After giving in to the Dork Side yet again, I nabbed an Arc The Lad boxset for the PS1. After going through everything, I realized just how much stuff was in there. I've gotten Working Designs-published games before, and I knew of the glorious tradition of WD tossing in all sorts of things going from the cool (Arc the Lad memory card case, soundtracks soundtracks soundtracks) to the interesting but weird (the Lunar 2 pendant, Growlanser's watch) to the would-be-kickass-if-collectors-weren't-scared-to-open-them-and-use-them (playing cards, stickers). I know that this is at least partially responsible for WD slow financial demise; making all this stuff could not be cheap, especially with a relatively niche market.

I just want to know, what started all this? Feelies of one kind or another have been around forever, but something of this scale and this consistency is just over the top (this is NOT a complaint, I love all the goodies). And did anybody else out there use their powers for awesome like this, before or since? Not just a 'special edition' with a soundtrack CD or an artbook (though those are great too), I mean consistent releases with lots of/extra nifty swag.