I feel 2019 may be the point of oversaturation for the limited game market. As it stands the larger part of my game budget has been going to these type of releases as not to pay after market prices later on. It also helps that AAA games seem to be dropping in price so rapidly nowadays and are fairly easy passes with more and more micro transactions. Problem is the entire limited run niche is getting incredibly crowded with even Best Buy sourcing titles from LRG and Game Stop doing more more limited pressings like Toki Switch. The subscription Super Rare games is proposing is a new level of money grubbing and that’s coming from a person who has picked up most of their Switch offerings. I hope it works for them but the benefits seem cosmetic, you can already see fatigue is setting in with people purging they’re older limited run game collections and I feel a lot more people will be backing off in this coming year myself included.
I agree with you in a lot of ways, I but I feel that 2018 was that point already. There are
so many of these damn limited print publishers now. And then there are the limited retail releases (like Soedesco or GS exclusives), as well as other random situations like SE releasing Lost Sphear through their store. And while we are taking the Vita out of the running in '19, the Switch is here, and it more than makes up for the lost volume of Vita titles. I know a lot of people have incredibly arbitrary rules for what they'll buy, but there are also people like myself that just like game 'X' and want a physical copy of it if it exists, so that could be EAS, SRG, or any of the ESRB publishers.
I agree that an enormous amount of my gaming budget now goes to these purchases. And I just don't feel good about it because the price of these releases is typically high for what you're getting (I can't count how many games that are frequently on sale for $5-$10 digital we are asked to pay $25-$35 plus shipping for), and one can't wait for a sale, get free shipping, etc. Hell, much of the time buying within 1 minute to 1 hour of release is necessary. I rarely chip away at my list of retro games that I've yet to get now due to constantly buying so many of these, and I only get titles that I find interesting and want, as maintaining the integrity of my library is important to me. And I definitely make a healthy salary, so it's not a matter of "Stop working at McDonald's." lol
It's interesting to discuss, but I know that all of us in this thread are not normal consumers. I have a collection that puts 90% of YouTubers to shame, and I know that many of you have those too--to varying degrees. I'll never stop saying how much I dislike how this has changed the market, and how anti-consumer 'most' of these practices are--when compared to games released at retail. But I'm also going to keep buying them, as maintaining my library is more important to me than a silent protest of a single person. Hopefully things move in a good direction and we reach a bit of an equilibrium. LRG have honestly made some good changes (like no more CE exclusive cover art). They still need to make more changes, but it's nice to see any positive movement; though now we have companies like SLG making the same god damn mistakes, but hopefully they'll learn, too.
ing legendary). I went to standard edition copies only, and I'm so, so, so, so, so much happier with everything now. So I hope that you enjoy your paradigm shift as much as I did!