wait..... isnt this how LRG does it now??? I remember back then they would tell you the amount they were going to be printed, like lets say 3,000 copies for the game.
But then they moved to a more pre-order basis where they PoD rounded to to the nearest thousand. So lets say they sell 1,250 copies, they would then print 2,000(nearest thousand rounding up). I assume there would be exceptions like if 1,999 copies were sold be too close to the nearest thousandth, they would instead do print 3K instead of 2K
Has this changed??? Or was my understanding of the new pre-order method wrong?
That term generally means that a consumer at any time can order a copy of some physical media and then within a week or so it will be delivered. Warner Bros. for example literally allows consumers to order obscure films on DVD from its Warner Archive program and those stay available for years at a time because they are printed on an as needed basis. The movies are essentially pressed in super small batches in only enough quantity to meet current orders.
That term generally means that a consumer at any time can order a copy of some physical media and then within a week or so it will be delivered. Warner Bros. for example literally allows consumers to order obscure films on DVD from its Warner Archive program and those stay available for years at a time because they are printed on an as needed basis. The movies are essentially pressed in super small batches in only enough quantity to meet current orders.
Honestly, you've completely lost me with your argument. You're claiming that they are somehow fudging the numbers but you're also saying they stopped providing them? Why does it matter? Why not just assume that every game is printed in the tens of thousands of copies and act accordingly? There are a lot of things that LRG could do to improve the customer experience, but I've gotta imagine that updating print run data is among the lowest priority on that list and I certainly wouldn't waste employee time on something that doesn't matter to the overwhelming majority of their customers. Businesses don't owe customers complete transparency into their operations and frankly, it would be impossible to operate most businesses in that manner.
I also don't understand why it matters if LRG continues to number their releases. Lots of collectibles companies do that, but most collectors only buy what they are interested in. They don't try to buy every item ever released by a particular company. I'm starting to get the impression that maybe there is some uncontrolled compulsiveness or other personality traits that are driving your comments.
Humans are irrational beings; if you understand behavioral economic theory, you can draw a line between how LRG behaves, what information they provide, and how they provide it. Withholding information is bad, putting out manipulated numbers is worse.
You appear to believe that everyone within the gaming community is rational actor (i.e., see the rational actor theory of economics), which is far from the case.
The fact you don't think businesses owe customers transparency means we are probably only going to disagree further; I would see transparency a requirement in all business, otherwise customers cannot make truly informed decisions. Obfuscation only helps profit-seekers, to be clear. I find that undesirable and has negative outcomes. You seem to disagree.
The "lots of companies does a thing," is also a valueless argument. If every company pollutes, it doesn't matter if they all did it, your water and air are still scuffed. Same thing with other unethical practices; we just accept it without any pushback because we are intended to believe there is "no other way" to conduct business.
Aside, for rational actor theory to work, meaning every customer makes the best economic action, transparency would have to be 100% required, otherwise you would be making decisions with only a sliver of information. See nightc1's post on how data such as quantities produced has a direct impact on perceived value in the current and after market.
This mindset also strongly correlates to those who get mad when a publisher, like Devolver, makes retails copies of a title after an initial limited print run. We all know its going to happen, but people still feel shorted on their perceived value of an item due to the FOMO and psychologically manipulating matter of making things "limited."
You would say that's fine, or it's there fault, but I know, historically, doing it by your perspective typically leads to negative outcomes. Empathy is hardly profitable, as it were. Customers can and do influence many things, to include expectations. Doug is free to take the feedback and act on it, or not, but if he's truly thinking about "doing good" per his own posts, I'd come clean about the quantities quickly.
But, just my opinion...
... I doubt most people on CAG care about socioeconomic theory enough cause it's just vidja, afterall...
Humans are irrational beings; if you understand behavioral economic theory, you can draw a line between how LRG behaves, what information they provide, and how they provide it. Withholding information is bad, putting out manipulated numbers is worse.
You appear to believe that everyone within the gaming community is rational actor (i.e., see the rational actor theory of economics), which is far from the case.
The fact you don't think businesses owe customers transparency means we are probably only going to disagree further; I would see transparency a requirement in all business, otherwise customers cannot make truly informed decisions. Obfuscation only helps profit-seekers, to be clear. I find that undesirable and has negative outcomes. You seem to disagree.
The "lots of companies does a thing," is also a valueless argument. If every company pollutes, it doesn't matter if they all did it, your water and air are still scuffed. Same thing with other unethical practices; we just accept it without any pushback because we are intended to believe there is "no other way" to conduct business.
Aside, for rational actor theory to work, meaning every customer makes the best economic action, transparency would have to be 100% required, otherwise you would be making decisions with only a sliver of information. See nightc1's post on how data such as quantities produced has a direct impact on perceived value in the current and after market.
This mindset also strongly correlates to those who get mad when a publisher, like Devolver, makes retails copies of a title after an initial limited print run. We all know its going to happen, but people still feel shorted on their perceived value of an item due to the FOMO and psychologically manipulating matter of making things "limited."
You would say that's fine, or it's there fault, but I know, historically, doing it by your perspective typically leads to negative outcomes. Empathy is hardly profitable, as it were. Customers can and do influence many things, to include expectations. Doug is free to take the feedback and act on it, or not, but if he's truly thinking about "doing good" per his own posts, I'd come clean about the quantities quickly.
But, just my opinion...
... I doubt most people on CAG care about socioeconomic theory enough cause it's just vidja, afterall...
Again, you've completely lost me. Perhaps it's because you are not being clear about what the danger is that you are seeking to protect the rest of us from and why any of us need that protection.
The primary reason for most businesses to exist is to make profit. Sure, businesses can have secondary goals as well and Josh has certainly made it clear over the years that he wants to produce a lot of "cool stuff" so that he can own it himself. He has also said that it's important for him to treat his employees well and provide them with a living wage. That is an admirable goal and something I personally support, but I also purchase products and services from many other companies that do not follow that philosophy and probably do harm in some way or another either on a micro or macro level. I suspect most other consumers are in a similar position and most people don't have the bandwidth or desire to evaluate every single business they deal with on a daily basis to assure that it is not doing something that might result in harm, big or small.
To be clear, I didn't say that businesses don't owe customers transparency. They do not, however, owe customers complete transparency as you have suggested. There are numerous legal and operational reasons why that is just not possible. In this instance, the benefit of providing the type of insight you are asking from the business appears very low as there is just not a large constituency of customers demanding this form of transparency from LRG and it is unclear what those asking for the transparency would even do with the information.
The reality is that most of LRG's unhappy customers are concerned about poor communication on delivery timelines, slow delivery of product and in some cases poor quality control. Given that quite a few customers have stopped buying from them completely as a result of these issues (or at least have claimed to do so publicly), it seems reasonable that those are the things that LRG should focus its resources on. Focusing on disclosing actual print runs and redesigning product packaging to eliminate numbering just doesn't seem very important compared to those other issues. Of course, as you point out, LRG is free to decide how to operate and can choose what it deems important and not. As a consumer, you have a similar ability to make choices, one of which includes just not buying their products.
There are people who still care about that and follow each sale of each title to track how rare they are; I vehemently disagree with that perspective, but its a likely a significant chunk of LRGs customer base that is potentially being misled by LRGs action.
Significant chunk? I'm interested and I don't know where to look in the site code for number of units ordered, or where other interested people are posting the numbers.
We fundamentally disagree on how business should operate, Bojay. That's all that needs to be said.
Here's the spreadsheet; the rest of the discussion involves Facebook groups, one with 20.0k members.
I have zero affiliation or input into the spreadsheet. I just know there's a good chunk of people into LRG stuff for, what I feel, are the wrong reasons, and that's partially contributed to by LRG themselves.
Humans are irrational beings; if you understand behavioral economic theory, you can draw a line between how LRG behaves, what information they provide, and how they provide it. Withholding information is bad, putting out manipulated numbers is worse.
You appear to believe that everyone within the gaming community is rational actor (i.e., see the rational actor theory of economics), which is far from the case.
The fact you don't think businesses owe customers transparency means we are probably only going to disagree further; I would see transparency a requirement in all business, otherwise customers cannot make truly informed decisions. Obfuscation only helps profit-seekers, to be clear. I find that undesirable and has negative outcomes. You seem to disagree.
I mean nothing is a better example of irrational consumers than the number of people that buy the blind boxes every year chasing 1 or 2 ‘holy grails’ (which LRG seems to have copies of every year).
A rational consumer would see that their money would be better spent paying for the 1 item they want on the secondary market (even though it is above MSRP) vs rolling the dice and buying 10, 20, etc of the blind boxes chasing it.
But consumers aren’t rational and you see posts of people getting 4 copies of some shovelware from the blind boxes.
I mean nothing is a better example of irrational consumers than the number of people that buy the blind boxes every year chasing 1 or 2 ‘holy grails’ (which LRG seems to have copies of every year).
A rational consumer would see that their money would be better spent paying for the 1 item they want on the secondary market (even though it is above MSRP) vs rolling the dice and buying 10, 20, etc of the blind boxes chasing it.
But consumers aren’t rational and you see posts of people getting 4 copies of some shovelware from the blind boxes.
So, it's now LRG's responsibility to protect consumers from themselves? That's a pretty paternalistic view and I suspect one that wouldn't be welcomed by most consumers.
Probably because like most businesses, they don't participate in the BBB process and refuse to pay the fees necessary to maintain the highest ratings. Some people have argued that the BBB is really just a scam to extort money from business owners. https://money.cnn.com/2015/09/30/news/better-business-bureau/index.html
Anyone ever have LRG mess up two orders that were shipped at once?
Order 1, haven't received it yet but shipment email notes that 3 items are missing from it.
Order 2, just received, shipment email noted 1 missing item and 1 item that's from order 1.
So I have no idea what's in Order 1 yet because it still hasn't been picked up (and yet, Order 2 shipped on the same day and is already here....) but I cannot imagine this'll be easy to fix.
Probably because like most businesses, they don't participate in the BBB process and refuse to pay the fees necessary to maintain the highest ratings. Some people have argued that the BBB is really just a scam to extort money from business owners.
There's plenty of businesses on there that don't have the amount of complaints that LRG does on the BBB site and also don't have an F rating, though. It's concerning.
"The BBB rating system uses an A+ through F letter-grade scale. The grades represent BBB's degree of confidence that the business is operating in good faith and will resolve customer concerns filed with the BBB."
It's also not as simple as you're making it. The BBB rating is based off of 16 factors and isn't just if someone paid for accreditation or not. Please don't spread misinformation.
It is an extremely common misconception that the BBB is a government agency. No company has a requirement to act upon any involvement, direction, or request by the BBB.
They are intrinsically valueless since there is no required public oversight authority; the only means of measured accountable for breach of service is traditionally legal or regulatory, both governmental affiliated actions. This includes lawsuits (i.e., legal or civil).
There's plenty of businesses on there that don't have the amount of complaints that LRG does on the BBB site and also don't have an F rating, though. It's concerning.
"The BBB rating system uses an A+ through F letter-grade scale. The grades represent BBB's degree of confidence that the business is operating in good faith and will resolve customer concerns filed with the BBB."
It's also not as simple as you're making it. The BBB rating is based off of 16 factors and isn't just if someone paid for accreditation or not. Please don't spread misinformation.
Most companies don't have government affiliation and aren't scams. No one in here stated otherwise.
Again, read what you quoted. Companies that don't participate in the BBB aren't going to resolve complaints filed with the BBB and aren't going to comply with the BBB evaluation process. As the now seven year old article I linked to indicates, there are literally tons of companies with A+ BBB ratings that were convicted of massive frauds or subject to consumer class actions for various reasons. If you're concerned about whether or not a business is legitimate, you check with the office of the attorney general and the Secretary of State in the state where they are headquartered, not some company that makes money by providing a dispute resolution process many business don't participate in or care about.
*Insert overused bringing Pizza to a fire gif here*
Uh wow i missed a lot of pages. I'll try to keep my thoughts simple I guess.
I think the whole talk with population reports, sales numbers, etc... Honestly I don't blame LRG for not releasing numbers? They aren't always *needed* and even during my LRG peak I never sweated bullets over buying a game because it may have been bought more or less than another version. The only time any sales numbers contributed to me buying something was Shiren PC, since per the sheet kBob linked (which was made by a LRG discord member, iirc) Spike Chunsoft's Pixeljunk Monsters 2 PC CE may have gone down as the worst selling LRG CE of all time. IIRC it was like, 30 or so.
Can't help but admit one of my factors for double dipping on Shiren outside of my MD love is that I'd have a pretty rare and oddball item for my MD colection, but then that whole thing happened and uh, I certainly did get a rarity, even if it's not what I paid for still to this day. (Though with SC embracing GOG due to Chaos child... Maybe GOG will work with them and get Shiren DRM-Freed?)
But yeah, typically sales numbers aren't worth losing sleep over as a consumer, since a lot of LRG games, even the ones that had a low print run on P4 don't seem to be too hard to get nowadays. Now those Nicalis ones? I definitely kick myself for passing up a $100 1001 Spikes PS4 copy eons ago, but as others speculate those were probably promo copies. Even Bird King on Vita I don't feel will be too unicorn. (look at the PS4 version, after it got a public release it's pretty easy to get now)
My personal problem with the sales number transparency, is that the javascript code exploit is ludicrously and laughably easy to see as a shopify thing and LRG have known about it for months now, so... If you can look up even a very *rough estimate* of what shouldn't be public numbers of a product during the preorder period (since going to an order page after preorders end does lead to a flushing and the number resetting due to the product being pulled, yes), that seems like at the very least a flaw in need of fixing or clarification. Because per the numbers given through that method on the site, Valis Skate Decks barely cracked double digits the entire preorder period (Game did fine enough), a lot of PS5 games barely hit the 1K mark, and a ton of Switch games don't even come close to 5K unless it's like Silvergun or RCG2.
I mentioned Gunbrick as an example earlier, and yeah, even if we add a few hundred or thousand units off-site for places like amazon, VGP, ETC... Fact of the matter is some stuff at LRG that would have sold way more 2-3 years ago are not doing well. Some of the recent convention exclusives lasted days on the site, while in the old days it would be gone in minutes. Kokopolo 3D is at 70ish copies ATM according to the javascript and that's a limited number item that's in-hand (granted that was also split to CEs which did sell out), but it's been two months since that came to the site. Even if the numbers the javascript provide aren't fully accurate, they still do show a consistent decline across the board with only the bigger games getting the bigger sales. I definitely think cutting back on CEs and just focusing on them for big titles or making them bigger and higher quality like they used to be, (cheapened components across the board on the CEs are still a recent issue and yeah, there's no excusing that) but on the other hand I don't think more of a game being available or a game not instantly selling out is a bad thing, especially if it means more people who find out can end up getting them in the end and having fun.
Not gonna blunt words on this bit though: hella weird that a discord community member manages to keep track of rough sales data via that spread sheet Kbob linked (which is indeed the one I saw linked on the discord when i was around) more often than LRG themselves, mainly via info similar to the javascript exploit. Can't help but wonder if the javascript inventory_quantity field is meant for them, lol. Least it's a handy resource if you're worried about FOMO/rarity instead of just buying games because they look cool. (Super Sami Roll got right on my steam wishlist when LRG got the physical since I didn't know it existed and it looks super cute!)
For the BBB stuff, yeah, they're literally meaningless. They have no authority and it's more or less a glorified review site? Which, there are better company review sites out there, so yeah, I wouldn't care less about what BBB say.
In terms of LRG announcements, while I'm tuned out of their physical stuff I still have a eyebrow raised for their carbon engine stuff, and we haven't heard an eShop date for Rendering Ranger R2 or the Boy/Blob collection yet, so... I'll gladly pick both those up when they hit if they're anywhere as good as RCG0.
Have to be honest, if some of these low numbers are accurate (and I suspect they are), Limited Run could be better off doing an actual Limited Run with an announced # of units and might actually sell more copies via FOMO for a lot of titles.
And if a title has a set limited number ahead of time, those titles could be offered up for sale once they are actually in stock or close to it.
One of the things that really bothered me over the last few years is with the few titles that actually had a set number of units... they were treated the same as an open pre-order and offered for sale long before they could ever ship. Really no reason for that if it's not even an open pre-order.
Have to be honest, if some of these low numbers are accurate (and I suspect they are), Limited Run could be better off doing an actual Limited Run with an announced # of units and might actually sell more copies via FOMO for a lot of titles.
And if a title has a set limited number ahead of time, those titles could be offered up for sale once they are actually in stock or close to it.
One of the things that really bothered me over the last few years is with the few titles that actually had a set number of units... they were treated the same as an open pre-order and offered for sale long before they could ever ship. Really no reason for that if it's not even an open pre-order.
Yeah for ps4 stuff especially i think waiting until closer in hand is good. They did that with Kokopolo, though the warehouse being packed still meant they send stuff out in batches and thus it can take ages. Hopefully if they back off and slow down a bit, free up the warehouse, they can do the kokopolo approach for more stuff and people can nab things hassle free
Yeah for ps4 stuff especially i think waiting until closer in hand is good. They did that with Kokopolo, though the warehouse being packed still meant they send stuff out in batches and thus it can take ages. Hopefully if they back off and slow down a bit, free up the warehouse, they can do the kokopolo approach for more stuff and people can nab things hassle free
I've already made my perspective clear regarding quantities; I find the misleading part more of an indictment of the character of the company than not telling numbers. And as you can see, the community wants that information and is seeking it out. Thus, providing false numbers is worse than no numbers, IMO.
People on CAG likely don't care about quantities (I am only curious from a business perspective, games are are not an investment), but I dislike business that run on psychological manipulative sales tactics.
It is easy to be armchair CEO, but LRG was, until very recently, a privately owned company, thus all their decisions are their own. Assuming the hands-off approach from Embracer is true, that means any perceived screw ups are still their own.
The long lead time issue is impacting everyone, its just LRGs prolific releases and reliance on contrived CEs, mixed with the "we don't ship your order until its all in" approach, makes the problem stick out the most. A simple fix would have been falling on their sword and being more clear about expectations and offering to eat part of the shipping to split orders.
Heck, even a little communication goes a long way. Most of the frustrations I see about the company could be assuaged if they managed expectations better.
Heck, even a little communication goes a long way. Most of the frustrations I see about the company could be assuaged if they managed expectations better.
Communication absolutely needs fixing and it has for years. Scott pilgrim taking 22 months drove newcomers insane and a lot of the comments I see say they’d not mind the delays much if they got substantial status updates emailed to them, rather than having to dig through twitter replies to find out “oh bundles got prioritized for the first wave” which led to the huge gap between batches, which wasn’t communicated well and just pissed a lot of people off. Nobody should have to go to a company owned discord or twitter account to know where their shit is. If Castlemania can nail status updates, LRG can too.
Communication absolutely needs fixing and it has for years. Scott pilgrim taking 22 months drove newcomers insane and a lot of the comments I see say they’d not mind the delays much if they got substantial status updates emailed to them, rather than having to dig through twitter replies to find out “oh bundles got prioritized for the first wave” which led to the huge gap between batches, which wasn’t communicated well and just pissed a lot of people off. Nobody should have to go to a company owned discord or twitter account to know where their shit is. If Castlemania can nail status updates, LRG can too.
Exactly what I had said before. All LRG would have to do is communicate with their customer and do some kind of end-of-month update via email(maybe twitter). Just send out a list of games that have been updated during the month. Give the status and some kind of ETA based on the new status.
Its better than have each and every customer look and search for updates on their games on discord/twitter or even the LRG site. All users/customers would have to do is just skim through the email looking for their games to see if it has been updated to be informed of when their games should arrive. Thats it! Instead we get radio silence for months not knowing if things are moving along or there has been delays and whatnot
There is about to be a pretty big announcement coming on what made Scott Pilgrim take so long that will hopefully make people understand.
We actually do a lot of status updates but no one reads them, in fact when we post a status update somewhere we notice someone on the thread that contains the update asking us for an update the same day...
We are streamlining the process to have updates more regularly.
As far BBB goes, we aren't registered with them and have no interest in registering with them.
There is about to be a pretty big announcement coming on what made Scott Pilgrim take so long that will hopefully make people understand.
We actually do a lot of status updates but no one reads them, in fact when we post a status update somewhere we notice someone on the thread that contains the update asking us for an update the same day...
We are streamlining the process to have updates more regularly.
As far BBB goes, we aren't registered with them and have no interest in registering with them.
First, it requires me(and each and every customer LRG has) to go 1 by 1 looking for each game updates. As someone who has many orders, this will take some time to go through them all
Second, we as the customer dont know if the game in question HAS HAD ANY UPDATES at all. What you are asking us is too keep hitting the page EVERYDAY and HOPE there is an update on the game. Would it not be easier for all us if there was an end-of-month email with all the games that have had their status updated for the month? just a suggestion
^^^ This
Exactly what I had said before. All LRG would have to do is communicate with their customer and do some kind of end-of-month update via email(maybe twitter). Just send out a list of games that have been updated during the month. Give the status and some kind of ETA based on the new status.
Its better than have each and every customer look and search for updates on their games on discord/twitter or even the LRG site. All users/customers would have to do is just skim through the email looking for their games to see if it has been updated to be informed of when their games should arrive. Thats it! Instead we get radio silence for months not knowing if things are moving along or there has been delays and whatnot
Like the Valis standards were apparently delayed due to a printing error and it was only found out after a reply on twitter came forward. How is that sort of thing not auto emailed? Seems like that’d easily restore goodwill instead of making it feel like a void (the ZAMN retro editions haven’t even had any update emails, 1.5 yrs later)
Just comes off as stubbornness to change due to the older ways technically working before, so why bother diverting resources to refocus and change up a routine
I don't mean to sound like an asshole by saying this, but a lot of these issues boil down to prioritization. An intern at $15/hour could do the data-wrangling and spreadsheet updating necessary to both provide print quantities and more transparent production updates. If that's not a priority, that's perfectly fine. It's their prerogative as business owners to set those priorities and naturally a for-profit company would place priority on profit-generating activities. However, when the same multi-million dollar company's CEO publicized sending hundreds of cold emails for a pizza coupon, "not enough time" sounds more like an excuse than a justification. You can only punt consumer-friendly practices (updates, rewards program, combined shipping, etc.) for so long before it becomes a trend and rapidly begin shedding the goodwill and brand loyalty you may have established.
Wasn't there and email saying that the books are on hand and ready to ship? website says manufactured and note says in-hand but still no shipping notice (SNES book)
Are we conflating 'inaccurate numbers' with 'manipulated numbers'? My impression is that the webcode was never an accurate reflection of how many copies they ordered from manufacturing. Maybe it gave insight into how many people placed orders, but with MOQs, warranty replacements, rounding up to next incremental order size, etc etc it would never truly reflect the actual print run.
We sold a lot of those units in other places, the overall sales you see when you look into Shopifys code isn't always 100%. We also mess with numbers there due to post like these and have since we started.
Nope, they admit to spending a not-zero amount of time manipulating the numbers. They prioritized making sure users did not get accurate information over other problems; granted, likely an "easier-to-solve" problem, but it's right there from the cofounder himself.
And I think most people can and would understand complete numbers being larger due to manufacturer's defects, shipping mishaps, etc. Anyone who doesn't is likely not going to be a long term customer worth maintaining a relationship with, IMO, as they are likely to cost more over the long haul.
Or perhaps not, because irrational folks are more likely to irrational spend more money (not a slight against anyone, to be clear).
Now if they said we only made 5,000 and the actual print run was something absurd, like 12,000 (240% of the original quoted number), then I think the collector types would be pretty chuffed. Unlikely to happen as inventory storage costs money, for the record.
Nope, they admit to spending a not-zero amount of time manipulating the numbers. They prioritized making sure users did not get accurate information over other problems; granted, likely an "easier-to-solve" problem, but it's right there from the cofounder himself.
And I think most people can and would understand complete numbers being larger due to manufacturer's defects, shipping mishaps, etc. Anyone who doesn't is likely not going to be a long term customer worth maintaining a relationship with, IMO, as they are likely to cost more over the long haul.
Or perhaps not, because irrational folks are more likely to irrational spend more money (not a slight against anyone, to be clear).
Now if they said we only made 5,000 and the actual print run was something absurd, like 12,000 (240% of the original quoted number), then I think the collector types would be pretty chuffed. Unlikely to happen as inventory storage costs money, for the record.
You still chose to do it. All that implies is doing the manipulation was the easy and/or lazy way out and it was still an active choice.
Hence, I find it unethical, but you obviously don't. Just post that in your next monthly update that the data is not only inaccurate, but you actively made sure it was further inaccurate. But don't worry, it just took two minutes to do.
I will gladly donate some money to charity to see you do that. How much?
Anyone who says that the BBB is just a "glorified review site" or "worthless" obviously doesn't know what they're talking about. This is literally from the GS thread today where a poster was helped out from the BBB and prevented them from getting ripped off from a company:
Hey guys I just filed a complaint on better business bureau last week. GameStop actually followed up and sent me a replacement copy for one my damaged game upon delivery. Just a heads up if you can't get a hold of them.
The last few weeks I just gave up on the call waiting up to 30 mins or more. No thanks!
The BBB is a third party used by millions of people that helps when problems come up. For example, if a furry guy who lived in his basement wrote reviews on a blog that would be a glorified review site. The BBB does way more than that. Reliable businesses have no problem joining the BBB or at least resolving the problems on there because they know it hurts their reputation otherwise. For example, if a limited print company refused to replace the Steelbook that was dented like another guy said on here then a BBB dispute could help you get a replacement or refund if the company refused to. Last time I checked "review sites" and "worthless" sites don't do that. You might not personally like the BBB, but you guys are spreading misinformation about what they are.
I would just love to know what is going in with shipping of games that have reached the warehouse lately. It used to be a few days after we would get notice to verify our address before a game would ship once it reached the warehouse stage of things. Not it is taking a month or more.
I would just love to know what is going in with shipping of games that have reached the warehouse lately. It used to be a few days after we would get notice to verify our address before a game would ship once it reached the warehouse stage of things. Not it is taking a month or more.
He addressed this a few days ago- basically a bunch of stuff came in all at once and they're now just sitting on a bunch of shit that they have to ship out.
Anyone who says that the BBB is just a "glorified review site" or "worthless" obviously doesn't know what they're talking about. This is literally from the GS thread today where a poster was helped out from the BBB and prevented them from getting ripped off from a company:
The BBB is a third party used by millions of people that helps when problems come up. For example, if a furry guy who lived in his basement wrote reviews on a blog that would be a glorified review site. The BBB does way more than that. Reliable businesses have no problem joining the BBB or at least resolving the problems on there because they know it hurts their reputation otherwise. For example, if a limited print company refused to replace the Steelbook that was dented like another guy said on here then a BBB dispute could help you get a replacement or refund if the company refused to. Last time I checked "review sites" and "worthless" sites don't do that. You might not personally like the BBB, but you guys are spreading misinformation about what they are.
Again, spend some time doing some research about how they actually operate. There are plenty of articles about them from multiple legitimate news sources. It's not misinformation, it's literally fact and most companies do not in fact participate in BBB anymore and haven't for years.
You still chose to do it. All that implies is doing the manipulation was the easy and/or lazy way out and it was still an active choice.
Hence, I find it unethical, but you obviously don't. Just post that in your next monthly update that the data is not only inaccurate, but you actively made sure it was further inaccurate. But don't worry, it just took two minutes to do.
I will gladly donate some money to charity to see you do that. How much?
Why don't you take that money and spend it on billboards, social media and television ads so you can warn gamers everywhere that they are buying LRG products for the wrong reasons? You can become the literal Dan O'Dowd of niche physical games. Better yet, why not donate it to a charity that deals with compulsiveness issues so these collectors you are so concerned about can get the help they need? I mean seriously, this is a problem with a constituency of one and it's really disturbing that you consider yourself the sole arbiter of what's ethical or not. If people feel strongly that they aren't getting enough transparency from LRG, they can literally stop buying their products. It's not like they can't buy the same exact game for far cheaper in digital format anyway.
You still chose to do it. All that implies is doing the manipulation was the easy and/or lazy way out and it was still an active choice.
Hence, I find it unethical, but you obviously don't. Just post that in your next monthly update that the data is not only inaccurate, but you actively made sure it was further inaccurate. But don't worry, it just took two minutes to do.
I will gladly donate some money to charity to see you do that. How much?
TBH I don't think the numbers are worth a monthly update over: all they really do to us folk is really let us know how much is remaining for limited quantity items (So the part about them being inaccurate at least is BS on that end: if an item says 70, and I click 70, it adds them to the cart. If I remove them and add 71, it won't work because there's only 70) which would be helpful to know if a limited quantity item you may want is close to running out of stock or if it's running low (though LRG's natural LOW STOCK warning does a good job with this anyhow).
The only part where they're dubious is during the preorder period since it seems shopify logs the completed purchases made during the order period, so if you checked that value right before an auction closed it'd give supposed rough estimates on how well an item sold during the period... And seeing some items a friend DM'd and photographed for me over the past few months, some stuff definitely doesn't show signs of being manipulated or edited too much, if at all. Per what said person sent me for Enclave HD, the PS4 CE sold around 40 and PS5 CE sold around 120 early in the morning on October 23rd (the final day).
Now uh, if we took that at face value and add let's say, a few dozen extra to both of those, then CEs on PS systems aren't doing so hot (I didn't get sent anything for the Switch version but I looked myself and the standards at least seemed to be doing fine for a game that isn't out yet so I'm guessing like with all things it did better) and we could guess that both of those would be pretty darn scarce later down the line. (and considering how much cheaper some Switch CEs are compared to PS4 ones, this tracks with a pattern) Likewise I checked RCG2 close to the end of preorders just for the standards, and yeah that game did pretty well even though Xbox had the worst numbers of all of the platforms, which isn't much of a shocker as much as I love the platform. (It's pretty much the reason I collect XB/360 games that are BC, since they're so fun to nab IRL!) This is despite the switch double pack existing in Japan, but the Switch version still seemed to match numbers over 5K so that indicates to me that if LRG puts things out people want, they'll buy them.
But if we take the words from earlier and believe say, the enclave numbers are vastly inaccurate and it actually sold several thousand CEs on PS4... Well, OK, fine then. No biggie, good for the game. It just seems hard to believe when I see some numbers rounded up matching what's put on that spreadsheet from the discord, making me think that said copies not counted from shopify are referring to whatever retailers buy, which I can believe.
TBH the only ones I see truly caring and feeling life or death about these numbers are devs worried their game won't really get bought during the preorder period (and thus not worth signing with LRG or holding off for later than intended) or people worried that X game is more rare than another but not knowing for certain: and if that's the case for any of you here, I always at least focused on PS4 for the CEs I got since those typically aren't going as well as Switch and even PS5, which Special Reserve noted lately too and pointed as a reason for dropping PS4 physical editions.
LRG doesn't have to release the numbers, but if they're stupidly easy to see via a basic ass javascript command and they're manipulated to be not fully accurate for those with the knowhow, but not removed or fixed outright... (And if per the numbers for in-hand items, those *are* accurate in that the site won't let you buy more than what it lists in that field) they should just be fixed for crying out loud. Super Deluxe Games' store does not have that same exploit, so it seems silly to know about it for months and rather than patch it out they just mess with some numbers now and then to make the numbers seem inaccurate (even if despite that it shows declining sales on a lot of things over the past few months, with bigger names getting bigger numbers and Xbox/PC not being popular platforms)
TBH I don't think the numbers are worth a monthly update over: all they really do to us folk is really let us know how much is remaining for limited quantity items (So the part about them being inaccurate at least is BS on that end: if an item says 70, and I click 70, it adds them to the cart. If I remove them and add 71, it won't work because there's only 70) which would be helpful to know if a limited quantity item you may want is close to running out of stock or if it's running low (though LRG's natural LOW STOCK warning does a good job with this anyhow).
The only part where they're dubious is during the preorder period since it seems shopify logs the completed purchases made during the order period, so if you checked that value right before an auction closed it'd give supposed rough estimates on how well an item sold during the period... And seeing some items a friend DM'd and photographed for me over the past few months, some stuff definitely doesn't show signs of being manipulated or edited too much, if at all. Per what said person sent me for Enclave HD, the PS4 CE sold around 40 and PS5 CE sold around 120 early in the morning on October 23rd (the final day).
Now uh, if we took that at face value and add let's say, a few dozen extra to both of those, then CEs on PS systems aren't doing so hot (I didn't get sent anything for the Switch version but I looked myself and the standards at least seemed to be doing fine for a game that isn't out yet so I'm guessing like with all things it did better) and we could guess that both of those would be pretty darn scarce later down the line. (and considering how much cheaper some Switch CEs are compared to PS4 ones, this tracks with a pattern) Likewise I checked RCG2 close to the end of preorders just for the standards, and yeah that game did pretty well even though Xbox had the worst numbers of all of the platforms, which isn't much of a shocker as much as I love the platform. (It's pretty much the reason I collect XB/360 games that are BC, since they're so fun to nab IRL!) This is despite the switch double pack existing in Japan, but the Switch version still seemed to match numbers over 5K so that indicates to me that if LRG puts things out people want, they'll buy them.
But if we take the words from earlier and believe say, the enclave numbers are vastly inaccurate and it actually sold several thousand CEs on PS4... Well, OK, fine then. No biggie, good for the game. It just seems hard to believe when I see some numbers rounded up matching what's put on that spreadsheet from the discord, making me think that said copies not counted from shopify are referring to whatever retailers buy, which I can believe.
TBH the only ones I see truly caring and feeling life or death about these numbers are devs worried their game won't really get bought during the preorder period (and thus not worth signing with LRG or holding off for later than intended) or people worried that X game is more rare than another but not knowing for certain: and if that's the case for any of you here, I always at least focused on PS4 for the CEs I got since those typically aren't going as well as Switch and even PS5, which Special Reserve noted lately too and pointed as a reason for dropping PS4 physical editions. LRG doesn't have to release the numbers, but if they're stupidly easy to see via a basic ass javascript command and they're manipulated to be not fully accurate for those with the knowhow, but not removed or fixed outright... (And if per the numbers for in-hand items, those *are* accurate in that the site won't let you buy more than what it lists in that field) they should just be fixed for crying out loud. Super Deluxe Games' store does not have that same exploit, so it seems silly to know about it for months and rather than patch it out they just mess with some numbers now and then to make the numbers seem inaccurate (even if despite that it shows declining sales on a lot of things over the past few months, with bigger names getting bigger numbers and Xbox/PC not being popular platforms)
I lurk more than ever post, but figured I'd jump in while Doug is here. He has been here all week and production numbers have been the main focus, which is a waste of discussion time, before he dips out, to me. How about some easy ones/fun ones since I'm not on Twitter or discord?
@Doug
1. Have the newsletters been discontinued?
2. Any more 3DS or even PS3 titles coming?
3. Steelbook versions, as opposed to large collector's editions, hold a much better value to me. I know you mentioned wanting to do less CEs for games. Do you think steelbook versions could be the second option as opposed to the big boxes moving forward?
4. I went to the grand opening of the retail store and had an absolute blast with my family. I live far away but you are at the halfway point of visiting my family. How often do you think there may be fun events each year?
Re: 3DS titles; manufacturing for 3DS carts is reportedly finished. When the Fragrant Story dev released that title, he said he knew of two last 3DS games in the pipeline, which appeared to be LRGs recent releases.
I would love more 3DS games, and sites like VGP seem to still get batches of reprints. I would imagine there are still "blank carts" in the supply chain. Enough for reprints and small orders, but likely none for big releases.
Now we wait and see if the 3DS market has as many bootlegs as the DS market. Though, by this point in time respective to their lifespans, the DS was already chock full of knock offs for Pokemon and Tetris DS, funny enough!
BTW this may just be me, but with all the limited game productions I'm actually more inclined to just go for stuff when it goes cheaper digital. Maybe I'm not the target audience, but this applies to other physical products as well. I will buy some Switch VNs mainly and a few RPGS, but that's about it. Doesn't help these all have markups and all that turn me off the product as well. Just a mention of course. I do still have at least one thing pending from LRG (Gotta Protectors and like 1 other I believe).
Thinking back, the thing that got me interested in LRG were the indie games that I enjoyed mainly through PS+ and PSN on Vita and PS3. Over time I've gone back to just appreciating the digital options I own of those games and have gone back to just waiting for sales (with Switch) on newer games that tick a lot of boxes.
Thankfully this year has been completely dry for LRG. They had some great releases but my purchasing requirements have been so incredibly high I've somehow managed to resist everything and so far have no regrets on what I've passed up.
But I'm getting older... and my purchases this year have been the lowest in decades. I think in total I'll have bought 7 games (counting DQ Treasures next month), one $20 eshop card, and then I gave one of my brothers $60 for some old PS1/PS2 stuff he wanted to get rid of but is too lazy to ebay... most of which I'll flip to ebay to recoup my cost (though I'm counting now as an expense). So total for the year is right about $360 for everything including all my digital purchases as I didn't buy anything on steam, psn, or anywhere else... just nintendo eshop.
