Limited Run Games (producing physical copies of digital games)

[Bojay1997]

I also hope they'll do reprints. Sure, I do get the whole "limited" appeal, but doing several limited runs of something won't hurt anything.

That's not their business model though. Without some sense that reprints won't be made, you probably would lose a massive amount of the audience for buying these releases. Personally, I don't care about the limited nature or the rarity, but many other people do and I understand that for this business model to work, the limited nature of the releases has to be maintained.

[Aussie2B]

Yeah, there were even people losing their shit when they heard about the 300-some Breach & Clear restock, assuming that it was additional copies on top of the 1500 run (which they weren't, just cancelled bulk orders).

Personally, I don't have a problem with the one-time printing. I just hope that they can gauge demand enough so that future games have enough copies to at least last for a day, preferably longer yet. Just so long as it isn't too much of a mad dash to buy. As far as I'm concerned, they give pretty ample time to learn about what's on the horizon and when it'll go on sale (I mean, the Vita and PS4 versions of Saturday Morning RPG and Cosmic Star Heroine will probably take us through January at least, I'm guessing? And the sales date for PS4 Saturday Morning RPG was listed on the site a month in advance), so it's just a matter of checking in once in a while and keeping tabs on the sales dates of whatever you want. It only sucks for people who won't learn about Limited Run Games until after titles they want are already sold out, but that can happen with countless games.

[FieryReign]

Welcome to game collecting, are you new here?

If people will spend thousands of dollars on Stadium Events, which is not an amazing game and can also be had easily under the name World Class Track Meet, then, yes, of course collectors will pay big bucks for games that aren't very good and can be played under other circumstances just because they're very rare. I'm not saying any of these will definitely be worth a lot someday, but at a minimum, Breach & Clear will probably never be worth less than what it just sold for, given the small size of its print run. That's a pretty low risk scenario if you prefer physical releases and just want to give a game a shot.

But you're comparing 20+ year old relics to poopy B+C. Honestly, who is seeking out Breach n Clear? Nobody. And it's a tiny game, memory/storage wise. Why not put all of their output on a single BD/Vita cart? That's greedy putting these tiny games on physical, individually. They could easily fit their entire catalog on a single disc.

[Bojay1997]

But you're comparing 20+ year old relics to poopy B+C. Honestly, who is seeking out Breach n Clear? Nobody. And it's a tiny game, memory/storage wise. Why not put all of their output on a single BD/Vita cart? That's greedy putting these tiny games on physical, individually. They could easily fit their entire catalog on a single disc.

Your arguments are ridiculous and all over the place. You had argued that B&C wasn't going to maintain it's value because it's not a great game. As others have pointed out, Stadium Events and many other valuable older games are not great games in the opinions of many people. That doesn't mean they aren't valuable or sought after by collectors.

There's nothing greedy about giving people what they want to buy. The game sold out, so clearly there are plenty of people that think Limited Run Games is doing something worth doing. There are also plenty of people seeking out a physical release of Breach and Clear as 1500 copies sold in just over an hour and lots of people are posting on various message boards about how much they wish there would be a second print run. You're free to not buy their products, but that doesn't mean that others are going to follow your lead or that your opinion carries any weight.

[Spartacus]

Personally, I don't have a problem with the one-time printing. I just hope that they can gauge demand enough so that future games have enough copies to at least last for a day, preferably longer yet.

That's about the way I feel about. I'm not sure why they don't choose to use pre-orders to gauge demand.

I see Breach & Clear on Amazon for $475.00. It's kinda sad, but not unexpected. I guess people have every right to make as much profit as they possibly can. But I wonder what the developers and publishers think when they see it.
I'll be curious what the used price will be a year or two from now.

Fortunately, it's a bit better on Ebay. $75.00 shipped seems pretty reasonable to me.

[Bojay1997]

That's about the way I feel about. I'm not sure why they don't choose to use pre-orders to gauge demand.

I think they've already explained why they aren't doing preorders to gauge demand. It's pretty clear that a good chunk of the demand comes from people knowing there are only "x" number of copies being produced. If you take that away, a significant part of the audience and the urgency of people ordering goes away. Just look at how much Vic at Gaijinworks has struggled to get enough people to just commit through a non-binding registration system and then an actual purchase system to hit just a few thousand copies of his games. Sometimes the preorders have had to drag on a month and even then he barely made the minimum to make it financially viable. Gamersedition has similarly struggled and I believe only one (Hotline Miami) of their three projects has reached the preorder goal and moved forward to publishing. IndieBox figured out almost immediately that a subscription model was the only way to make things work for their business as people deciding to buy each individual game or not was too variable and uncertain. Personally, I like what Limited Run is doing and hopefully this will open the door to other small publishers doing physical releases as it seems to be a more viable model than hoping gamers come along with an interest in preordering a particular game.

[Tanooki]

Spartacus hopefully it infuriates and encourages those game publishers seeing people flipping their work at such high dollar amounts to make more copies available IF they see suckers paying 2, 5, 10, 20x the value of what they're pricing the game at. They'd know people were interested if they were dim enough to over pay that badly on a game. Some would do it thinking it's a collectors item which is incredibly foolish and others because for some reason or another they really want it that badly to use. You have to pity the system adopters who come in a few months/years after such a small run having to eat it or leave it for such games or those who just have a financial crunch during that window (or just miss it if it's really faster than a day) as it's not their fault as much as the sponges who want to attempt to grease someone else. Retro City Rampage PS4 got like 2000 copies made, and a bunch of them went right up on ebay before they even arrived in their hands well over the $100 mark and I think it still is over $100 at this rate if it's sealed.

[Gameguy]

Bojay1997 already got the reason why they won't be printing any more of them, a lot of people are buying these because of their limited availability and perceived appreciation in value. If the publishers kept printing more copies until everyone who wanted one had one, there would be no value in them and people wouldn't want them. It's the same appeal that any limited collectors edition has for any type of hobby. Mass production only works if something has mass appeal, which these games in physical form don't have.

[Tanooki]

That's why I threw in hopefully there from the beginning. I know why it's done, I just don't like it or agree with it. There are others in the same boat that have been popping up in mass in the bargain bins at Best Buy and what not for like $15-20 -- Pure Pool and a few others, decent games too and all originally downloads. I'd rather things were consistently made but in small numbers until demand is satisfied than help prop up the ignorant greedy flipper mentality types is all.

[mailman187666]

Anybody have an idea what time Saturday Morning RPG goes on sale today?

[Aussie2B]

It's not going to go on sale today. It got "delayed" to January 15th. Originally they were doing it like a preorder so that they could fund the Vita version, which would've been put up for sale in December, with both versions shipping in January. But they decided that they'd rather open sales when they actually have the game already manufactured so that they can ship immediately, like they did with Breach & Clear. So the PS4 version goes for sale on January 15th and will ship right away, and then a little later, the Vita version will be up for sale and shipping as well.

[mailman187666]

Thanks for the info. I had no idea they delayed it.

[Aussie2B]

Saturday Morning RPG has been put up for sale! I managed to snag a Vita version + soundtrack bundle. They're putting their stock up in halves, the first just went up at 10am EST and the second goes up at 6pm EST. The first half of the soundtrack bundles sold out ridiculously fast (less than 10 minutes), but there's still a small amount of just the games available. If you guys want, either rush over there right now, or be sure to be on their site at 6pm sharp. I'm guessing there won't be quite as much of a rush then, since there are probably plenty of people like me who wanted to jump on the first batch and not take any chances, but who knows. On Twitter, I see LRG is considering limiting orders on the second batch to one per person per platform, though (for the first batch, you could order two per platform, so as many as four, though only one soundtrack bundle per order since there are significantly fewer copies of the OST available than the game).

[kupomogli]

Congratulations on getting a copy. I'm still waiting for Cosmic Star Heroine. I'm going to purchase a PS4 and Vita version of it.

[megasdkirby]

30 minutes...and it was ALL GONE!

Was able to pick up the PS4 and Vita versions (solo...don't care for the soundtrack), thanks to my brother (I was working at the time). That was at 11:04am AST (10:04am EST). At around 11:34am AST, I decided to check again and saw that ALL of them were sold! DAMN that was quick!

Granted, that was the first half. The second half will soon be available. How long will that last?

[Aussie2B]

I think the soundtrack bundles may have sold out even faster with the second half, geez. After seeing how fast the stock sold with the first batch, I figured what the hell and ordered a standalone PS4 copy too. Now to just see if it's possible to have my orders manually combined, but if not, no biggie. Looks like they're going to have to up the print runs yet again for the next game. I'm really hoping they can eventually figure out that sweet spot that'll maintain enough demand to sell through everything but at a comfortable rate so that it's not a mad dash. Obviously it'll vary from title to title, though.

[kupomogli]

For those that did it on this game, can you order a PS4 copy and a Vita copy in one order or do you have to create two separate orders?

*edit*

Anyways, I'm at work right now and saw the recent post so checked Limited Run games to see if any were available and there were some Vita version available. I decided I'd just pick one up. Too bad there were no PS4 versions left, I probably would have just went for both of them.

Refreshed my screen and apparently the PS4 stock was still available, or some sort of cancellation went through or what, went to add it to my cart and reorder and nope.

[Zap!]

For those that did it on this game, can you order a PS4 copy and a Vita copy in one order or do you have to create two separate orders?

*edit*

Anyways, I'm at work right now and saw the recent post so checked Limited Run games to see if any were available and there were some Vita version available. I decided I'd just pick one up. Too bad there were no PS4 versions left, I probably would have just went for both of them.

Refreshed my screen and apparently the PS4 stock was still available, or some sort of cancellation went through or what, went to add it to my cart and reorder and nope.

I did the same thing a couple of hours ago. The only one available was the Vita version, so I bought it. Then a half hour ago my friend (he posts on here as megasdkirby) put up a link on my Facebook for the PS4 version. Said there were only two copies left. I added it to cart, but as soon as I did, it said sold out. So I refreshed a couple of times, and it went to 1 copy left, then to "sold out", to back to one. Finally, it let me buy it by PayPal, and I paid. We'll see what happens next.

[Scissors]

I think the soundtrack bundles may have sold out even faster with the second half, geez. After seeing how fast the stock sold with the first batch, I figured what the hell and ordered a standalone PS4 copy too. Now to just see if it's possible to have my orders manually combined, but if not, no biggie. Looks like they're going to have to up the print runs yet again for the next game. I'm really hoping they can eventually figure out that sweet spot that'll maintain enough demand to sell through everything but at a comfortable rate so that it's not a mad dash. Obviously it'll vary from title to title, though.

Thanks for bumping this topic. I missed the first batch, but got one of each in the afternoon. I don't think they actually restocked the soundtrack bundle though. I added it to my cart within seconds of it saying it was back in stock, but as soon as I tried to checkout, it said they were out of stock. I tried several times with both versions, but the same thing happened every time.

[Zap!]

So anyone get their yet in the mail?