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

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Squarehard

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Yea unfortunate on the no steelbook thing. Most likely will just pass on all of it unless something good happens or they pop up on amazon or best buy. 

 
Anyone else having an issue with checking out with credit card on the LRG site?  Never had an issue until a few days ago.  The fields are there but it doesn't let me enter my credit card info.  I can click on and check out with the Paypal button just fine though (which I did).  The odd thing was around a week ago I started getting messages from my antivirus on the LRG checkout screen about the software blocking a malware link to something like "amazon skimmer" or something like that.  Not sure if its related.

 
LimitedRunDoug said:
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?
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Thanks for the $5 off coupon. It's going towards Moon!

Edit: Sorry, let me rephrase that in the form of a question for you. Is it going towards Moon?

 
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I’ve been following from the sidelines, it looks like no posts have been deleted as the top of the page in safari (when not logged in) is still the same (Doug’s last post). I’m curious what has been cleaned up? Just folks editing their posts or moderation (very rare) in stealth? The bigger posts all look intact.
giphy.gif
 
Yeah the only sort of removal i noticed in the thread lately was some guy coming on the thread and CAG for the first time in years a few days ago, remarking “that seafoam gaming guy is obsessed” in a post about LRG’s bad ship times before that post got deleted. Why the random dig at me as someone’s first post in ages, no clue, but otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to notice much the past few days due to being on vacation and having reviews to write
 
My blind boxes shipped last week at some point, I guess? Didn't get any shipment emails but saw it show up on my USPS daily inform email or whatever that they were waiting for a shipment from shipping partner DHL, checked LRG and it was for the blind boxes.
 
Lots of blind boxes opening going on in game groups.

Lots of ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ -"I expected nothing and am still disappointed."

Good times.
 

 
TheKbob said:
Lots of blind boxes opening going on in game groups.

Lots of ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ -"I expected nothing and am still disappointed."

Good times.
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I was just amazed that I got a game I already own because I never specifically bought from LRG before and Haven I bought a few months back for wife and I and she doesn't like it...she's more of a borderlands/ It Takes Two gamer I guess

Also what are the numbers on the box? The Christmas ones says LRG #1 and Haven says #12..find it hard to believe that those are the first and twelfth game they ever made physically

 
valiki7375 said:
Got my 2 PS5 blind boxes....

Cthulu Saves Christmas (and a panzer dragon card?)
Haven (with some print plate card of no idea who
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Oh shit, nice. Those plate cards are rare, since there's only one each I believe...

I'm simply unlucky when it comes to cards at LRG. Beyond not getting a single one of the promised gold fan edition cards, I just haven't even get any gold cards in years. Have gotten dozens of games in the last two to three years but always get silver cards.
 
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valiki7375 said:
Got my 2 PS5 blind boxes....

Cthulu Saves Christmas (and a panzer dragon card?)
Haven (with some print plate card of no idea who
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Holy shit, the printing plate is actually a really rare get: it’s basically the proof they used to make the cards? Could sell for a lot by itself or be a good keepsake if you like the game it references.

TheKbob said:
Lots of blind boxes opening going on in game groups.
Lots of ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ -"I expected nothing and am still disappointed."
Good times.
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What remains to be seen is if they slip in games not advertised as possibilities again, like with some CEs. People were not happy Superepic somehow snuck into the ce Blinds.

Curious if Holy potatoes will be this year’s jumanji. All those spare copies from not selling MOQ (which is the case on a lot of stuff lately) gotta go somewhere…
 
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See lots of Star Wars singles (you know, the ones that got later double packs,...) and just stuff I forgot they published.  I think it's pretty rotten they can put distribution titles in them. 

 
Is it a trading card print plate or cover art print plate? They've randomly given out cover art print plates before. I got the plate for Ms. 'Splosion Man on Switch. I have that puppy in a double-sided frame.

 
valiki7375 said:
Also what are the numbers on the box? The Christmas ones says LRG #1 and Haven says #12..find it hard to believe that those are the first and twelfth game they ever made physically
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As PS5 Limited Runs they are the first PS5 game and the 12th when they started doing physicals for PS5 games.

Numbering is based on console platform.

 
lrg made the right call in getting rid of the cards, they sucked anyway and if it speeds up delivery time then im all for it.
 
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Appreciate all the replies.  As far as the printing plate I will have to take a picture of it and post here because I have no idea who or what it refers to lol.

Also the cards were random, Panzer dragoon and the other card do not have anything to do with  the games I got.  It was an odd bonus and I am not that big into collecting cards.  I did like the blind box packaging though.  That was a nice touch!

 
valiki7375 said:
Appreciate all the replies. As far as the printing plate I will have to take a picture of it and post here because I have no idea who or what it refers to lol.

Also the cards were random, Panzer dragoon and the other card do not have anything to do with the games I got. It was an odd bonus and I am not that big into collecting cards. I did like the blind box packaging though. That was a nice touch!
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Yeah the BB/T-shirt cards are always random. My luckiest get was the gold Jedi Knight fan bundle card with a LRG T-Shirt I bought lol
 
redrum666 said:
https://twitter.com/LimitedRunGames/status/1638586743506051086?s=20[/size]
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So uh… that’s the new CE standard going forward I assume? Kinda disappointing if they’ll all be just like this then. I forgot this game was coming out though, glad to see the digital release is likely very imminent if this is going live
 
Considering that has the clamshell case LRG mentioned, I'm guessing this is the standard going forward. Though they are calling this the "classic edition," so who knows. 

Doug, are these soundtracks in standard CD cases, or the flimsy cardboard sleeves? The latter has definitely been becoming the standard for publishers in general, and they aren't as nice (obviously cheaper).

 
HaloGX said:
Considering that has the clamshell case LRG mentioned, I'm guessing this is the standard going forward. Though they are calling this the "classic edition," so who knows.

Doug, are these soundtracks in standard CD cases, or the flimsy cardboard sleeves? The latter has definitely been becoming the standard for publishers in general, and they aren't as nice (obviously cheaper).
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They had a cool thing going with uniform CD jewel cases, but some CEs include cardboard sleeves or some include jewelcases without the LRG branding: it's very inconsistent and stuff like Ground Zero Texas went from a jewel case in the preorder to a sleeve in reality. I think the only OST they outright messed up though was the CD for SCAT. (since the ending theme glitched and won't fully loop due to a mastering error) If the CEs are in uniform cases, might as well make the CD cases uniform too...

 
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I literally scrape the bottom of the Steam barrel and play hundreds of demos a year, and I am still surprised LRG finds games to publish I've never heard of...

 
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Same haha. Mighty Fight Federation looks like a garbage arena beat em up. It does have Kunio-kun as DLC, but I already put it on my ignore Steam list long ago. Expect these in future blind boxes. Deathwish Enforcers hasn't come out, but is obviously a Sunset Riders inspired shooting game. I liked that and will look forward to it releasing whenever it does, although I wont buy a physical copy.

 
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I picked up 'Mighty Fight Federaton' for Switch at our local ComicCon last fall. The indie characters are what sold me. Then again, I bought it directly from the dev with no shipping and no tax. I haven't played it yet. 

 
Deathwish Enforcers looks fun. That said, not placing a preorder. May be I'll check it out if LRG sells copies on Amazon once it has them in-hand.

No longer preordering until I hear the fulfillment times have come down significantly.
 
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TheKbob said:
I literally scrape the bottom of the Steam barrel and play hundreds of demos a year, and I am still surprised LRG finds games to publish I've never heard of...
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LRG and the other limited print companies are going to have to go back on their "no reprint" principles at some point if they care about revenue growth, which they obviously do. And there's lots of ways to do it too, new cover art, new CE merch, new print release category branding, etc. The current model is not sustainable. The current model treats nearly all numbered releases like all games are of equal value and we know nothing in the world is like that. It would be like if amateur rappers selling their own demo tapes out of their cars are at the same level of value as Taylor Swift vinyl. But that's the cycle of all companies, assuming they survive and grow long-term -- you start with some idealized niche principle and then you become just like everybody else.

 
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Stele said:
LRG and the other limited print companies are going to have to go back on their "no reprint" principles at some point if they care about revenue growth, which they obviously do. And there's lots of ways to do it too, new cover art, new CE merch, new print release category branding, etc. The current model is not sustainable. The current model treats nearly all numbered releases like all games are of equal value and we know nothing in the world is like that. It would be like if amateur rappers selling their own demo tapes out of their cars are at the same level of value as Taylor Swift vinyl. But that's the cycle of all companies, assuming they survive and grow long-term -- you start with some idealized niche principle and then you become just like everybody else.
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The limited companies don't do reprints. The developers are free to do other print runs after the limited print. And I highly doubt many of these devs would sign on if they never get to reprint their games again. That's leaving much needed money for (most) of them on the table. The most these limited companies do is release the same game on a different platform.

 
You're just describing what they do right now, which what I'm pointing out is it's not a sustainable business model for limited print companies long-term as they're already reaching very deep into the shovelware bucket. LRG having a normal distro line is already a symptom of this transition. LRG and these companies are able to do what they do because working with traditional publishers was cumbersome for indie developers and the "limited print" aspect of that business model was 1) a gimmick and 2) a way to curtail potential losses of a large print run that doesn't sell. My prediction is the limited print companies just mimic their larger publishing competitors in the long-run but maintain the focus on indie developers. The limited print aspect will fall to the wayside at some point.

 
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The long lead times and the glut of games that don't tickle my fancy just makes me get the games I want on a Steam sale and forget about a physical copy for PS4/Switch.

If we ever cross the point where your Steam library isn't considered safe, then I suppose I'll just play my backlog of physical stuffs, but $4 for a game to play now versus $40 for a copy of questionable value later (seems like a lot more unpatched releases sneaking out of places these days...) is just less mental effort to think about.

Not to pull in a bunch of leadership jargon and whatnot, but it really does feel like LRG lost their original thread of "Why?" regarding why do they exist.  It was about gamers making other gamers happy. 

Now it feels like more an appeal to either the "alternative asset class" types or hoarders.  Maybe the leadership is tired or maybe they have to put out all this stuff to keep the lights on, but feels like the thread's been lost.  More so in Doug's post that lend light towards spending more time on passion projects that may not make good sense in either case (ex. the store).

 
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Vast majority of company founders are not visionaries. Even some of the CEOs that eventually expanded their companies into large multi-nationals were actually perfectly fine with operating at a small-scale for even a decade. As an example, Nike was founded by Phil Knight originally as just an importer of ASICS (or Onitsuka Tiger as it was known back then) running shoes from Japan. They only came up with their own brand of products that they manufactured when ASICS cut them off. Ultimately, the glide path for LRG and some of the larger LP companies to more sustainable revenue is just more physical releases of popular indie games. They'll probably need to run into a crisis before they fully transition away from the initial gimmick.  What's probably delayed that transition is that a big chunk of LP game buyers are people with addiction issues and OCD, so you have this extremely sticky captive customer base that you can abuse for far longer than normal customers lol.

 
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Stele said:
You're just describing what they do right now, which what I'm pointing out is it's not a sustainable business model for limited print companies long-term as they're already reaching very deep into the shovelware bucket. LRG having a normal distro line is already a symptom of this transition. LRG and these companies are able to do what they do because working with traditional publishers was cumbersome for indie developers and the "limited print" aspect of that business model was 1) a gimmick and 2) a way to curtail potential losses of a large print run that doesn't sell. My prediction is the limited print companies just mimic their larger publishing competitors in the long-run but maintain the focus on indie developers. The limited print aspect will fall to the wayside at some point.
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LRG has already made the transition to selling significant amounts of books, vinyl and merchandise of all descriptions. Their line now includes distro from some of the largest publishers in the world including EA who chose them for the exclusive on Dead Space. Most of their games are open preorder with the exception of certain PS4 titles. I would argue that they have already found the way forward to continue driving profit without relying as heavily on FOMO. Despite the constant cries for a reprint of certain Shantae titles and a few others, it's not as if most of their library or anyone else's limited library has a ton of titles that have sufficient demand for a reprint, at least not in the near term. I think what will finally kill the limited market is Sony and Nintendo continuing the shift to digital and not wanting to deal with small print runs of things and all the overhead it takes to manage the output of these niche companies. Frankly, I'm surprised they even allowed it in the first place considering a single AAA title likely sells more copies than all of LRG's output over the past five years.

 
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HaloGX said:
The limited companies don't do reprints. The developers are free to do other print runs after the limited print. And I highly doubt many of these devs would sign on if they never get to reprint their games again. That's leaving much needed money for (most) of them on the table. The most these limited companies do is release the same game on a different platform.
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In all honesty, most devs never do a reprint either. Of the hundreds of games LRG has published, only a small fraction have ever made it to a retail or second limited publisher release. LRG has probably reprinted more niche titles that saw their initial print by another limited company or perhaps at retail in a non-ESRB territory than the other way around. The market remains small and only a tiny number of games have the built-in fanbase to justify an additional print run.

 
People have been saying they have to do reprints more or less since the inception of the company and it's not any more likely to happen now than it was then. They're finding loopholes, like the convention variants and reprinting for new consoles (i.e. Shantae on PS5), but I think they know the PR backlash they'd be signing up for by actually pulling that trigger. I personally wouldn't care (more availability is always good), but a large amount of their product gets pushed because it will only be available through them and the group of people looking at video games as investments is a part of that market they may lose. I don't know if they stay afloat without FOMO.

I think their answer to the corner they backed themselves into there is the distribution line. There are no rules or commitments, they can sell it wherever, reprint it wherever, and make more informed decisions based on hard sales numbers. They've also diversified into retro repros, additional consoles (Xbox), CEs, and merch. I don't really know how successful that's been but they keep it going for the most part so margins are good and/or they sell more than we think.

Overall the limited print market is a niche, and honestly one I'm surprised has ballooned as far as it did. I do think the ones that survive long-term will become "just another publisher", a la Sodesco or pre-Sega Atlus that sell a smaller volume of copies by nature of market size and without advertising them as "Limited Print".

 
Tothoro said:
People have been saying they have to do reprints more or less since the inception of the company and it's not any more likely to happen now than it was then. They're finding loopholes, like the convention variants and reprinting for new consoles (i.e. Shantae on PS5), but I think they know the PR backlash they'd be signing up for by actually pulling that trigger. I personally wouldn't care (more availability is always good), but a large amount of their product gets pushed because it will only be available through them and the group of people looking at video games as investments is a part of that market they may lose. I don't know if they stay afloat without FOMO.

I think their answer to the corner they backed themselves into there is the distribution line. There are no rules or commitments, they can sell it wherever, reprint it wherever, and make more informed decisions based on hard sales numbers. They've also diversified into retro repros, additional consoles (Xbox), CEs, and merch. I don't really know how successful that's been but they keep it going for the most part so margins are good and/or they sell more than we think.

Overall the limited print market is a niche, and honestly one I'm surprised has ballooned as far as it did. I do think the ones that survive long-term will become "just another publisher", a la Sodesco or pre-Sega Atlus that sell a smaller volume of copies by nature of market size and without advertising them as "Limited Print".
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I agree with almost all of what you said, but isn't Sodesco essentially defunct as a physical publisher? Are there any non-limited but indie publishers still doing retail releases in the US anymore? I guess maybe Maximum Games, PM Studios (although they have done some CE/LE exclusives with LRG) or maybe NIS and Idea Factory, but I think most of the rest have folded.

 
bojay1997 said:
I agree with almost all of what you said, but isn't Sodesco essentially defunct as a physical publisher? Are there any non-limited but indie publishers still doing retail releases in the US anymore? I guess maybe Maximum Games, PM Studios (although they have done some CE/LE exclusives with LRG) or maybe NIS and Idea Factory, but I think most of the rest have folded.
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Sodesco has put out quite a few physical games recently. The recent standouts from them Airoheart and Charon's Staircase. There is also Merge Games, Inin, Serenity Forge, Microids, Nicalis, PQube... there's a lot dude.

 
bojay1997 said:
I agree with almost all of what you said, but isn't Sodesco essentially defunct as a physical publisher? Are there any non-limited but indie publishers still doing retail releases in the US anymore? I guess maybe Maximum Games, PM Studios (although they have done some CE/LE exclusives with LRG) or maybe NIS and Idea Factory, but I think most of the rest have folded.
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falsedichotomies said:
Sodesco has put out quite a few physical games recently. The recent standouts from them Airoheart and Charon's Staircase. There is also Merge Games, Inin, Serenity Forge, Microids, Nicalis, PQube... there's a lot dude.
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Red Art Games is a indie limited run publisher from France that is now publishing ESRB rated games in NA.
I bought a couple of their pal Vita releases when they first started.

ESRB rated games:

Nuclear Blaze

Vernal Edge

Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising
ONI: Road to be the Mightiest Oni
8Doors: Arum’s Afterlife Adventure
Record of Lodoss War: Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth
They Always Run

 
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falsedichotomies said:
Sodesco has put out quite a few physical games recently. The recent standouts from them Airoheart and Charon's Staircase. There is also Merge Games, Inin, Serenity Forge, Microids, Nicalis, PQube... there's a lot dude.
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Those two Sodesco releases came out in October 2022 and it had been almost a year prior to that that they had released anything physically. They haven't released anything in 2023 and I don't see anything on their upcoming release list physically. Microids is Maximum Games and the others like Serenity Forge, Merge, Iain, Nicalis and PQUBE are lucky if they do maybe 4-8 releases a year. Not exactly the LRG business model and it's unlikely any of those companies is generating millions a year in sales on physical stuff.

 
But as far as collecting what might be "rare", those companies are the ones to follow. Ironic considering LRG was founded under the unspoken pretext that everything they shat out would be that way.

 
Tothoro said:
People have been saying they have to do reprints more or less since the inception of the company and it's not any more likely to happen now than it was then. They're finding loopholes, like the convention variants and reprinting for new consoles (i.e. Shantae on PS5), but I think they know the PR backlash they'd be signing up for by actually pulling that trigger. I personally wouldn't care (more availability is always good), but a large amount of their product gets pushed because it will only be available through them and the group of people looking at video games as investments is a part of that market they may lose. I don't know if they stay afloat without FOMO.

I think their answer to the corner they backed themselves into there is the distribution line. There are no rules or commitments, they can sell it wherever, reprint it wherever, and make more informed decisions based on hard sales numbers. They've also diversified into retro repros, additional consoles (Xbox), CEs, and merch. I don't really know how successful that's been but they keep it going for the most part so margins are good and/or they sell more than we think.

Overall the limited print market is a niche, and honestly one I'm surprised has ballooned as far as it did. I do think the ones that survive long-term will become "just another publisher", a la Sodesco or pre-Sega Atlus that sell a smaller volume of copies by nature of market size and without advertising them as "Limited Print".
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I wouldn't extrapolate the thought of "it hasn't happened yet so it will never happen in the future" too far into the future. LRG was "founded' in 2015, so basically a company so young it hasn't even gone through a recessionary cycle yet. Well, we're either going through one right now or will be in the next year or two (unless the Fed actually loses the war on inflation, which is also just as bad for different reasons). The FOMO market, like a lot of bubbles, only work when there's a lot of cheap money flowing around. That cheap money goes away when the supposed risk-free interest rate is 5-6%. A lot of changes will happen in the next several years. Mostly bad ones for most businesses.

 
bojay1997 said:
I agree with almost all of what you said, but isn't Sodesco essentially defunct as a physical publisher? Are there any non-limited but indie publishers still doing retail releases in the US anymore? I guess maybe Maximum Games, PM Studios (although they have done some CE/LE exclusives with LRG) or maybe NIS and Idea Factory, but I think most of the rest have folded.
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Sodesco is just one of the first things I'd thought of. I remember seeing their name on a release late last year, Saint Kotar, and being surprised. I'm not sure how prominent they are now comparatively, but a lot of their releases have been low print because that's all they could sell. The other companies you listed are also good examples.

Stele said:
I wouldn't extrapolate the thought of "it hasn't happened yet so it will never happen in the future" too far into the future. LRG was "founded' in 2015, so basically a company so young it hasn't even gone through a recessionary cycle yet. Well, we're either going through one right now or will be in the next year or two (unless the Fed actually loses the war on inflation, which is also just as bad for different reasons). The FOMO market, like a lot of bubbles, only work when there's a lot of cheap money flowing around. That cheap money goes away when the supposed risk-free interest rate is 5-6%. A lot of changes will happen in the next several years. Mostly bad ones for most businesses.
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Occam's razor, my friend. If LRG is about to go under a few thousand copies of Pirate's Curse that will take a year to produce won't save them. For better or for worse, they've scaled to a point where the numbers need to be bigger to keep the wheel turning. The number of releases that they could realistically pump out a few more thousand of from their number line are pretty limited and would disrupt their own core buyer's market in the process. Not to mention the legal hurdle if what LRG's said about their contracts not allowing reprints is true.

I'm not saying this about you specifically, so please don't interpret it that way, but most of the arguments I've heard in favor of reprints over the years are strawmen by people who in reality just don't want to pay aftermarket premiums for games they missed. And when companies have catered to that, they've had mixed results. Idea Factory has a really hard time selling through the reprints they've done, as an example. Inventory sitting around is bad, and when smaller publishers are trying to decide whether they can sell through MoQ it's a big gamble. When people don't buy the reprint because they still don't want to pay MSRP, it hurts them.

I'm a big fan of the way VGP has been handling reprints, though. They target titles that are ridiculous on the secondhand market and it works. I could see them picking up some of the reprint slack with different covers and such, but there would still be some work there; as I understand they essentially just re-order the existing package through Sony/Nintendo's systems with the publisher and changes to the package might require re-approval or re-certification.

 
portnoyd said:
But as far as collecting what might be "rare", those companies are the ones to follow. Ironic considering LRG was founded under the unspoken pretext that everything they shat out would be that way.
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There is really no such thing as "rare" in the modern era. I suspect most LRG releases, at least the niche ones that don't go to Amazon or elsewhere, are still pressed in numbers far below those of the retail niche publishers. Even still, none of them are rare, particularly in a market where the audience isn't exactly getting any more numerous or any younger.

 
bojay1997 said:
There is really no such thing as "rare" in the modern era. I suspect most LRG releases, at least the niche ones that don't go to Amazon or elsewhere, are still pressed in numbers far below those of the retail niche publishers. Even still, none of them are rare, particularly in a market where the audience isn't exactly getting any more numerous or any younger.
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You don't consider poop slinger rare?
 
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