Limited Run Games (producing physical copies of digital games)

[Satoshi_Matrix]

It looks like the mystery September game will be Thomas Was Alone. A puzzle platformer with a strong narrative. Not exactly super exciting for me (bring on Rabi-Ribi please!!!) but I'll probably end up buying it regardless.

[kupomogli]

Yeaaah.... no. Thomas and friends can stay alone. A game that should be worth $1 going for $25, even if at retail, no thanks.

[Aussie2B]

Today's the day for Dragon Fantasy: The Black Tome of Ice and the Saturday Morning RPG vinyl OST. The latter is already gone, and I'm not sure if it's coming back at 6pm EST. The first batch of Dragon Fantasy's Vita version and OST went in the blink of an eye, but there's still a small amount left of the first batch of the PS4 version for now.

[Aussie2B]

Looks like there is more stock of the vinyl for later, and at some random time today, they'll be selling a very small number of bundles of Saturday Morning RPG for Vita or PS4 with the vinyl.

Interesting news today too. LRG is expanding into PC releases with the HD remaster of SUDA51's debut game The Silver Case.

[Aussie2B]

Even more exciting news came out yesterday. Apparently, LRG is releasing the second and third Shantae games on PS4 mid-October. It's especially great for Risky's Revenge because it'll be the first time the game has been released physically. These two have definitely shot up near the top of the LRG releases I'm looking forward to. And XSEED is releasing the fourth game soon, so it's a good time for fans of the series. Now if only we could get an affordable physical release of the first game, but at least it can be acquired legally at a decent price digitally on 3DS.

[Satoshi_Matrix]

Too bad there aren't Vita versions of either game as that's the platform I'd like to get them for, but I won't pass up the PS4 versions.

I'm so glad I bought the game when it first came out in 2002. I didn't yet have a GBA, and bought Shantae because of magazine coverage and thought it looked really, really great - plus I was a young teenager and quite liked the concept that the main character was wearing something like a bikini.

[kupomogli]

Fourth PS4 game I've received and the only PS4 game I've ever received that I've received in the mail that's now pretty much worthless. I'll see if I can get a refund on it, if I can't, might just trash the game. Had very little interest in Dragon Fantasy anyways but still had a little interest in it, this makes it as worthless as the digital version. Between most releases not being very good, if this happens again I don't think I'll be bothering with LRG anymore. I've mentioned they should start using cardboard backers or bubble wrap around each game in a post in the forum and that I'd be willing to pay a couple extra dollars to make sure the games came in good condition, will see where it goes though.

*edit*

So I never knew you could get the items shipped in a box, never saw the option of a box in their store or to choose when paying, but found out there actually is. Increases the order cost by $5 though which is a bit steep. $10 for shipping in the same region is a bit ridiculous. I wouldn't complain at $8 since it's just them as a small business, but even then it shouldn't cost more than $6 or $7. It's a flat rate fee of $7 at the post office of up to a certain weight, something a set of games isn't going to exceed.

[mailman187666]

^ I haven't picked up my copy of Dragon Fantasy from the PO yet, but the only other game I've ordered from LRG had the disc rattling around inside the case. It sucks that these games come in the mail like this when they are supposed to be collector's items.

[Aussie2B]

LRG will replace (or probably refund the item price) anything that's damaged, but it's on you to cover the return shipping. I personally opted to hold on to my slightly damaged PS4 Saturday Morning RPG rather than spend even more on it and waste my time on a trip to the post office. Maybe that was a dumb move given current values on the game, but oh well.

Either way, a damaged LRG game is definitely not worthless. I mean, if a slightly damaged sealed copy is worthless, then I guess all my opened Vita copies must be totally worthless too. But if you check completed eBay auctions, that's just not the case. I think a LRG release would have to be totally mangled, with the game unplayable, for it to lose essentially all value. I mean, people were clamoring to win even loose copies of Breach & Clear from LRG giveaways.

Anyway, Mystery Chronicle: One Way Heroics and Thomas Was Alone have been put up for sale, along with the Thomas Was Alone OST. The stock bar is in the red for most everything right now, but nothing is sold out of its first batch just yet. Seems the print run sizes are decent enough to prevent too much insanity this time around.

[Porksta]

And the shipping rates went up.

[Aussie2B]

Did they? I got $5.25 shipping for buying both platform variants of both games, but I assumed the increase was because it's the first time I'm buying four items at once from them. I know they've always said that international shipping is a flat rate of $15 for up to three games and $22 for four or more, so I assumed the same pattern of an increase after three items applied to domestic shipping too.

[Porksta]

Did they? I got $5.25 shipping for buying both platform variants of both games, but I assumed the increase was because it's the first time I'm buying four items at once from them. I know they've always said that international shipping is a flat rate of $15 for up to three games and $22 for four or more, so I assumed the same pattern of an increase after three items applied to domestic shipping too.

I just put in an order for one game - shipping has indeed gone up.

[Aussie2B]

Thanks for the info. Well, I'm glad it's a only a small increase at least, and it's nice to know that the domestic flat rate holds even beyond three items.

[kupomogli]

Either way, a damaged LRG game is definitely not worthless. I mean, if a slightly damaged sealed copy is worthless, then I guess all my opened Vita copies must be totally worthless too. But if you check completed eBay auctions, that's just not the case. I think a LRG release would have to be totally mangled, with the game unplayable, for it to lose essentially all value. I mean, people were clamoring to win even loose copies of Breach & Clear from LRG giveaways.

Damaged and disc is loose. I'm going to have to open it in order to replace the disc, haven't did that yet though because I'm going to email them and ask if they want me to open it and replace the disc or send it the way it is with the loose disc.

*edit*

I've emailed them about it, I've also included in the email mentions of the cardboard backers and found a bulk supplier, included the direct link in the email. For a bulk supply of cardboard backers, have one placed in between each game in a bubble mailer. Didn't mention this, but it'd offer even more protection with one on the outside of the games as well, and they're less than $.05 each. But for the example of having one between each game, if you got three games, you'd have one cardboard backer in between games one and two and one between games two and three and it'd cost $.10 extra. This would go a long way in protecting each game while costing very little money and I really do think they should do this, as I'd recommend everyone who is shipping multiple games in a bubble mailer. Wouldn't make a difference in shipping in a bubble mailer with this added protection either. The box would still be the best, but this is a way to almost guarantee safe arrival of their product while being an extremely low cost. At the very least, no blame could be pushed on them for the product not arriving safely because with this they'd have taken measures for that, if the backers are included and the product comes in damaged, then it's 100% the mailing carriers fault.

https://www.uline.com/BL_1852/Chipboard-Pads

We'll see what happens. I've gave them the idea of a cheap way to guarantee safety of the product while including cost effective shipping to their consumer. It will add a slight extra amount of time to include each backer, so say three games, insert the two backers in, put game one before the two backers, game two between the two, and game three after the last backer. It wouldn't much longer and the cost wouldn't be much more. By doing this it'd show just how much these limited releases mean to them and that while they're in it for the money(this isn't a knock, who wouldn't be, that's the reason to get in a business in the first place,) they're showing that they'll go enough out of their way to do what they can for the fans that are supporting them. They don't have to bend over backwards, but showing the fans they care a little bit goes a long way. Additionally, they increased the shipping by $.25, what's another $.25 to make it an even $5.50. Not having to pay $5 for a box and guaranteeing my games comes in good condition is worth the extra $.25. People who want to ensure safety can still purchase the box, but this will pretty much guarantee no damages.

It's just with the amount of bad rep you hear about LRG having damages in shipping since day one, they really need to do something like this. They've just recently dropped the fulfillment center and while this last one was sent by them, they can change their image and have people shouting praises of how much they care for their fans, etc, etc. Being known for being worse than Digital River when it comes to damages in shipping isn't a good thing and they need to turn this around. I obviously didn't complain before because I never had damages, this is the first time I've had damages, and this is only the fourth purchase I've made from them, so that's 25%. Compare that to Best Buy, Amazon, Play Asia, 365games, etc, that I've ordered multiple games together, and I can't tell you a time that I've received a game that's been damaged. Gamestop? I've only ordered online when I've had credit, so once, and that was an Atlus game that came with day one packaging. Let me just say that Gamestop is 0/1, 100% failure to safeguard my one item. I don't know how I got the item the way it was, but the box was mangled, ripped on multiple corners, etc, and it was a bubblewrap mailer with a thin layer of plastic that you can barely say it's a bubble wrap mailer. Good thing that there was an actual Vita case inside so I just tossed the outside packaging, but I have plenty of extra packaging from Atlus games that I've received from my Amazon copies and those arrived and are still in perfect condition. I also don't have Prime except the free once a year, so I always have to hit the(now $50) free shipping mark, so I always have more than one game from Amazon being shipped together.

[Aussie2B]

I don't know what you've been hearing, but I haven't experienced or heard about any higher rate of items showing up damaged with LRG than with any other company that sells similar quantities or greater of PS4 and Vita games. The only thing that's common is loose discs, but that holds true for anyone shipping PS4 games. These things just happen sometimes. I mean, I know it sucks, and I was disappointed when my Saturday Morning RPG showed up with minor damage. But I've placed 10 separate orders with LRG, and that was the only game I've had from them that showed up damaged. And since I've always bought multiple items at a time except for my Breach & Clear order, then that means only one damaged item out of 20+ individual items.

That said, I'm all for them improving their shipping methods, and having followed them all this time, it does seem like they've been striving to improve with each batch of games. Hopefully they will improve their packing and the rates of damage with drop in the future.

[Satoshi_Matrix]

I got my copy of of Dragon Fantasy a week or so ago, and I'm realy annoyed at whoever put together the cover art. Since Vita cases are so small to begin with, it is important for the spines to clearly identicate the game at a glance.

So I'm more than a little bit pissed off the spine uses a very dark solid blue background with the game logo itself using size 10 font and the subtitle using size 7 font. Only standing about 4 feet away, the whole spine appears dark blue with the logo just barely visible at all. You have to physically pull it out to even tell what game it is. And I have 20/20 vision. This is bullshit.

[Porksta]

I'm still waiting for my most recent order to ship...

[kupomogli]

I'm still waiting for my most recent order to ship...

Same here. Still don't have the shipping email. I don't mind the wait if it gets to me though, just don't want them to miss shipping mine.

[Porksta]

Same here. Still don't have the shipping email. I don't mind the wait if it gets to me though, just don't want them to miss shipping mine.

They said shipping could take two weeks. Today is two weeks. I have sent them messages on Twitter before and they give me this shitty line "we are just two people blah blah blah." So what? It takes two seconds to print a label and put a game in a mailer. If you can't handle the load in a timely fashion hire more people or make smaller runs.

[Aussie2B]

Have you guys logged in on the site and checked the fulfillment status? I've noticed that sometimes I don't get a shipping confirmation email, or I don't get it until the games have already shown up, but if I check on the site, I can see if the order has been shipped and check the tracking.

As for the most recent batch of games, I got an email about my copies shipping on the 7th, and apparently they were delivered yesterday, though I've been away from home for the last few weeks.