[game_player_s]

Originally Posted by Twisted

i'm going to go on a little rant here..i am really really getting "burnt out" on these "limited releases" of games in small quantities...it's leaning towards shovelware, and the novelty is wearing off..when Retro City Rampage DX was released on PS4 physical, or when Saturday Morning RPG was released on physical..it was exciting, because they were obscure, flew under the radar, hard to comprehend,. that official SONY PS4 games in such small numbers were sanctioned and endorsed by SONY made collecting for PS4 fun, and it was like having an "easter egg" of a game on display in your collection...a conversation piece..and now, these limited games, are going the way of steelbooks, the "buzz" is waning, it's getting diluted..the whole limited press of games is getting diluted as other companies are jumping in, and the "taboo, and mystery" of it is diminishing as the idea of having a physical copy of a game with a small print run, is no longer a pipe dream..at least a majority of PS4 gamers will end up having some game in their library purported to be "rare" whether from limited run, special reserve, play asia, signature edition, iam8bit..i mean the FLOODGATES are opening up!!!!!!!!!!!!...just like STEELBOOK exploded onto the scene, becoming a very common site..diminishing the appeal..i think the appeal to collectors like "rare", "extra special" "ooh ahhh" etc..is gonna become an epic fail, and one day soon..these companies will be SITTING ON EXCESS STOCK..as there releasing A LOT and just like amiibo, just like steelbook, they gonna be languishing on shelves if they keep multiplying and proliferating.

I must concur with you wholeheartedly. Those first three (Retro City Rampage DX, Breach & Clear, and Saturday Morning RPG) were quite exciting releases, especially for me, in a sense Breach & Clear, not because I was actually looking forward to the game so much as I sincerely believed in what the game represented to the gaming community as a whole if Mighty Rabbit Studios (aka Limited Run Games) could pull it off. And then they did, and then my enthusiasm for Saturday Morning RPG was all the more exciting since it was a game I actually looked forward to playing.

Since that time we have seen a mix of game types released by LRG, with some leaning considerably toward games that would have been better appreciated on previous generations of hardware. Which is to say that there wasn't actually anything wrong with the games themselves, only that they were more homage to the bygone days of 8-bit & 16-bit gaming and sadly failed and were found to be a bit underwhelming. And again, I don't hate the games and will not name any names lest I be accussed of such, but said types of titles I'm talking about would have doubtless been better received as classic console releases where they would have doubtless garnered a much better deserved reception. Instead though, they made their physical release debute on the most powerful dedicated handheld system of the era, where even I must confess I would like to have seen the developers make better utilization of the system hardware.

Now the game for the Vita which is on sale today (they still have inventory available as of time of this posting definitely makes better usage of the system hardware, not that I'm certain that I even would totally care quite as much where a space shooter is concerned. Reason it is selling slowly though is due to the price, a issue which the fellow at LRG have made repeatedly clear to everyone that they have no control over. The game developer gets to set the MSRP on all titles that they publish, and in this case Degica Games set the price to match what they sell the game for as a digital download through PSN. Is it a steep price? Absolutely. But then I would prefer to pay a steep price for a physical copy than pay a steep price for a download... not that I would buy the download version, but you get the picture I think.

Moving forward, LRG's CEO Josh recently announced that they have new criteria any games presented to them by devs for consideration to publish in the future must meet, and if they do not meet those criteria they will turn them down. On the plus side they eluded to this decision being partly in response to the outcry on their own forums from established customers concerning the disgust over so many retro-style games being published by them in recent months. And LRG Doug responded to a Tweet shortly after this announcement by Josh that the games which they would be announcing and showing at E3 were all signed for publication prior to the creation of their new criteria policy, meaning pre-acknowledgment that some games would be forthcoming that do not meet up with consumer standards for what the majority of their customers want t osee more of from them. This is a positive in the long run and lends hope that we will be seeing more games befitting of the systems that they are publishing for announced from this point onward.

No where this gets bizarre is with the recent partnership deal (clearly not listened to Dave Ramsey) that LRG has signed onto with, technical competitor, "Special Reserve Games" (SRG). If all has been understood correctly, and I believe it has, games rejected by LRG for publication under their new criteria policy can be passed along to SRG for secondary publishing consideration. Meaning even with LRG assuring they will only publish games meeting or exceeding certain standards in the future, they via SRG will still wind up selling us those games, only under the SRG label. THis is where the burnout will doubtless come into effect for us all.

FanGamer, which handled sales and distrobution of Retro City Rampage DX is another story altogether. I had originally worried they wouldn't do anymore games, thankfully they are not only doing more releases, they are staggering them out to the point that as to almost bring one to question if they are or are not releasing anything else again, LoL! They have released just one game a year during the previous two years, and have just one game announced for release this year. I am pleased to say that I do not forsee "burnout" occuring as a result of FanGamer, even though one can blame them with partial responsibility for this entire Limited Print Edition game fiasco to begin with.

Now we have a relatively new contender from R3 (Southeast Asia). East Asia Soft, who has partnered up with PlayAsia to handle the sales and distribution of all their limited edition releases. East Asia Soft is now a major contender in the limited print run games quandry, moreso than any other thanks to the partnership with PlayAsia.com. THey have already released two (3?) games through PlayAsia with another two presently announced.

And from part of the world that brought us The Crusades, we now have two new contenders in the limited edition release racket; Badland Games and Signature Edition Games (SGE). Badland Games is set to have their first limited Vita release next month (July), but have, thankfully, made it clear that the same said game has a R1 (U.S.A. & Canada) publishing partner that will be doing a limited physical release for R1 at a later time. SGE on the other hand appears to be going for world exclusitivty rights, and earlier this month began shipping their second release (their 1st for the Vita), "Slain: Back from Hell".

Further complicating matters has been Nippon ichi Software America (NISA) of all publishers doing limited physical releases of select of their own titles, and select titles under a partnership with Tecmo Koei! While the quality of the limited physical edition titles so far offered by NISA has never yet been lacking, the single most deserved complaint has been the staggering pricetags on the Tecmo Koei titles, a issue for which they apparently listened to customers concerning with the latest of said releases, where both a standard and box set version of the limited phytsical edition game were both offered.

So we now have to watch out for limited print run edition releases from all of the following publishers.:

1. Badland Games
2. East Asia Soft (EAS)
3. FanGamer
4. Limited Rung Games (LRG)
5. Nippon Ichi Software America (NISA)
6. Signature Edition Games (SEG)
7. Special Reserve Games (SRG)