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

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I say this having looked back at old interview given by Josh and Doug and how skittish they were about over-ordering, having leftover stock on hand, and knowing the obvious drag and additional risks of maintaining a large inventory. One act of God and your warehouse is wiped out (or product is damaged, destroyed), and the massive tangle you would have to pick apart would be a nightmare.
And yes, this is the stuff I normally thing about...
Considering how nice the CS folk are when they do get back to you on a ticket yet they’re flooded with tickets constantly (leading to sometimes 1-2 weeks before a reply), I honestly would not be surprised if both CS and Shipping get put under heavy, heavy crunch and that’s why stuff takes forever to ship because they literally can’t divert from a bigger priority to ship out random in-hand stuff.

Since a bigger selling game is enough to throw the warehouse out of sync for a few weeks to grind on that, I’m pretty sure that explains why some items (BMZ3 CE as one I personally dealt with) have had multiple QC slip-ups where people got the tank broken in shrink wrap even though the box was packed super, super well: pretty much ruling out it was DHL (especially when the outer box was free of issues): all hands on deck means it’s just go go go. That’s putting aside stuff that’s just poor at the production/overseas manufacturing level like say, print quality of stuff like the doom CE comic book repro (which is very blurry). Haven’t seen anything akin to the tank situation lately though, just continued components coming out as very cheap looking (but not broken) like the Zombies Squirt Gun.
 
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I have no idea if it'll legally qualify as a gift (I am not a lawyer) but both Josh and Doug have talked about it in public settings. The first time it was mentioned it wasn't specified as Bird King, but it was noted as a free bonus game to thank people who have supported the company. That was an interview Josh gave in the 2017-2018 timeframe after some kind of presentation (maybe GDC or PAX?). I couldn't find the video from a quick search but I did find a string of tweets saying the same thing:
I'm fairly positive one of the videos was a Q&A after E3 2018 mentioned here:

https://www.gematsu.com/2018/06/limited-run-games-e3-2018-press-conference-live-stream

I remember it was going to be on Twitch as I don't normally use twitch for anything so the event stands out. That might have been when they said it didn't matter the source since a lot of folks had a hard time getting orders in before games would sell out.

I'm sure we all also talked about this stuff as it happened here in this thread. So it should be pretty easy to dig through with some searches and find most everything that's happened and when and where it was said. Though, the sources may be hit and miss.

 
Aside, I think about LRG's logistics and would love to know more. But the one thing that seems to be an odd choice is allowing customers to tie together shipments of so many variable delivery date, long-lead items such as those crazy collectors editions that can see astronomical delays.

I cannot imagine its easy to maintain either a correctly accounted for estimated quantities or set asides or "piles" of various orders waiting six, 12, or 18+ months for that last bit to come together and ship it out to the customer.

I would think a company would limit the window on how long that was acceptable and either offer a free split to clear the warehouse and overhead so that picking and packing is less complicated for the staff or detangle their logistics systems (or both).

It's like people waiting months to get those blind boxes; those should be already accounted for, in terms of quantities, pre-event and pre-packaged, binned, and ready to allocate such that they can nearly go out the "same day" things are ordered. Waiting three months for shipping, assuming they're not tied to a pre-order, is absolutely nuts in any other customer service program.

I would absolutely love to see how they handle their warehouse; I would be that they could see a significant uptick in customer satisfaction and turn around times if they hired some professional industrial engineers and logistics management staff (assuming they don't have any now).

I say this having looked back at old interview given by Josh and Doug and how skittish they were about over-ordering, having leftover stock on hand, and knowing the obvious drag and additional risks of maintaining a large inventory. One act of God and your warehouse is wiped out (or product is damaged, destroyed), and the massive tangle you would have to pick apart would be a nightmare.

And yes, this is the stuff I normally thing about...
What baffles me if that they don’t have a way (or more likely a desire) to combine partial orders and ship them out. Say you have 2 outstanding orders and half of each is ready, why not just ship the stuff that is ready out?

I remember when Rightstufanime started combing multiple partial orders into one shipment - that was like 20 years ago. So the software is definitely out there.

 
One thing to keep in mind about Rightstuf is that they've always had a huge, overaching emphasis on customer experience and customer satisfaction. The founder called it "Super Service" and spoke about it in detail in his retirement message from a few months ago:

https://twitter.com/shawnekleckner/status/1603138316911738887

I am a bit concerned about how the company will adapt to the Crunchyroll acquisition but they've always done right by me in my 7 or 8 years shopping with them. Recently they even started sending out reminder emails listing all of my open pre-orders. Great company altogether.

Unfortunately, I don't feel like that is a priority for LRG. In the early days, sure. Even up to the release of Celeste and the accompanying apology card, it felt like it. But it's been downhill since, and pretty much every piece of feedback falls on deaf ears. They don't even bother responding to the feedback channel in their own Discord anymore.

 
Another aside, once I realized what the Crayon Shin-Chan release actually is, I definitely put in for a pre-order.  Kudos to Doug for making that happen (based upon commentary I read elsewhere); if so, it's definitely going to be a cozy niche title that will definitely be unique.  And glad it's a distribution release.

That's the kind of stuff I would love to see LRG do more of and not a ton of mid indie releases (and I love me some mid indie releases, tell you what), and get more into those releases that have really interesting lore around the title or company and titles that make people really think "that would have never happened without LRG!"

Turtles is cool, but that woulda happened.  It certainly pays the bills, but doesn't wow me.  Same with the Konami releases.  Moon physical, Curse of the Dead Gods, Monster Train are all top gets, but things like Kung Fury: Street Rage (which has been $1 already), failing to get good deals like River City Girls 1&2 on Play-Asia, or straight up blocking imports on titles... well, you're seemingly burning as many bridges as one builds in the community.

Like, I don't know who was asking for "Skelattack," a "mixed" reviewed 2020 game, more so a collectors edition for it.

I know not every release is going to appeal to me, but I am certain I could get armpit deep in my Steam collection and point out some bangers that I would kill for a physical release over American Hero, Cat Girl Without Salad, or whatever the latest Kemco Excretion is...

////

Quad asides, was LRG at all impacted by the three bank failures over the past two-or-so weeks?

 
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Update on some of LRG's "shipping initiatives": https://limitedrungames.com/blogs/news/limited-run-shipping-initiatives-2023

Some of this feels like really basic, common sense stuff that they should've been doing all along (like having everything needed for manufacture when pre-orders end) but I guess better late than never? Credit where credit's due, the attempt at increased transparency is nice. I just wasn't aware their logistics processes were so immature.

Overall I remain cynical, though. Their 2021 update identified a lot of the same issues and nothing noticeably improved in the following two years.

 
Yeah it's pretty basic stuff indeed. It's lack of experience and know how that caused these problems, and taking so long to fix them.

I'll also remain cynical, so we'll see.

And hey, a $5 off coupon...to be used by the end of April. Not a very long time.
 
Update on some of LRG's "shipping initiatives": https://limitedrungames.com/blogs/news/limited-run-shipping-initiatives-2023

Some of this feels like really basic, common sense stuff that they should've been doing all along (like having everything needed for manufacture when pre-orders end) but I guess better late than never? Credit where credit's due, the attempt at increased transparency is nice. I just wasn't aware their logistics processes were so immature.

Overall I remain cynical, though. Their 2021 update identified a lot of the same issues and nothing noticeably improved in the following two years.
So you didn't mention this, but any game up for preorder after April 1 will no longer come with a trading card. All previous preorders will still come with a card. Their original printer was purchased by the Pokemon Company and finding alternatives has caused delays in games being completed to ship out.

 
So you didn't mention this, but any game up for preorder after April 1 will no longer come with a trading card. All previous preorders will still come with a card. Their original printer was purchased by the Pokemon Company and finding alternatives has caused delays in games being completed to ship out.
That's a good callout too. I don't really care about the cards (I'd usually just sell them off in lots when I ordered from LRG regularly) but I know some people are big fans. Here's the full text:

After much deliberation, we have decided that our numbered Limited Run releases will no longer include a free trading card. This is not something we take lightly, but it is a necessary step we must take to increase our fulfillment speed. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, trading cards could be manufactured in weeks. However, a boom in demand for trading cards from new collectors caused printers to be pushed to their capacity. As a result of this increased demand, our card manufacturer was purchased by the Pokemon Company, pushing us to locate new suppliers. Because of this, trading card runs can now take 3 to 5 months to complete.

As our production time for Standard Edition games has sped up, we have seen a new problem. Many of our Standard Edition games now arrive before the cards have been printed. They may sit in our warehouse for weeks while waiting on cards. We don't feel this is acceptable. Our customers and fans deserve their games when they are complete.

Any Limited Run numbered release that opened pre-orders before April 1st, 2023 will still come with cards as promised. No existing orders made before that date will be impacted!
There are also mentions of LRG Europe and CE standardization in the full article, if those topics are of interest to folks.

 
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I wouldn't call the cards stupid per say, but more of an extra than anything. There is a 5 dollar off code in their latest email titled "An Important Message from Limited Run" expiring on 04/30/2023. I may bite on Shin-Chan now, but need to try Moon to see if that would be a good physical purchase. What's likely going to happen is I will play and eventually beat Moon digital and get Shin-Chan when it's a lot cheaper (about $20). I'll see and I can give some Moon impressions in the Switch thread.

 
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I wouldn't call the cards stupid per say, but more of an extra than anything. There is a 5 dollar off code in their latest email titled "An Important Message from Limited Run" expiring on 04/30/2023. I may bite on Shin-Chan now, but need to try Moon to see if that would be a good physical purchase. What's likely going to happen is I will play and eventually beat Moon digital and get Shin-Chan when it's a lot cheaper (about $20). I'll see and I can give some Moon impressions in the Switch thread.
Keep in mind shipping from LRG is usually more than $5 domestically and most of their distro line stuff (which Moon and Shin-Chan are part of) goes to retailers like Amazon where you can get free shipping.

 
Honestly a little funny this came a day after an attempted PR tour, but hey if this leads to actual change and their quality rockets for the better… I’ll be intrigued. I loved the series 2 cards a ton but i feel the design of S3 cards were a big step back and honestly should not have been the cause of holding back standards to begin with.

I don’t exactly see much in terms of better communication or anything for the future and I’m guessing the newsletter is also dead as well. Still, if this makes things better and the general quality of CEs good due to standardization I’ll keep my eyes and ears peeled. If I do cave on a LRG published game though it still won’t be through their website…
 
I can’t believe this hasn’t been brought up: “ Moving forward, we will craft our Collector’s Editions with items we can acquire without complications”

Expect more cheap crap and no steel books. 

 
Honestly a little funny this came a day after an attempted PR tour, but hey if this leads to actual change and their quality rockets for the better… I’ll be intrigued. I loved the series 2 cards a ton but i feel the design of S3 cards were a big step back and honestly should not have been the cause of holding back standards to begin with.
I don’t exactly see much in terms of better communication or anything for the future and I’m guessing the newsletter is also dead as well. Still, if this makes things better and the general quality of CEs good due to standardization I’ll keep my eyes and ears peeled. If I do cave on a LRG published game though it still won’t be through their website…
How is me posting here a PR tour? I was here long before you. Please stop making stuff up to satisfy your conspiracies.


Does anyone have any questions about our update I can answer?
 
I can’t believe this hasn’t been brought up: “ Moving forward, we will craft our Collector’s Editions with items we can acquire without complications”

Expect more cheap crap and no steel books.
I'm mixed since some of the barren as hell CEs with just a pin and poster take many many months after the standards to finish... So I have no idea how they can speed things up much. The idea is good and really if it has OSTs still, that'd be good enough for a lot of people, but yeah, i also see this as a very possible cost cutting measure.

Also now that I think about it they didn't really note anything about systems where stuff takes a long time to make even for standard editions like the repro carts: the ZAMN repros were so, so absurdly delayed I don't think nearly as many people will buy a repro preorder from LRG unless they somehow learn what retro-bit did to communicate often about each step of the process.

 
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Does anyone have any questions about our update I can answer?
A couple I've seen elsewhere (it might be good to put these in an FAQ somewhere):

  • Does this mean trading cards are gone for good, or will they still be produced/purchasable separately?
  • Is anything else going to replace the trading cards? Are the newsletter digest things coming back, stickers, etc.?
  • For the collector's items "without complication" - what does that entail exactly? Steelbooks, acrylics, art cards?
  • For the collector's boxes, are there any existing games that use this box or a "prototype" of this box?
From me personally: Given the current production/shipping backlog and the flow of new releases, when do you expect the improvements to have a visible impact on queue and turnaround time? Q3? 2024? Later?

 
How is me posting here a PR tour? I was here long before you. Please stop making stuff up to satisfy your conspiracies.


Does anyone have any questions about our update I can answer?
“ Moving forward, we will craft our Collector’s Editions with items we can acquire without complications”

Does this mean less steelbooks? Personally, no steelbook means no buying for me.

Hefty hardcover artbooks and full soundtracks, heck yea. Plus, a steelbook is a perfect collector edition for me.

Stickers, posters, acrylic stands, patches, postcards, figures and other junk is basically worthless to me.

 
“ Moving forward, we will craft our Collector’s Editions with items we can acquire without complications”

Does this mean less steelbooks? Personally, no steelbook means no buying for me.

Hefty hardcover artbooks and full soundtracks, heck yea. Plus, a steelbook is a perfect collector edition for me.



Stickers, posters, acrylic stands, patches, postcards, figures and other junk is basically worthless to me.
Amen!
 
I liked the update. The cards were not for me.

All I ask is better shipping updates and CE's to have a steel book. You don't have to be all Fancy with the other stuff.

For the most part I do actually like limited run it's frustrating from a business perspective. They need a warehouse manager and a legitimate PR person.

DK oldies has joey and no matter how you feel he posts everyday something.
 
How is me posting here a PR tour? I was here long before you. Please stop making stuff up to satisfy your conspiracies.


Does anyone have any questions about our update I can answer?
So I got my Shantae Pirate's Curse PS5 fan bundle and it came with a silver fan bundle card- I was under the impression that the fan bundles came with a gold version of the "fan bundle" card? I actually also think my Risky's Revenge also came with a silver card instead of a gold.

 
How is me posting here a PR tour? I was here long before you. Please stop making stuff up to satisfy your conspiracies.


Does anyone have any questions about our update I can answer?
Can you please address the shipping protection that's auto-added to orders? It's not quite as big of a deal since most stuff is pre-orders, but when something is limited and someone is in a rush it adds time to check out to remove it. I saw here where people were in such a rush trying to buy blow out items they forgot to remove it and were charged for something they didn't want. It really comes off as unethical since its auto added IMO. This is an easy fix and one way to create some goodwill with the community. Thank you.
 
“ Moving forward, we will craft our Collector’s Editions with items we can acquire without complications”

Does this mean less steelbooks? Personally, no steelbook means no buying for me.

Hefty hardcover artbooks and full soundtracks, heck yea. Plus, a steelbook is a perfect collector edition for me.

Stickers, posters, acrylic stands, patches, postcards, figures and other junk is basically worthless to me.
Sorry to butt into your post Cheapgamer with some tension here, but due to how this site works with the muting this reply was pretty much how I saw what doug said and quite bluntly I'm firm when I say I have Doug's posts ignored here for a reason. Even without me expanding the hidden posts and only seeing the stuff quoted I'm seeing that he's pretty much replying to me with the same old victim mentality I already told him to knock off months ago. Like, from the post that's my most recent (which I assume is the one he's referring to by with "conspiracies"), I mention the following:

Honestly a little funny this came a day after an attempted PR tour, but hey if this leads to actual change and their quality rockets for the better… I’ll be intrigued. I loved the series 2 cards a ton but i feel the design of S3 cards were a big step back and honestly should not have been the cause of holding back standards to begin with.
The PR tour comment was me echoing what was said weeks and weeks ago by people here frustrated by the lack of communication or any sort of updates especially when it came to stuff backlogged in the warehouse. Today's update seems like a promising step towards that (especially on the production side of things) but does little to acknowledge the prior lack of communication in status updates and why we don't say, get detailed messages detailing each item in a step-by-step manner of production like VGNYsoft does. That alone for each item would be a *huge* boon in keeping people up to date on items that were smaller and didn't get talked about much in the digests. The sentiment the community here got is pretty much that yeah, other people (not just me!) told you how to improve and make things easier with communication and nothing happened, so it was pretty much seen as you coming here to seem helpful and reassure people to kick the goalpost down: hence why people have a "i'll believe it when I see it" approach to today's news.

I don’t exactly see much in terms of better communication or anything for the future and I’m guessing the newsletter is also dead as well. Still, if this makes things better and the general quality of CEs good due to standardization I’ll keep my eyes and ears peeled. If I do cave on a LRG published game though it still won’t be through their website…
Where's the conspiracy here in this post? Communication not being better? my PR tour remark from above? Me guessing the newsletter is dead? I mean, I haven't seen or heard about it when people share their hauls on reddit since the Castlevania issue was made, so... it was a fairly safe guess. I also remember when it was stated that the newsletters would be combined into a physical volume at a later point, and that hasn't happened yet. With the newsletters ending, maybe that could be part of press run?

And as for the "I've been here long before you" bit, uh yeah, you may have joined this place years before me but I'm fairly certain Tothoro was more active for years on end along with NightC1 (who seems to have joined this site back even before I was adopted IRL? Wow i'm old), who are both very nice and would absolutely correct me in a heartbeat if I got anything critically wrong or I said something that went over the line.

All I'm going just say bluntly before I go back to ignoring your posts with the site's mute feature, (and you should mute me here in the same fashion) is that when the first post you make in months is a reply to me, and the first post you made waaaaaaaaaaaay back when you dusted off your account last fall (after years of not posting here!) was also a reply to me, shortly after my friend and I told you on twitter to not contact me when I firmly let you know my stance, it seems more apparent that rather than you being motivated to jumping on to reply to people asking about X game and wanting your input (like that guy a few pages ago wondering when the blinds would ship, or the axiom verge combo CE, how about those folk?), you literally come back to this site when you see something I write and get mad about it, then play the victim when you're remotely called out on it, going "not true!" but not backing that up with anything like the sort of statistics Kbob asks for regarding sales or anything statistic wise that would made me gladly accept an L.

So yeah, please mute me here and knock off replying to me here. You'll only see anything i write if I'm quoted that way. The fact you say stuff like "why are you talking about us still?" as if you're trying to do a "gotcha" if I end up buying something you print is incredibly pathetic and observing your reply patterns before i put you on mute last October, you really don't seem to like that I am vocally critical of you even when I'm wanting nothing to do with you personally. I'm allowed to be that way just like how anyone is allowed to shit talk Gamestop and their practices, and you can rest assured I don't even care to write articles about limprint stuff anymore. I just listen to see what stuff is coming out for my friends who are buying this still. If you want to keep those current customers onboard, actually commit to change instead of having people feel they've seen this song and dance before.

 
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In other positive LRG news I acutally got a shipping notice for the 2 blind boxes I ordered during the Jan 1 sale yesterday (Mach 15th for thsoe playing at home).  When I click on the tracking number it takes me to DHL site which just states it is "En Route" with no estimated date for delivery. 

But hey, it was before the end of Q1  :bouncy:

 
How is me posting here a PR tour? I was here long before you. Please stop making stuff up to satisfy your conspiracies.


Does anyone have any questions about our update I can answer?
Are there any games currently being held up due to missing trading cards? If so, can we contact CS to get the games shipped without the cards?

 
How is me posting here a PR tour? I was here long before you. Please stop making stuff up to satisfy your conspiracies.


Does anyone have any questions about our update I can answer?
Does "Starting this year, we will work with an agency to supply a steady supply of workers as needed." mean you will be working with temp agencies/headhunters for non-permanent employees? Will these employees get equal pay, benefits, and rights that full time employees do?

Was LRG impacted, to include the parent company Embracer, by any of the three recent bank failures?

Why does the update not state the fact you would reducing CEs to focus on getting games quicker to customers, like you have said (or at least insinuated) here?

How will you adapt your policies and procedures to align with the much more strict EU consumer protection laws that would likely not allow you to operate as you do in the USA?

 
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Does anyone have any questions about our update I can answer?
Sure!

Day 1 LRG customer from Germany here, btw.

1.) So happy LRG EU is finally happening now! However…. I am wary after the lackluster Fangamer and NISA storefronts. Will the EU site be offering everything the US does? Can I still shop over there with the usual DDP shipping or will I / my country be blocked?

2.) Will there be any actual benefit for us customers? Shipping with EU isn't exactly cheap either, depending on what deal LRG was able to acquire.

For two 35$ standard Switch games I have to pay close to 100$ right now, with shipping and taxes. What's that gonna look like in the future?

3.) Those new CE boxes could be a good thing when filled with AWESOME artwork….looking at FM Towns cases, for example. Can you assure me the box won't feel cheap? Judging by the picture things could go either way with that. :)

4.) This will greatly limit possible CE contents though. Sure, usually it's a poster, some stickers and maybe a soundtrack, a pin or a disassembled standee anyway, which would fit….but just think of the amazing stuff we got with Toejam & Earl, To the Moon, Dust, Double Dragon Neon and so on. That won't be possible anymore, unless it's a big edition, but I suspect that will be reserved for retail-like games, like Dead Space.

SOR4 was your masterpiece, btw!

5.) Will Europe get imported ESRB games or will anything be different? I don't mind either way, just curious.

6.) Why didn't I get that 5$ newsletter coupon? :whistle2:/ (okay, less a question for you personally… ^^ )

That's all I can think of right now. Nice of you to offer deeper insights!

 
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For those curious, here is where you can find the LRG 2021 update, which included:

  1. Regular Production Updates - In 2021 we’re integrating a new production update system via email. Going forward we vow to give more regular updates directly to fans’ inboxes. If a product you’ve ordered has a changed timeline, you’ll get a direct email. In addition to this, we will be preemptively reaching out to make sure there have been no address changes before your item ships.
  2. Opening Pre-orders - You might have noticed LimitedRunGames.com has increased the amount of open pre-orders. Many fans reached out saying they weren’t able to secure certain titles they wanted, and we wanted to allow for more flexibility. While not every game can have an open pre-order, we are striving to have them wherever possible. This way, our games can retain their Limited Run nature while being available to anyone who wants one.
  3. Restructuring Support - We’re streamlining the process our Support team uses to handle tickets, with the goal of addressing more customer issues more efficiently. In turn, this should alleviate your response wait times after big sale days!
  4. Expanding Shipping - We do all of our shipping and support in-house. We’ve been expanding our warehouse staff and experimenting with different ways to ship items so we can get products out to you faster than ever!
  5. Streamlining Production - In an effort to get games out faster and give more accurate forecasts of when games will ship, we’ve started streamlining some of our production processes. Due to the open nature of our pre-orders, we do not start production until after pre-order windows close. However, on occasions when we can, we are starting to proceed with production in advance to shorten the time it takes to get you their games!

I would say they met #2 but don't have enough background for #1, #3, and #4.

What's interesting is that #5, streamlining production, is basically the same promise they're making today:

In the future, you can be assured that the cart is not going before the horse, so to say—we’re committing to having everything we need to start manufacturing the moment a pre-order period ends.
So another question, Doug, how is the 2023 promise different from the 2021 promise regarding production periods?

 
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Does anyone have any questions about our update I can answer?
Can you be more transparent with what games from your Distro line will be sold at retail? Not all games from the Distro line are offered at retail. Limited Run used to make notes about this in the past on the game listing on the old web site and that stopped on the new site. I know there are the shop@amazon and shop@bestbuy links on the site but it be nice to know what games are going to be offered by your partners during the preorder window. Sometimes these games don't show up on Amazon or Best Buy until after the preorder window closes. Then I can make a decision to buy direct from Limited Run or wait to try and purchase from your retail partners. Thx.

 
Yesterday when i made my post I didn’t have an example of the “in hand items taking way too long to ship” but hey, a reply to your company that came on my TL shows a perfect example of what I meant by those books!

https://mobile.twitter.com/DennisH11482702/status/1636136754435506178

Why launch an initiative claiming to ship these quick due to the books being already made before being put on the site, only to take months to ship them? At least when they hit amazon this month buying them there will ensure you will never wait that long: so what’s the holdup on those from the LRG site? Do they include a secret trading card too?
 
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The whole shipping delay for ready to ship items is bad.  I understand the logistics of implementing a standard shipping system for in hand items might be hard to do in their environment and mass of a shipping backlog coupled with staff limitations... but, as a consumer it's a deal breaker for most anything I'd casually/impulse buy... and would a be a clear warning to anyone asking about an item that's ready to ship.

No other company I can think of I'd even consider giving that kind of delay to handling in stock videogame and related items.   A week delay, ok... a month+, hell no.

 
A couple I've seen elsewhere (it might be good to put these in an FAQ somewhere):

  • Does this mean trading cards are gone for good, or will they still be produced/purchasable separately?
  • Is anything else going to replace the trading cards? Are the newsletter digest things coming back, stickers, etc.?
  • For the collector's items "without complication" - what does that entail exactly? Steelbooks, acrylics, art cards?
  • For the collector's boxes, are there any existing games that use this box or a "prototype" of this box?
From me personally: Given the current production/shipping backlog and the flow of new releases, when do you expect the improvements to have a visible impact on queue and turnaround time? Q3? 2024? Later?
1. We may still offer trading cards for select games or packs of cards.
2. As of right now there is no replacement since we are trying to speed the process up and not complicate it again.
3. Easy stuff would be posters, stickers, key chains, art cards, acrylics, soundtracks, etc. Steelbooks actually have a long lead time and are expensive. So they will only be used selectively.
4. I don't think so? There might be some that were sold but not shipped or coming up that will use it.

I think Q3 is safe to say for sure since anything sold after the card cutoff will hopefully ship much faster.

“ Moving forward, we will craft our Collector’s Editions with items we can acquire without complications”

Does this mean less steelbooks? Personally, no steelbook means no buying for me.

Hefty hardcover artbooks and full soundtracks, heck yea. Plus, a steelbook is a perfect collector edition for me.

Stickers, posters, acrylic stands, patches, postcards, figures and other junk is basically worthless to me.
We are already doing less steelbooks. Artbooks are the most popular but they are hard to make. The soundtracks will be easy.

So I got my Shantae Pirate's Curse PS5 fan bundle and it came with a silver fan bundle card- I was under the impression that the fan bundles came with a gold version of the "fan bundle" card? I actually also think my Risky's Revenge also came with a silver card instead of a gold.
You should have got the gold card unless they ran out? I'm really sorry. I can check to see if we have those but something tells me we don't.

Can you please address the shipping protection that's auto-added to orders? It's not quite as big of a deal since most stuff is pre-orders, but when something is limited and someone is in a rush it adds time to check out to remove it. I saw here where people were in such a rush trying to buy blow out items they forgot to remove it and were charged for something they didn't want. It really comes off as unethical since its auto added IMO. This is an easy fix and one way to create some goodwill with the community. Thank you.
So that's enabled on other sites I've noticed and despite my complaints they don't seem to be able to fix it. I'll ask again in case they are just giving me the runaround.

Sorry to butt into your post Cheapgamer with some tension here, but due to how this site works with the muting this reply was pretty much how I saw what doug said and quite bluntly I'm firm when I say I have Doug's posts ignored here for a reason. Even without me expanding the hidden posts and only seeing the stuff quoted I'm seeing that he's pretty much replying to me with the same old victim mentality I already told him to knock off months ago. Like, from the post that's my most recent (which I assume is the one he's referring to by with "conspiracies"), I mention the following:

The PR tour comment was me echoing what was said weeks and weeks ago by people here frustrated by the lack of communication or any sort of updates especially when it came to stuff backlogged in the warehouse. Today's update seems like a promising step towards that (especially on the production side of things) but does little to acknowledge the prior lack of communication in status updates and why we don't say, get detailed messages detailing each item in a step-by-step manner of production like VGNYsoft does. That alone for each item would be a *huge* boon in keeping people up to date on items that were smaller and didn't get talked about much in the digests. The sentiment the community here got is pretty much that yeah, other people (not just me!) told you how to improve and make things easier with communication and nothing happened, so it was pretty much seen as you coming here to seem helpful and reassure people to kick the goalpost down: hence why people have a "i'll believe it when I see it" approach to today's news.

Where's the conspiracy here in this post? Communication not being better? my PR tour remark from above? Me guessing the newsletter is dead? I mean, I haven't seen or heard about it when people share their hauls on reddit since the Castlevania issue was made, so... it was a fairly safe guess. I also remember when it was stated that the newsletters would be combined into a physical volume at a later point, and that hasn't happened yet. With the newsletters ending, maybe that could be part of press run?

And as for the "I've been here long before you" bit, uh yeah, you may have joined this place years before me but I'm fairly certain Tothoro was more active for years on end along with NightC1 (who seems to have joined this site back even before I was adopted IRL? Wow i'm old), who are both very nice and would absolutely correct me in a heartbeat if I got anything critically wrong or I said something that went over the line.

All I'm going just say bluntly before I go back to ignoring your posts with the site's mute feature, (and you should mute me here in the same fashion) is that when the first post you make in months is a reply to me, and the first post you made waaaaaaaaaaaay back when you dusted off your account last fall (after years of not posting here!) was also a reply to me, shortly after my friend and I told you on twitter to not contact me when I firmly let you know my stance, it seems more apparent that rather than you being motivated to jumping on to reply to people asking about X game and wanting your input (like that guy a few pages ago wondering when the blinds would ship, or the axiom verge combo CE, how about those folk?), you literally come back to this site when you see something I write and get mad about it, then play the victim when you're remotely called out on it, going "not true!" but not backing that up with anything like the sort of statistics Kbob asks for regarding sales or anything statistic wise that would made me gladly accept an L.

So yeah, please mute me here and knock off replying to me here. You'll only see anything i write if I'm quoted that way. The fact you say stuff like "why are you talking about us still?" as if you're trying to do a "gotcha" if I end up buying something you print is incredibly pathetic and observing your reply patterns before i put you on mute last October, you really don't seem to like that I am vocally critical of you even when I'm wanting nothing to do with you personally. I'm allowed to be that way just like how anyone is allowed to shit talk Gamestop and their practices, and you can rest assured I don't even care to write articles about limprint stuff anymore. I just listen to see what stuff is coming out for my friends who are buying this still. If you want to keep those current customers onboard, actually commit to change instead of having people feel they've seen this song and dance before.
You literally won't stop and legitimately make up lies, so yes it bothers me. You didn't even post here originally and only showed up to start trouble and it seems like a lot of people ignore you. So you're right I will do the same.

Does "Starting this year, we will work with an agency to supply a steady supply of workers as needed." mean you will be working with temp agencies/headhunters for non-permanent employees? Will these employees get equal pay, benefits, and rights that full time employees do?

Was LRG impacted, to include the parent company Embracer, by any of the three recent bank failures?

Why does the update not state the fact you would reducing CEs to focus on getting games quicker to customers, like you have said (or at least insinuated) here?

How will you adapt your policies and procedures to align with the much more strict EU consumer protection laws that would likely not allow you to operate as you do in the USA?
1. We've been using an agency already tbh and we pay them well. If they aren't employed with LRG they can't get benefits, doing it through an agency means they are paid through that agency. That's how labor works in America. However, we have had contractors leave their agency and join us full time multiple times.

2. LRG wasn't, I don't know about other companies, none of my business.

3. I thought that was generally the understanding from that post. Sorry if it wasn't clear.

4. The LRG EU branch will be ran by someone in the EU with experience doing this so I'm not worried about our compliance with EU laws.

Sure!

Day 1 LRG customer from Germany here, btw.

1.) So happy LRG EU is finally happening now! However…. I am wary after the lackluster Fangamer and NISA storefronts. Will the EU site be offering everything the US does? Can I still shop over there with the usual DDP shipping or will I / my country be blocked?

2.) Will there be any actual benefit for us customers? Shipping with EU isn't exactly cheap either, depending on what deal LRG was able to acquire.

For two 35$ standard Switch games I have to pay close to 100$ right now, with shipping and taxes. What's that gonna look like in the future?

3.) Those new CE boxes could be a good thing when filled with AWESOME artwork….looking at FM Towns cases, for example. Can you assure me the box won't feel cheap? Judging by the picture things could go either way with that. :)

4.) This will greatly limit possible CE contents though. Sure, usually it's a poster, some stickers and maybe a soundtrack, a pin or a disassembled standee anyway, which would fit….but just think of the amazing stuff we got with Toejam & Earl, To the Moon, Dust, Double Dragon Neon and so on. That won't be possible anymore, unless it's a big edition, but I suspect that will be reserved for retail-like games, like Dead Space.

SOR4 was your masterpiece, btw!

5.) Will Europe get imported ESRB games or will anything be different? I don't mind either way, just curious.

6.) Why didn't I get that 5$ newsletter coupon? :whistle2:/ (okay, less a question for you personally… ^^ )

That's all I can think of right now. Nice of you to offer deeper insights!
1. I don't have these answers yet, but because you brought up really good points, I will ask and check on that once it's in testing phase (soon) so thank you! I would want it to be easy for you and have DDP since it's supposed to be better for EU not harder.

2. I mean I guess my hope would be that shipping would be cheaper for you from our EU branch and you'd have an option for a EU version of a game. Nothing will stop you from being able to order from the US side though.

3. The box feels solid when I hold it and seems like it will be liked by everyone.

4. Some games will get a bigger CE treatment, so don't worry! Toejam sold insanely well so that's a game that would have got a proper CE.

5. I think the goal was to trade editions to each side. As long as it's direct to consumer it will be fine. I did learn it's technically illegal to sell non PEGI in store in the UK from PEGI themselves but okay if it's online, so it will be a case by case.

6. That's weird? Send me a DM I got you.

Can you be more transparent with what games from your Distro line will be sold at retail? Not all games from the Distro line are offered at retail. Limited Run used to make notes about this in the past on the game listing on the old web site and that stopped on the new site. I know there are the shop@amazon and shop@bestbuy links on the site but it be nice to know what games are going to be offered by your partners during the preorder window. Sometimes these games don't show up on Amazon or Best Buy until after the preorder window closes. Then I can make a decision to buy direct from Limited Run or wait to try and purchase from your retail partners. Thx.
Retail has been a huge headache and random as heck on what they take. I might say "hey Mr. Retail, will you take Shin Chan?" and they'll be like "Hmmm maybe" Then when it's time they say "nah just kidding". So it throws me off and makes me not want to give places our games anymore.

 
Wait am I really reading this right? All collector's editions are mostly going to be in the same box?

Hahaha this must be a joke

 
Wait am I really reading this right? All collector's editions are mostly going to be in the same box?

Hahaha this must be a joke
No that's not right. There will be some that will be unique. Others that fit a more "deluxe" approach will have a standardized box.

 
No that's not right. There will be some that will be unique. Others that fit a more "deluxe" approach will have a standardized box.
That seems reasonable to me and hopefully helps address the complaint that CEs slow down the queue for everyone else. If they are mostly standard id imagine they would get out the door faster. I'd still suggest not doing a CE at all for crappy games but this change is better than nothing, especially if more popular games get a more unique CE.

I'm cautiously optimistic. Still a lot of work to do but glad you are trying to make things better and are providing specific steps being taken to do so.
 
You should have got the gold card unless they ran out? I'm really sorry. I can check to see if we have those but something tells me we don't.
Well that's kinda messed up... you guys advertise the gold card for the fan bundle, which you don't ship until everything is ready... but then you run out of the gold cards that are MEANT for the fan bundle?

Like.... dude, come on. Those bundles are like a few hundred bucks EACH. Least you guys could do is make sure people get what they pay for after they wait 18 months.

 
Well that's kinda messed up... you guys advertise the gold card for the fan bundle, which you don't ship until everything is ready... but then you run out of the gold cards that are MEANT for the fan bundle?

Like.... dude, come on. Those bundles are like a few hundred bucks EACH. Least you guys could do is make sure people get what they pay for after they wait 18 months.
I got a gold jedi knight fan bundle card with a LRG t-shirt a bit when Doom shirts were shipping, and i think it might have been the rarest one in my binder before I sold them all off: I don’t think shantae PC PS5 is old enough where that could happen though.

Guess we can chalk another tally to “reasons why ditching cards is a good idea”: avoiding baffling mistakes like these. Hopefully it’s just a mistake and you can get the card you spent hundreds for…
 
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Well that's kinda messed up... you guys advertise the gold card for the fan bundle, which you don't ship until everything is ready... but then you run out of the gold cards that are MEANT for the fan bundle?

Like.... dude, come on. Those bundles are like a few hundred bucks EACH. Least you guys could do is make sure people get what they pay for after they wait 18 months.
I said I was going to check first.
 
I will have to say fewer Steelbooks means fewer non-Standard editions I will be ordering, especially with standard editions being more available via Amazon & GameStop instead of Best Buy. Also with 10 total orders still outstanding (KOTOR CE & Castlevania Requiem CE plus all 8 orders since July) I’m going to be slowing down my orders until things catch up.
 
One thing to keep in mind about Rightstuf is that they've always had a huge, overaching emphasis on customer experience and customer satisfaction. The founder called it "Super Service" and spoke about it in detail in his retirement message from a few months ago:

https://twitter.com/shawnekleckner/status/1603138316911738887

I am a bit concerned about how the company will adapt to the Crunchyroll acquisition but they've always done right by me in my 7 or 8 years shopping with them. Recently they even started sending out reminder emails listing all of my open pre-orders. Great company altogether.

Unfortunately, I don't feel like that is a priority for LRG. In the early days, sure. Even up to the release of Celeste and the accompanying apology card, it felt like it. But it's been downhill since, and pretty much every piece of feedback falls on deaf ears. They don't even bother responding to the feedback channel in their own Discord anymore.
I'm so sorry to see him go. Will always have fond memories of my first anime purchase, Record of Lodoss War OVA and TV series on VHS 😔
 
How is me posting here a PR tour? I was here long before you. Please stop making stuff up to satisfy your conspiracies.


Does anyone have any questions about our update I can answer?
Any insight on my issue I’ve mentioned a few times. Not your PR tour exactly, but it is related to customer relations and concerns about your company holding to its word and obligations. The listing description for the Valis mega bundle was changed after the fact, causing me to miss out on the Valis CE I would have purchased on its own had the megabundle not been falsely described at the time of purchase. All I’ve asked from customer service is a chance to just keep the CE allotment I had purchased as part of the megabundle and they said there is nothing they can do. Could you explain what system and logistics issues are preventing this? Thanks

zuldane, on 17 Dec 2022 - 01:40 AM, said:
I would think Doug or Josh can make the team do whatever it necessary to make the customer happy. Especially if it was acknowledged they changed the description after you purchased the bundle.

Yeah, customer support’s initial response was “After reviewing the bundles product page I can see where that may be a little confusion. I want to say that it does include a standard version of the game along with the Collector Editions version”. So even they took the initial description as stating the bundle included stand alone game plus CE. They acknowledged that the description was changed and now read differently, but could do nothing to address that but cancel the order if I wanted. I’ve gone ahead and requested the whole order be cancelled, if it’s my only option, even though I do still at least want the CE at retail price.

Like I said, this was my first bundle, but they have been doing these for years right? You’d think it would be routine by now how to state when the standard copy of the game is included in CE or an extra stand alone component of the bundle. And they do understand the difference since the terminology was changed after the fact.

 
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Does anyone have any questions about our update I can answer?
I haven't been following this thread so I don't know what the update was, nor have I checked the thread beyond a Ctrl-F, but has there been any movement on TG16-CD Rondo?

Fwiw asking this question, I really have no dog in this argument race, I've cut back physical buying on Switch considerably. Not because of LRG or even limited print issues... I had a string of just fucking awful games (even ones from mass market) at full price and I realize I need to be more discerning. Rondo though will be day one, if it helps bolster an effort that might not be worth it from a business perspective right now.

 
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