Limited Run Games (producing physical copies of digital games)

[Aussie2B]

The Star Wars releases aren't going to end anytime soon, since they announced a whole boatload of them. I have zero interest in them myself, considering I don't care about the Star Wars franchise in general, I haven't played any Star Wars game I thought was particularly good, and I would sooner buy the cheaper, fully official (as in, licensed by Nintendo) versions of the ones I don't already have. The only repros I would even consider buying would be of games that are very expensive on the secondhand market.

Anyone here knows where I could still get LRG The Tribute Treasure Box for Switch?

I would assume eBay is your best bet. You could look around on forums and social media to see if any collectors are selling directly to other collectors, but there's no guarantee their prices would be any better than eBay.

[Greg2600]

Well there's plenty of GREAT Star Wars games, but these aren't them. In fact, Shadows on PC was far superior, and they should have just offered that on PS4 or something. In terms of swag, I still have the PC soundtrack CD, which was excellent, if you dig Star Wars music. Not dumb coins or posters.

Is it greed on LRG part? It's really about the nutcases who have to collect EVERYTHING. Their M.O. was physical copies for digital only games, which was fine. This repro stuff is nuts, but they're not the only ones. You have other indie publishers now selling total repro CIB cart games, and yes, people clamor for them. Even if the original is $200 rare game, who cares? Buy an Everdrive if you NEED to play on original hardware. Buying a repro game to me is the dumbest thing.

[Aussie2B]

If a repro is 100% unauthorized, then yeah, you may as well pirate since goodness knows who your money is going to with those repros. There's often a fine line, if any line at all, between repros and bootlegs, and a lot of these "repros" coming out of China are only different from traditional Chinese bootlegs in that they're not contemporary with the original, official release. And when you're talking Chinese bootlegs, you very well may be funding organized crime. I think a lot of people are inclined to be dismissive of that, since they can't picture their niche hobbies like retro games, anime, soundtracks, etc. having anything to do with literal mafias, but those people will try to make a buck wherever they see one to be made, even if it means selling "nerdy" goods.

On the other hand, you've got partially licensed repros like these from LRG. They're not licensed by the hardware manufacturers, since a company like Nintendo obviously isn't in the business of putting out new releases on long ago retired hardware, but they're licensed and authorized by the publisher of the IP. In this case, your money actually does reach the people who made the game (or published it, at least), so that's preferable over pirating. (Granted, that's also preferable to the publisher over people buying secondhand copies of the original release, but when you put out a physical product, you have to expect reselling.)

[Greg2600]

I'm not even thinking piracy, it's more a question of authenticity. It's not a true release, in my book, so there's no "collecting value."

As for the IP's, well they're normally worth hundreds of billions so this is like a speck to them either way. The old publishing houses are mostly dead, and you're just making some vampire/garbage picker a tiny pittance.

[Aussie2B]

In the grand scheme of things, "collecting value" is totally in the eye of the beholder. No games, authentic or not, have any collecting value to someone who has no interest in games. On the flip side, plenty of people have all sorts of fanmade items related to games like art prints, comics, music CDs, etc., just because they enjoy having them, even though they're not licensed in any shape or form. Fanmade items can even command some decent monetary value on the secondhand market sometimes.

I bring up piracy since that's what using an Everdrive amounts to. You may as well go that route if the repros are effectively physical pirates. But when there's a reasonable way to buy legally, either by buying a used copy or some form of currently available licensed (whether fully or partially licensed) copy, I'll always go that route. But I'll always go for the fully licensed copy over the partially licensed copy unless we're talking a game where the original is like $100+. But realistically, I already have so many games that I'd probably just skip an expensive game entirely rather than drop money on a repro.

[Gameguy]

From what I remember those Star Wars games on the NES and Gameboy were almost unplayable and aren't worth owning today. Those games don't need any reprints, I would prefer if some fan translated games finally got official releases like Sweet Home or Clock Tower. Those would be worth buying unlike these rereleases.

On the other hand, you've got partially licensed repros like these from LRG. They're not licensed by the hardware manufacturers, since a company like Nintendo obviously isn't in the business of putting out new releases on long ago retired hardware, but they're licensed and authorized by the publisher of the IP. In this case, your money actually does reach the people who made the game (or published it, at least), so that's preferable over pirating. (Granted, that's also preferable to the publisher over people buying secondhand copies of the original release, but when you put out a physical product, you have to expect reselling.)

It's funny how the terminology within collecting has changed over the years as people used to refer to cartridges from Tengen or Camerica as "unlicensed" while those weren't pirated and were made and approved of by the rights holders of those games.

I remember people used to like repros except for destroying existing games during the production of them, back before flash carts were a thing. It used to be the only way to play unreleased games on actual hardware, and they usually weren't too expensive to make back then, and they were only made by hobbyists with decent soldering skills as they took actual effort to produce. Times have changed quite a bit since then.

Also people used to collect pirated games like multicarts as they were somewhat rare pieces of interest, now they're just treated like trash entirely.

Fanmade items can even command some decent monetary value on the secondhand market sometimes.

Like the English Mother 3 strategy guide which was made by the fan translators of the game. Some fan produced stuff is actually interesting and high quality.

[Aussie2B]

I wouldn't say terminology has really changed. It just has to account for a wider range of scenarios these days. Tengen and Camerica NES carts are still referred to as unlicensed. In that case, it's just shorthand for "unlicensed by Nintendo". Back when the NES was alive, everything fell into the categories of licensed, unlicensed, or pirated. Identifying an NES game from back then as unlicensed distinguishes it from bootlegs, so it goes without saying that the game is authorized by those who developed it. A key distinction between those and games like LRG's Star Wars rereleases is that unlicensed games that came out when the NES was alive COULD have been licensed. These publishers just chose to release unlicensed games because they didn't want to pay Nintendo's licensee fees, or maybe they didn't want to be limited to five NES releases a year, or maybe they just didn't have the confidence that their games would get the Nintendo Seal of Quality right off the bat and would require costly revisions at Nintendo's behest. On the other hand, modern NES releases literally have no option but to be unlicensed from Nintendo.

I wouldn't expect fan-translated games from LRG, or anybody else trying to do things as officially and legally as possible. Fan translations almost never make the transition to official localizations. It's legally murky, and even if you go that route, you still need professionals to comb through the translation to confirm its accuracy, edit, perform QA, etc. It's too costly of an endeavor for an old game that's only going to be available via a couple thousand physical copies. And doing an official localization from scratch is even more cost prohibitive. It only worked for The House in Fata Morgana because it's on modern systems, is available digitally as well, and likely used the PC localization as a base.