In Austin, TX, the Arboretum-area Target store had about 4-5 copies of the LE in stock, at least as of Friday night. I managed to pull out a third mortgage and raid my kids' college fund in order to get the rest of the copies they had, while maxing out my rewards card, so that I can tell my non-existant kids that I tried to wreck things for other gamers who have a genuine interest in the game rather than a purely monetary one.
Everything I just said is a lie, btw, except for the Target store having plenty in stock. The website claims that the nearby store on 183 & Ohlen has several in stock too. Good luck to any of you in Central TX who read this.
My Amazon copy came crushed due to being sent in a bubble mailer. Thankfully, my local gamestop had over 20 LEs in stock. I think I am finally done buying any form of limited edition from Amazon.
I'd still trust Amazon. When they know they've got a special edition, they've usually been good with keeping it padded properly while at the same time using a rigid-walled box in which they ship the game. That's at least been my experience with them.
I think the problem in this situation was that the LE of the game had the same thickness as the mundane copy, at least cosmetically. Since it seemed (at least from a cursory visual inspection) to be the traditional thickness of any other game in your standard hard case, whoever makes these decisions at Amazon figured that a bubble mailer would be fine, since you'd have to work really hard to cause crush damage to a standard game case in a bubble mailer. Bubble mailers are so much cheaper to ship than their standard corrugated cardboard boxes, I can't blame them for the mistaken assumption.
From the stories I hear of Newegg, getting LEs can be much worse than the typical Amazon experience. Lately it seems like Newegg under-orders LEs or they are severely shorted on their allotment. As a result tons of people get their preorders canceled. And Newegg sends EVERYTHING except for small children in bubble mailers. Since, we all know, you can drill air holes in a box, but bubble wrap can lead to suffocation.
Full disclosure: Newegg sent my Skyrim CE box in a proper larger box. So they got that right. Arcade sticks that I've ordered from them have also come in a proper larger box, but I don't want to meet the dude who thinks that bubble wrap is fine for an arcade stick, or that Skyrim box.
The worst order that I ever got from Amazon was one where I ordered a slew of different items of different sizes and masses. I had some hardcover manga the size of a college dictionary, some CEs of games in thin cardboard boxes, and some standard hard cases. The CEs ranged in size from about the thickness of a Skylanders Giants figure, to slightly thinner than two hard cases stacked together. Everything came in a large box, without any large bubble cushioning whatsoever. The hardcover books had run rampant during shipping, so almost every single game in that package had dents from the book corners. Even the hard case games lol. I called Amazon and of course they set things right.
I'll continue to trust Amazon since they've fixed any problems I've had with them, and never done so with any static on their part. I really think they screwed up on this one because the LE thickness is SO close to the regular version.
My guess is that amazon didn't know how many of the artbooks they were getting and they didn't want to sell more than they got.. so they had it sold out until they got their stock in and checked their inventory.
I wonder if people who preordered the regular edition got the artbook
I preordered the regular edition with Amazon, but a few days went by without any shipping notification. Then they had LEs back in stock so I canceled my preorders. But now that I've gotten copies from Target, I'll cancel my LE order since I don't want the games coming via bubble love.
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they said it was exclusive, but whatever.
