch on and get pissed.

 
TheKbob said:
As previously stated, as someone who understands game stores to another, y'all chose the highest cost, highest risk, lowest return maneuver in opening a physical retail versus pushing out excess product through either your already established channels of Amazon, Best Buy, and Partner Stores, or your own in-house distribution.

And the fact there's enough demand that I see one, if not two guys, sending out dozens of boxes weekly for product, in which they are making money LRG isn't, is just weird. Most companies would leverage such an opportunity to reduce costs, reduce risk, and increase returns.

Your business, not mine. It bothers me in as much as you'd rather the community fix a problem then be an active part in distributing your goods. Many people in said group make snide comments that perhaps allude to LRG's incompetence regarding it, meaning "guess the fans gotta do what LRG won't," to add insult to injury.

The real kicker is when people can order games from some dude drop shipping from your store and get their hands on new releases faster than folks who pre-ordered directly! Now that is a kick in nards and should definitely be fixed by at least not putting your new stuff on the shelf until the pre-order customers are satisfied.

Perhaps go speak to them, not me. I'll just sit here and shake my head at such a harebrained scheme you had in opening a physical store.

@Seafoam, I am not talking about partner stores, but literally randoms who live near the LRG physical shop and create weekly posts of photos of stock on the shelf and ask people for what they want. They then collect the funds, go to the physical shop, buy the product off the shelf, and ship it to those people for a small fee plus shipping.

It's the dumbest thing I have ever seen from a niche product business in that there's unfulfilled demand on the table and the company owner would rather double down on a bad decision (i.e., physical storefront!) versus putting excess product online and move it ASAP, which is what traditional business does as inventory on-hand is actually a liability in terms of cost accounting.

More so when, as you alluded to, they have partner stores who could move said product just as easily, if not utilize their Amazon page or their own website. It might break the spell of "Limited Run" titles if people could navigate to see excess titles sitting?
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Ooooh yeah, i do remember that being a thing people would do in some trading discords I was in. Sorta like asking someone near disney world to buy you their merch. I definitely agree that preorders should ship out before they hit the retail stores/partner places, but I was under the assumption they already do that mostly: I did see TMNT hit amazon before most people got their copies, but otherwise it seemed fairly consistent with LRG getting their product in hand a week or more before others do. I don't really object to the new year's day leftover stock sale and that shows that putting excess #s just leads to quick sell out in no time, but I also remember when I think they did it around black friday once? Doing it more often would help people catch up on stuff, I'd feel, even though I don't imagine anyone trying to fullset PS4/5/Switch at this point.

Twilightsparkle said:
You know perfectly well why they don’t put the excess online. They are attempting to manipulate demand by making it appear that the supply is limited. FOMO goes away if you see you can just click through and order an item.

Although manipulation of the supply/demand curve usually doesn’t work out in the end. People catch on and get pissed.
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Switch MOQ is 5K by default anyhow unless it's changed so even a lower selling game will have that much printed, plus whatever more if other retailers placed their orders. Their Distro line is pretty much amazon-focused and it definitely shifted hard from the early days when it was LRG helping companies like Idea Factory print physicals they literally could not do otherwise, to doing that + just publishing stuff they would have definitely published numbered but using distro as a loophole to reprint/sell at other places besides their stores:

There's no way Shiren and TMNT had the same limitations, as one instance, and it's clear LRG had a lot more control and freedom over the contents of TMNT's CEs compared to the limited stuff Chunsoft provided from their Japanese Switch CE, yet both are distro titles. If anything, I feel it's tough to even know what the fuck Distro means anymore besides "more games in a month so we can put out everything we signed in some way"

 
TheKbob said:
As previously stated, as someone who understands game stores to another, y'all chose the highest cost, highest risk, lowest return maneuver in opening a physical retail versus pushing out excess product through either your already established channels of Amazon, Best Buy, and Partner Stores, or your own in-house distribution.
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We (the group) talked on here recently about the FTC rules for mail order businesses and online only businesses for when something is preordered but doesn't ship within the time frame predicted.

Ok so the obvious answer to why they established a brick and mortar business without any option to mail/internet order from it is to differentiate themselves from the the stricter rules on stores that have no physical stores.

SO if the business breaks even... cool... it's served it's legal purpose. Even if it loses a little, it's decent enough protection. But it's important that they don't offer online sales from this store so it establishes their physical presence separate from the online side.

 
LimitedRunDoug said:
It’s pretty simple, the two platforms have different requirements and fees for branding.
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Yeah, obviously. The point is that the Switch boxes are undeniably better. And the question was whether you DIDN'T want them, and Nintendo forced you, or you DID want them, but somehow no other platform holder was letting you. I see plenty of other companies' PS4 game special boxes that do have "PS4" in blue all across the top, so apparently it can be done. So why don't yours? Are "fees" the keyword here? Paying extra money to improve functionality isn't part of the budget?

At the very least, just write the system name somewhere on the box. "For use with the PlayStation®4 console". Is that at least cheaper for you? Because as you're moving into PS5 and Xbox, there are going to be a whole lot more mystery boxes where nobody can tell what system it's actually for. I'm sure retail stores will love that.

 
nightc1 said:
We (the group) talked on here recently about the FTC rules for mail order businesses and online only businesses for when something is preordered but doesn't ship within the time frame predicted.

Ok so the obvious answer to why they established a brick and mortar business without any option to mail/internet order from it is to differentiate themselves from the the stricter rules on stores that have no physical stores.

SO if the business breaks even... cool... it's served it's legal purpose. Even if it loses a little, it's decent enough protection. But it's important that they don't offer online sales from this store so it establishes their physical presence separate from the online side.
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If that's the reason for the physical store, then that's like solving one problem with another bigger one. Leased space is a boat anchor on many small businesses and to get physical retail space versus commercial space is even more costly.

I would argue fix the first problem, but hey, I don't know their balance sheets. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 
TheKbob said:
If that's the reason for the physical store, then that's like solving one problem with another bigger one. Leased space is a boat anchor on many small businesses and to get physical retail space versus commercial space is even more costly.

I would argue fix the first problem, but hey, I don't know their balance sheets. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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I could be completely off and the ftc stuff isn't one of the factors in the store. It's possible the store is a completely separate entity not tied legally to the website or main company. Whatever the case it just seemed like this fit in well with the ftc stuff since it establishes them outside the rules for companies that only take orders over the net.

Xerox1919 said:
Yeah, obviously. The point is that the Switch boxes are undeniably better.
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It's nice to see someone else talk positive about the spine uniformity (outside of Super Bomberman R) on switch cases. I know a lot of folks hate the red and the more generic lettering... but it's something I appreciate greatly (and I'm not even OCD about this stuff).

 
Xerox1919 said:
Yeah, obviously. The point is that the Switch boxes are undeniably better. And the question was whether you DIDN'T want them, and Nintendo forced you, or you DID want them, but somehow no other platform holder was letting you. I see plenty of other companies' PS4 game special boxes that do have "PS4" in blue all across the top, so apparently it can be done. So why don't yours? Are "fees" the keyword here? Paying extra money to improve functionality isn't part of the budget?

At the very least, just write the system name somewhere on the box. "For use with the PlayStation®4 console". Is that at least cheaper for you? Because as you're moving into PS5 and Xbox, there are going to be a whole lot more mystery boxes where nobody can tell what system it's actually for. I'm sure retail stores will love that.
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I can't go into it but there is an associated cost for branding and on some platforms it's not a marginal thing.

 
SeafoamGaming said:
I did see TMNT hit amazon before most people got their copies, but otherwise it seemed fairly consistent with LRG getting their product in hand a week or more before others do
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My local walmart had a couple of switch copies of TMNT (Shredders Revenge btw) for sale early/mid October. I didn't get my copy from amazon til the 10th of November. They sat there mocking me for a month.

tumblr_otaws12wO51uzae1ko1_500.gif


 
Thomascagger said:
https://twitter.com/Wario64/status/1594010034672762880?t=NjpS_cDWQVz1cbZtr8v8uA&s=19
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Was this known or spotted before the 19th, or teased by fangamer…? I ask because That myherogoku weirdo who keeps harassing me on Twitter bragged about this coming soon a while ago and I could find nothing on it then… then this shows up and confirms it. Does he know something we don’t lol, why would a guy who does nothing but scream at me behind a block know a fangamer guy

https://www.twitter.com/myherogoku99/status/1585797900327870465
 
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TheKbob said:
As previously stated, as someone who understands game stores to another, y'all chose the highest cost, highest risk, lowest return maneuver in opening a physical retail versus pushing out excess product through either your already established channels of Amazon, Best Buy, and Partner Stores, or your own in-house distribution.

And the fact there's enough demand that I see one, if not two guys, sending out dozens of boxes weekly for product, in which they are making money LRG isn't, is just weird. Most companies would leverage such an opportunity to reduce costs, reduce risk, and increase returns.

Your business, not mine. It bothers me in as much as you'd rather the community fix a problem then be an active part in distributing your goods. Many people in said group make snide comments that perhaps allude to LRG's incompetence regarding it, meaning "guess the fans gotta do what LRG won't," to add insult to injury.

The real kicker is when people can order games from some dude drop shipping from your store and get their hands on new releases faster than folks who pre-ordered directly! Now that is a kick in nards and should definitely be fixed by at least not putting your new stuff on the shelf until the pre-order customers are satisfied.

Perhaps go speak to them, not me. I'll just sit here and shake my head at such a harebrained scheme you had in opening a physical store.

@Seafoam, I am not talking about partner stores, but literally randoms who live near the LRG physical shop and create weekly posts of photos of stock on the shelf and ask people for what they want. They then collect the funds, go to the physical shop, buy the product off the shelf, and ship it to those people for a small fee plus shipping.

It's the dumbest thing I have ever seen from a niche product business in that there's unfulfilled demand on the table and the company owner would rather double down on a bad decision (i.e., physical storefront!) versus putting excess product online and move it ASAP, which is what traditional business does as inventory on-hand is actually a liability in terms of cost accounting.

More so when, as you alluded to, they have partner stores who could move said product just as easily, if not utilize their Amazon page or their own website. It might break the spell of "Limited Run" titles if people could navigate to see excess titles sitting?
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I live 20-30 minutes from the store and have been there many times. Its pretty clear the store is more about vibes and culture than profit. They aren't trying to lose money, but its clear its ancillary to driving maximum revenue. The owners want to have a 90's style video game store, so they built one. They want to have it stocked with their own published games, so they do.

I don't think there is any illusion that they would move more product by having the retail store online, but that's not the culture they wanted to build.

And having been there when the facebook people are shopping, they are always friendly, respectful, and courteous. They have never caused any problems for me personally or anyone else i've seen, so I don't know why anyone would mind.

Also, while some people do get stuff faster going through facebook people, nothing goes on the store floor until it has started shipping to preorder customers.

 
skyborgman said:
I don't think there is any illusion that they would move more product by having the retail store online, but that's not the culture they wanted to build.
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Neat, but companies don't run on "vibes," more so ones so open to risk like LRG due to their large backlog of pre-ordered products. More so since the gross majority of their market base will never visit the store.

Additionally, they already have the means to back plenty of 90s themed, chill game shops through their partner program. And you know what partner stores tend to dislike? When the distributor enters into their space, as I have seen from other niche hobbies and talking with shop owners.

It's all fine and dandy 'til it isn't. Burning cash and sitting on inventory is entirely their choice, I agree, but a bad business decision is still a bad business decision.

 
TheKbob said:
Neat, but companies don't run on "vibes," more so ones so open to risk like LRG due to their large backlog of pre-ordered products. More so since the gross majority of their market base will never visit the store.

Additionally, they already have the means to back plenty of 90s themed, chill game shops through their partner program. And you know what partner stores tend to dislike? When the distributor enters into their space, as I have seen from other niche hobbies and talking with shop owners.

It's all fine and dandy 'til it isn't. Burning cash and sitting on inventory is entirely their choice, I agree, but a bad business decision is still a bad business decision.
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Weird that the same guy demanding that LRG release exact print run data so that he can talk customers out of buying their products "for the wrong reasons" also has an issue with something that is clearly being done because the owners enjoy it rather than for purely business reasons.

 
bojay1997 said:
Weird that the same guy demanding that LRG release exact print run data so that he can talk customers out of buying their products "for the wrong reasons" also has an issue with something that is clearly being done because the owners enjoy it rather than for purely business reasons.
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Weird that I measure LRG as a business? And that I suggest it also do the ethical thing and be transparent with data? And not conduct FOMO-based marketing?

These things are not in contradiction of each other, to be clear. Again, multiple wrongs don't make a right.

Or you cannot perform a loss leader for the goodness of their hearts, as you are suggesting, and make every other issue go away. Again, did I not say there already exists a ton of friendly local game stores (FLGS) that would love to host LRG events, have their product for sale, and ensure many people have a place to go to, not just a pilgrimage to Mecca in North Carolina?

 
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TheKbob said:
It's all fine and dandy 'til it isn't. Burning cash and sitting on inventory is entirely their choice, I agree, but a bad business decision is still a bad business decision.
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Are there any LRG published games that are at the store but were never on the website?

Seems like it's the same stuff.

 
nightc1 said:
Are there any LRG published games that are at the store but were never on the website?

Seems like it's the same stuff.
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Not to my knowledge, no. But there is product on the shelf not available elsewhere. Things you cannot get from their Amazon store nor partner stores.

They may technically be only shop you get cards when you purchase, but cards are off my radar entirely.

And they have a bad habit of people able to get new stuff from their physical store faster than the pre-orders, which makes some folks very cranky.

They also trade and sell games, to my knowledge. But likely a necessity to turn a regular revenue stream.
 
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