Limited Run Games Thread - We only promise our NES games will work, not your console

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Squarehard

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I don't think anyone is--or at least very, very few are--unaware of how they do things. They've just transitioned over the years into many anti-consumer--and, frankly, pain in the ass--practices. And this, being a forum for discussion, is where these things end up being . . . discussed. 

 
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Products are taking more than 4 or 5 months. My last order took more than a year and there are people here waiting 6+ months for their order even before Covid.

Redrum666 are you an employee of LRG? Nothing wrong with it if you are, but I hope you are getting paid by LRG for all the posting and notification you do for them. At least free games or discounts if you are not on payroll.
 
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Staind204 said:
Awesome looking set but way too expensive to even consider.
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I might buy two. LRG went from an initial announcement that had me extremely disappointed to doing a complete turnaround and nailing it. If only we could go back in time and get more people to gripe about the Star Wars CEs. Sure, there is some junk in there I sure don't need that is driving up the price. But, the box art is awesome, they included the original cover art in mini-poster form, they got the code wheels in there, DVD-ROMs for the games.... I think if someone loves Monkey Island, this is a pretty awesome CE (unlike their first take).

 
Decided to pull the trigger on Shenmue.  Website said there were only around 300 left and I know I would regret it later if I didn't get it.  Also don't want to pay triple that price later on ebay.

 
Got shipping notices for Shantae and Panzer Dragoon. Yay! Caved and ordered Mummy Demastered on Sunday, but I'm actually down to just 3 or 4 orders now. Only big order I'm waiting for now is the Blaster Master set.
 
Equippt said:
Lol I didn't know anyone else cared about Return of the Ninja. That's a surprise.
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I always wanted that game as a kid- that box art is bad ass.

EDIT* Since that's a Natsume game, makes me think they've opened up the potential to repo a lot of Natsume games. Pocky and Rocky Plus Becky on the GBA could happen I guess.

 
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Can LRG start being more honest? Instead of saying it's going to take 4 months to ship they need to say that it can take over a year. When it's on deck instead of saying that it'll take 1-2 weeks to ship out they need to say that it can take as many weeks or months as they decide to actually ship it and there is no estimate.
 
Because it's easier to make up an original estimate then blame COVID when they miss that estimate than it is to say "When you order from us, you'll get the game at some random point in the future that we cannot estimate because we keep offering up more games to the point where we cannot possibly meet demand in any reasonable period of time"

 
Honesty would probably deter sales at this point, though their reputation is starting to sour which may have the same effect. Though probably not; FOMO is a helluva drug.

 
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mylifeisgarbage said:
Can LRG start being more honest? Instead of saying it's going to take 4 months to ship they need to say that it can take over a year. When it's on deck instead of saying that it'll take 1-2 weeks to ship out they need to say that it can take as many weeks or months as they decide to actually ship it and there is no estimate.
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I'd like it if they gave us regular updates regarding the production status of each game. They never make the predicted date and just leave buyers in limbo. This has actually made me hold off on buying anything from them these past few months as I have yet to receive a bunch of games purchased earlier this year.
 
What I don't understand is the business strategy of taking people's money long before they even have the products made and doing this in perpetuity. From my limited understanding of accounting they're basically taking in debt (preorders/liabilities) and just assuming things go smoothly enough and people don't mass ask for refunds.

 
inverted_fray said:
What I don't understand is the business strategy of taking people's money long before they even have the products made and doing this in perpetuity. From my limited understanding of accounting they're basically taking in debt (preorders/liabilities) and just assuming things go smoothly enough and people don't mass ask for refunds.
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But with how long they get the money in advance, the people can’t get refunds anyway. Credit cards only let you do a chargeback up to 120 days.



As for taking money long before having product, it’s just bad business. It gets toward being a pyramid scheme (I know not really a pyramid scheme), but it feels at this point if there were a disruption of money coming in from new preorders, the whole thing would collapse.
 
inverted_fray said:
What I don't understand is the business strategy of taking people's money long before they even have the products made and doing this in perpetuity. From my limited understanding of accounting they're basically taking in debt (preorders/liabilities) and just assuming things go smoothly enough and people don't mass ask for refunds.
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It's all a strategy in order to pay developers right away, so that they can get more dev studios to want to work with them.

Yes, we are footing the bill for developing their business relationships.

 
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inverted_fray said:
What I don't understand is the business strategy of taking people's money long before they even have the products made and doing this in perpetuity. From my limited understanding of accounting they're basically taking in debt (preorders/liabilities) and just assuming things go smoothly enough and people don't mass ask for refunds.
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It's the way that virtually every collectibles company works though. Whether it's Mondo or the various companies that sell statues or most of the other limited video games companies. I mean, it does put these companies in a difficult situation if there are major delays in that they have to keep taking orders for other products to cover ongoing expenses like overhead and payroll, but it's not like they are alone in structuring their business in this manner. The alternative would be to take out massive loans and establish lines of credit which would be hard to get considering that most companies of this type have very few tangible assets other than a future right to publish software or collectibles where the underlying IP is owned by other companies.

 
inverted_fray said:
What I don't understand is the business strategy of taking people's money long before they even have the products made and doing this in perpetuity. From my limited understanding of accounting they're basically taking in debt (preorders/liabilities) and just assuming things go smoothly enough and people don't mass ask for refunds.
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Right at the start of Covid when they stated they were going to keep taking orders, as a way of continuing to pay staff while closed, I warned everyone how bad of an idea that was. I referred to it as a "ponzi" scheme, as they were using money meant for one thing, to keep paying staff, while having no clue of the "when, were, what and why" of it all? How could this not end badly?

Around that time, they were averaging about 4 months and only getting worse even then(if not longer). Just looking at some other products I was waiting for at the time(Replicade Dragons Lair), I stated 6 months was the best case scenario while over 12 could and might happen. Mostly everyone was used to "your shit will arrive eventually" mantra, and I think most were OK with the "waiting" not realizing how bad they may actually look in practice.

And here we all are, as the same way global Covid cases are on the rise, expect many more delays, supply chain issues and the like for the foreseeable future. This isn't getting any better, until it probably gets much, much, worse(and I'm not talking about C-19). LOL

 
From a legal perspective, is LRG operating like Kickstarter or an actual store that would be required to permit canceling preorders?
 
Starcrest said:
From a legal perspective, is LRG operating like Kickstarter or an actual store that would be required to permit canceling preorders?
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Stores are not required to permit cancelling preorders. I mean Nintendo and Sony were literally refusing to allow cancellation of digital preorders on their stores for years. That's why LRG and other retailers have a disclaimer that says that all preorders are final and cannot be cancelled. Could you convince your credit card company or PayPal to do a chargeback? Sure, but that's a one-time thing since LRG and any other collectibles company will just bar you from ordering again after that.

 
chrislaustin said:
Right at the start of Covid when they stated they were going to keep taking orders, as a way of continuing to pay staff while closed, I warned everyone how bad of an idea that was. I referred to it as a "ponzi" scheme, as they were using money meant for one thing, to keep paying staff, while having no clue of the "when, were, what and why" of it all? How could this not end badly?

Around that time, they were averaging about 4 months and only getting worse even then(if not longer). Just looking at some other products I was waiting for at the time(Replicade Dragons Lair), I stated 6 months was the best case scenario while over 12 could and might happen. Mostly everyone was used to "your shit will arrive eventually" mantra, and I think most were OK with the "waiting" not realizing how bad they may actually look in practice.

And here we all are, as the same way global Covid cases are on the rise, expect many more delays, supply chain issues and the like for the foreseeable future. This isn't getting any better, until it probably gets much, much, worse(and I'm not talking about C-19). LOL
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I don't know, most of Asia seems to have Covid under control and that's without a vaccine. I agree that companies like LRG could get in over their heads if external forces start to make delivery impossible again, but they have been slowly delivering over the past few months and they seem to run their operations in a fairly conservative manner, so I don't feel that worried that they won't eventually deliver. LRG also seems to have good external streams of revenue from Best Buy and as a platform for "distributed titles" and merchandise (pins, shirts, plushes, art books, etc...) which don't cost them anything and probably result in a good cut of revenue for essentially shipping out product that someone else takes all the financial risk to produce. Frankly, I'm more concerned about small publishers like Strictly Limited that have only a handful of titles each month and still take 6-12 months to deliver and were doing that even pro-Covid.

 
Catching up on the thread, I'm now glad I gave up my LRG addiction with Switch release #10 and sold off all my LRG games. Can't tempt me back, and seems like a good addiction to break.

 
I mean, you can't reasonably collect LRG releases anymore. The unreasonably long wait times, lack of updates, and them flooding the market with way too many titles regardless of quality is really harming them. You can tell which titles are actually worth buying and collecting because they resell for a lot versus which is just hoarding shovelware. I was reading through this thread and noticed that many of the older posters in this thread that used to be excited for LRG seem to have lost all interest, including the OP who from what I can gather was a major collector and supporter of LRG. I also bet that many people who were forced indoors during Covid made many impulse purchases from LRG during the summer and now regret that considering that they overpaid for stuff that they might not even get until next summer and lose all interest in it by then.
 
Also the prices suck a lot of the times now. I pretty much only get visual novels and possibly doujin games. Those rarely come out so I don't mess around with the releases much nowadays.

 
mylifeisgarbage said:
I mean, you can't reasonably collect LRG releases anymore. The unreasonably long wait times, lack of updates, and them flooding the market with way too many titles regardless of quality is really harming them. You can tell which titles are actually worth buying and collecting because they resell for a lot versus which is just hoarding shovelware. I was reading through this thread and noticed that many of the older posters in this thread that used to be excited for LRG seem to have lost all interest, including the OP who from what I can gather was a major collector and supporter of LRG. I also bet that many people who were forced indoors during Covid made many impulse purchases from LRG during the summer and now regret that considering that they overpaid for stuff that they might not even get until next summer and lose all interest in it by then.
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I mean, I do and I have from the beginning. I still get excited when they announce some obscure niche title that literally no other company would release in an ESRB version. Sure, a lot of their initial customers have fallen off, but my understanding is that they have over 700 who have been with them from the beginning and who continue to buy (I believe Josh mentioned this a while back as they plan to send those customers a gift). Personally, I think certain people here and elsewhere set unrealistic expectations about LRG as a company early on and can't deal with the fact that they are now a multi-million dollar publisher with some of the biggest IP on the planet. I never viewed Josh and Douglas as my friends or even as anything other than gamers and businessmen and therefore, nothing they have done to grow their business bothers me. Yes, there are delays, but the delays aren't new and they aren't unique to collectibles companies. At the end of the day, they have never failed to deliver and therefore they continue to have my business.

 
True selling most physical games that are not limited gets you very bad results for more common games since most of them dropped in value a lot I'm guessing. I'd always take a bit back than selling for pennies on the dollar.

 
trunks982 said:
i want to sell off my collection too but they worth less than retail now after the fees.
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mylifeisgarbage said:
I mean, you can't reasonably collect LRG releases anymore. The unreasonably long wait times, lack of updates, and them flooding the market with way too many titles regardless of quality is really harming them. You can tell which titles are actually worth buying and collecting because they resell for a lot versus which is just hoarding shovelware. I was reading through this thread and noticed that many of the older posters in this thread that used to be excited for LRG seem to have lost all interest, including the OP who from what I can gather was a major collector and supporter of LRG. I also bet that many people who were forced indoors during Covid made many impulse purchases from LRG during the summer and now regret that considering that they overpaid for stuff that they might not even get until next summer and lose all interest in it by then.
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Agreed. I'm sure there are some (crazy) loyal folks out there who'll buy anything from LRG, but it honestly makes no sense to do so for practically any sensibly minded person. It's not like LRG is a brand like Marvelous, Platinum, or Capcom whose games all come with a particular flavor and/or technical style. There is nothing consistent about anything LRG publishers besides its mantra about bringing digital only games to physical form.

That all said, I think LRG would benefit from being more selective. At this point, LRG is the vanilla publisher. May be well known because it's the largest of the smaller/niche publishers, but otherwise the "McDonald's" of the group. May be it's a business necessity, but one wonders if other approaches such as the one from iam8bit, which tends to be very choosy about what it wants its brand associated with is cultivating a stronger brand connection with its customers. After Edith Finch, Syonara Wildhearts, and Donut County, I do tend to associate higher quality and quirky titles with iam8bit versus LRG.

 
I am only partially aware of LRG, but it seems like they operate on selling to speculators.  Physical items are rarely an "investment," so unless you want the game, why would you buy it if it's arbitrarily made scarce?

Are folks hoping they get the next Poop Slinger?

 
TheKbob said:
I am only partially aware of LRG, but it seems like they operate on selling to speculators. Physical items are rarely an "investment," so unless you want the game, why would you buy it if it's arbitrarily made scarce?

Are folks hoping they get the next Poop Slinger?
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Sure, some of the LRG audience is speculators. While I doubt anyone is going to get rich on physical games, I do know several collectors that buy an extra or two of games that are likely to appreciate and support most of their collection purchases that way. There are a number of LRG games that are worth 2X-5X their original MSRP even if most of their games don't appreciate in that same way.

 
I honestly used to really like LRG, for bringing rare stuff around ( Like Senran Kagura Bon Apetit  for Vita ) into physical form / breaking barriers with games that you genuinely thought would never get released.

Now it is much less the case, and it feels like every week is a scamper of "what crappy indie game can we get on a disc or mock cartridge this friday"

LRG has gone from a "omg, I must check my e-mail every friday to see what LRG is selling" to now being drowned in promotion e-mails for indie games that nobody cares about, that can be purchased for 1/4th the price digitally without a randomized wait.

The SOR4 debacle particularily got me. I bought a PS4 version of the game and spent basically 200 dollars on it. Why did I get a steam code? Why did I not get a PS4 code?

Why is every shipping date the absolute latest second of every quarter it's being offered without any updates during that quarter?

Why did you change the rewards tags so suddenly and make everything a pain to use?

Once a champion, now another corporate greed symbol..sigh.

 
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My copy of Streets of Rage 4 and Panzer Dragoon both standard editions for Switch arrived yesterday.
A lot of my previous orders are on deck and should be shipping soon.

So my big outstanding game order is Tiny Metal Ultimate Edition. Ordered in March and still waiting for it.

I know there was a problem with certification with Nintendo which caused the delay.

But no updates since September on that one.

 
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shosaisyu said:
The SOR4 debacle particularily got me. I bought a PS4 version of the game and spent basically 200 dollars on it. Why did I get a steam code? Why did I not get a PS4 code?
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The same thing happened with the Wonderful 101 kickstarter. People on the backer page said that devs/publishers can generate infinite Steam keys for free but on consoles they have to pay a fee to generate keys and I think maybe they have to order a specific amount of them, can't recall the exact details. Basically it's a way for them to add "value" to their apology with no cost from their pocket, aka the most greedy option available.

Personally if that is the case I consider it more insulting then if they'd just apologized and offered nothing. Like offering a code for a different platform because it's free is basically someone dangling keys in front of me hoping I won't notice what is going on behind them. If they actually truly for real felt bad about the situation they'd go through the trouble of getting people a key for the platform they ordered the game on.

 
flybrione said:
My copy of Streets of Rage 4 and Panzer Dragoon both standard editions for Switch arrived yesterday.
A lot of my previous orders are on deck and should be shipping soon.

So my big outstanding game order is Tiny Metal Ultimate Edition. Ordered in March and still waiting for it.
I know there was a problem with certification with Nintendo which caused the delay.
But no updates since September on that one.
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I would question why they even had a title up to order it if was having cert issues
 
Zenax[zd] said:
The same thing happened with the Wonderful 101 kickstarter. People on the backer page said that devs/publishers can generate infinite Steam keys for free but on consoles they have to pay a fee to generate keys and I think maybe they have to order a specific amount of them, can't recall the exact details. Basically it's a way for them to add "value" to their apology with no cost from their pocket, aka the most greedy option available.

Personally if that is the case I consider it more insulting then if they'd just apologized and offered nothing. Like offering a code for a different platform because it's free is basically someone dangling keys in front of me hoping I won't notice what is going on behind them. If they actually truly for real felt bad about the situation they'd go through the trouble of getting people a key for the platform they ordered the game on.
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Funny enough I prefer when Steam keys are offered haha. I buy physical games for my collection and to have forever, but in most cases, the PC version is better, and I'll end up getting it on Steam and playing it there eventually. So this lets me get the physical copy that I like to have and a better version to play without double dipping. But I realize that this mindset is not very widespread.

 
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