Now I would be troubled if LRG were locking developers so that they couldn't reach publishing deals with others, BUT that is not what they do. I know many here complain about their practices and choices on packed extras, to which I'm indifferent as long as LRG continues to make a standard version available (I'm not interested in CEs or LEs).
Putting all that commotion aside, I will say LRG's decision to NOT lock developers into exclusive publishing deals is a GOOD practice. It means LRG could become a victim of its own marketing success. The clearest example being Streets of Rage 4 where Dotemu struck a separate deal with Merge to publish a retail version alongside LRG's release.
It also means other smaller/overlooked games LRG publishes/markets can get enough word-of-mouth for another publisher to pick it up and release it again. That certainly seems to be what has happened with the the Microids announcement.
All in all, it's a GOOD practice by LRG that does benefit consumers. Frankly, it's the most important one that IMHO keeps to LRG's slogan of promoting physical releases.
IIRC they do have exclusivity during the print run, but the SoR4 situation was a mix-up. Of course, devs are free to go wherever after the print run which I do agree is a positive.
Game availability is inherently a good thing, but if a game is popular enough to warrant being released by a limited company on three separate occasions (and I'm not convinced that it won't also be re-released on Xbox or the eventual Switch 2), I'd argue that it's a better candidate for a retail release than for a limited print release.
These games are clearly popular enough to succeed at retail, as they're some of LRG's highest-selling titles. Retail can also be reprinted as many times as needed, whereas repeated limited runs are always going to leave someone out (either someone who finds out about the series later, didn't have the money at the time of the pre-order window, etc.).
Beyond that, you also have to consider opportunity cost. LRG is the largest physical publisher in the world (in terms of number of titles, not quantity of those titles). They could instead spend that time/effort on securing other licenses, helping smaller indie releases get broader visibility with a release, or a myriad of other things. This game is already preserved, it already has a physical for collectors, it's hard to see a driver for doing this other than it being easy money. Which I get isn't unappealing, since they are a business at the end of the day, but it seems diametrically opposed to the values they've previously claimed to embody.
In other words, my two primary issues are:
- The limited print model is ineffective at satiating the demand for these games.
- They could spend the same resources doing something other than the same game a third time.
My lesser complaints are that the PS5 re-releases are a loophole to their "we don't do reprints" thing, the lack of cohesion on some of the series-wide stuff they're doing (the statue thing screws over Switch buyers, the steelbook situation screwed over PS4 buyers), and that these all should have/could have been in a single release instead of individually released over who-knows-how-many months to gouge people. But I do feel like those points are more nitpicky/narrowly-applicable than the issues I highlighted above.
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