Limited Run Games - Putting digital games into your hands

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Make it, say, a $200 service, you are up for renewal once the $200 runs out.

They would be able to know exactly how many subscribers they have at any given point in advance of printing copies, how many copies subscribers would get for whatever release is next, and go from there.


$200, upfront, no refunds. Renew once your "LRG bank account" goes below the value of one game.

I like stuff like this, because I think it's constructive and takes into consideration lots of issues. It helps set base production numbers. Being a non-refundable deposit means they don't have to worry about cancelations. It's good PR and customer service because it allows a way for those that want to, can guarantee a copy. It takes the steam out of many complaints. It puts the impetus on the customer to make sure they didn't miss out and takes it off LRG. It doesn't mean they can't still produce x number over subs to put up for general sale to keep building the customer base. I mean outside of some extra administration, what's the downside? Not like they're not already putting in a lot of extra time going through orders trying to weed out abusers. Put that effort into building a better system that promotes growth and still creates a limited product. Maybe it's time to start thinking bigger here.
 
I don't see how that at all helps with what I described? There would always have to be a cut off with pre-orders, be it 15 minutes, 15 hours or 15 days because at some point to you have to order the quantity that people bought. From then on there is a 1-2 month wait + delays because that's how long it takes to produce these games. But that changes nothing about the situation. The length of the pre-order period would have little impact on the number of ordered copies.

And no one wants to "enforce" small quantities. It's in no one's best interest. The ideal situation is for Everyone to get a copy, I don't see why a dev or LRG would ever print a smaller amount intentionally.
In its present state, Limited Run has to awkwardly, and understandably, straddle game sales between profitability and a certain state of enforced rarity as part of being a new publisher. Part of the reason I proposed a pre-order system with limited sale windows would, hopefully, bring a compromise between those two fundamentals of operation for the company. I don't see how waiting on the release of a title constitutes a negative factor in an industry that already champions this type of aforementioned sales well in advance of release. I'm completely find with waiting months, perhaps years, for the availability of a product as it wouldn't be any different from the usual stuff that could be offered from GameStop, Amazon, Kickstarter, etc. I agree that manufacturing issues will occur and, once more, I'm fine with waiting for the respective item to reach my possession. Customer service will always be a "necessary evil" for both the moral level for those operating the provision on top of negotiating through legitimate issues stemmed from offering any kind of service within a company. It will forever be a "tug of war" between badgering consumers, like some folk exemplify in the ongoing Zero Time Dilemma watch discussion, and the strive to provide positive communication with customers just like the wonderful gentleman stopping by in this thread. Whenever someone posts about a damaged product, the representative encourages getting in direct touch with LRG to sort out the unfortunate circumstance. I completely understand with trying to avoid a customer service snafu in the early going of a business, but I would like to believe the respective crew will expand, perhaps with dedicated people just for the customer department, along with their profitability as time marches forward.

Reaching back to the pre-order or made-to-demand suggestion, I was thinking theoretically that pre-sales could be utilized to increase the number of prints for products while caving to the rarity of the collector marker. As I stated previously in the thread, I always felt having limited pressings were the cost for ultimately making these games available in a format the preserves and offers a project beyond the confines of the digital realm. I'm still incredibly grateful for the existence of Limited Run Games for this very reason as I can finally play these games in a form that will outlive the life of a server without tangling its access directly to a specific console hard drive as well. It additionally by-passes the option of re-purchasing the item having skipped out of digital downloads entirely as a result of this approach. Enforced rarity is an arguably precarious situation for them moving onward. Indeed, small quantities aren't in the best interest of fans, but it's a reality that we'll have to deal with based on their mission statements. In the FAQ section of their site, it clearly states print size are finalized straight from the developer regardless of them pushing for a higher amount. As a new provider, developers will understandably be unsure over how many copies to print from a financial standpoint. I'd like to speculate that a pre-order system could provide concrete data for both demand and sale revenue for a title that has been solidified for release. For example, a hypothetical Transistor release becomes a reality and demand comes out at a collective 10,000 copies ($250,000-300,000 revenue[?]) from two limited, fifteen minute batches. No concrete release date has been announced, but it's scheduled for a few months down the road thus providing flexibility for the manufacturing state. Just take enjoyment out of knowing it's actually coming out on disc or cartridge as exact details are coming later! Most developers will probably be fine with whatever number comes their way, but a pre-established number at 2,300 packages leaves potential sales out in the cold with the present model or a studio could intentionally pursue the rarity for whatever reason. I'm speaking in the grand scheme, but developers do currently have a final word in the amount getting released so fans should speak with respective designers for higher numbers and direct pre-sale could demonstrate this demand with exact numbers. If a preset quantity has been done, it could be split between the order windows respectively on a "first come, first serve" basis. Folk are walking away empty handed at this time and that's why I think made-to-demand sales assist in elevating the floodgate approach when life might keep buyers away from the two-to-three minute sell out period. Apologies for the long-winded response. I was going to comment further upon the stance of no re-prints, but I'll leave of thoughts here for the moment.

Again, I'm extremely thankful for the work being done by LRG and the collaborative developers making these formats come true! I hope these discussions aren't discouraging to them and I enjoy hearing from the community that physical copies are still in demand out in an aggressively digitized world.
 
Yeah Third Man's is great as well. Basically assures everyone who wants one will get a copy. But again most collector's don't want that because it will kill the value of their limited item.

I'd be up for an idea like that. Takes the stress out of ordering eaach game at a certain time and just getting one of each game released. I'm not bothered about game value myself, I'm getting these games to open and play.
 
Rainbow Moon goes on sale August 19th.

Haha, I was like "nooooo" because payday is 20th for us and I'm skint at the moment after bashing my car and having to pay an excess on my insurance. Then I realised the 20th is a Saturday and if that happens we tend to get paid the day before, so it'll be Friday the 19th. Which is exactly when this game releases.

HUZZAH!

edit: Oh, also, 3000 per platform for Rainbow Moon:

https://twitter.com/eastasiasoft/status/759843231374860293
 
No one knows how many people were able to purchase the games using the store exploit not even LRG. So it could be any number from 0-3200. The fact that a decent number of people had such an advantage should be taken into account.

You didn't answer my question, did you miss out on the game? I am fortunate that I was able to get my order in. I did not cheat the system, nor did most.
 
I'd be up for an idea like that. Takes the stress out of ordering eaach game at a certain time and just getting one of each game released. I'm not bothered about game value myself, I'm getting these games to open and play.

I would be to but it's probably not going to happen any time soon. It would involve them making new contracts with developers and changing their business to handle tracking subscribers and keeping up with membership deadlines and probably handling any tax liabilities that would come from it. Also I am sure they would receive a great deal of backlash while you or I wouldn't care about the value since we won't being selling many collectors do and that is their audience. As it is I got tired of the shit and just started focusing on games I want like CSH and mainly just buying on PS4 since they seem to have the demand for that platform projected a lot better.

You didn't answer my question, did you miss out on the game? I am fortunate that I was able to get my order in. I did not cheat the system, nor did most.

Naw not even bothering the system is shitty and the community around it isn't much better. Basically just keeping an eye out for CSH and any other anticipated games right now. As to your question yes I think they should cancel everyone and start over. If they could easily cancel everyone that exploited I don't think it would be necessary but in this case legitimate buyers were cheated and there is no remedy beyond starting over. As for making it into a bigger situation why not I would rather they draw a hard line on anyone using an exploit. That way if someone sees one they will report it immediately so that they won't have to worry about all orders being cancelled.
 
Customers are already pissed off because they couldn't get a copy because of the buggy system and this exploit. It would reset the odds for everyone back to a level playing field. I wonder how many people in this thread used the glitch to assure they had a copy. Anyone willing to fess up since LRG has gone on record to say they won't punish anyone for this exploit? I would like to know just how many people knew about it and used it.

So let's just piss them off more, amirite? That is the last thing you would do in this situation if you want to remain successful. You take this as a lesson and learn from it, not fling shit at people because possibly a few dozen may have abused a shoddy system.

You seem to be one of the ones who believe everyone who was in line ahead of you is a reseller and just out to get these releases so they can gain value. You know damn well that isn't the case and I have no doubt in my mind you would be right here telling people "fuck you, got mine" if they redid the release and people missed out other than you. They underestimated the release far more than any other in the past, cancelling orders and redoing it isn't going to solve that issue and you know it. All of their past Vita games have been around for 30+ mins on the 2nd batch, which is more than enough time to get in line if you are around for it. When a game sells out in 5mins for each batch then clearly demand was underestimated whether people abused the site or not, it selling out that fast doesn't automatically mean everyone abused it.
 
So let's just piss them off more, amirite? That is the last thing you would do in this situation if you want to remain successful. You take this as a lesson and learn from it, not fling shit at people because possibly a few dozen may have abused a shoddy system.

You seem to be one of the ones who believe everyone who was in line ahead of you is a reseller and just out to get these releases so they can gain value. You know damn well that isn't the case and I have no doubt in my mind you would be right here telling people "fuck you, got mine" if they redid the release and people missed out other than you. They underestimated the release far more than any other in the past, cancelling orders and redoing it isn't going to solve that issue and you know it. All of their past Vita games have been around for 30+ mins on the 2nd batch, which is more than enough time to get in line if you are around for it. When a game sells out in 5mins for each batch then clearly demand was underestimated whether people abused the site or not, it selling out that fast doesn't automatically mean everyone abused it.

Pissing off more people is going to have little to no effect on their sales. I don't think everyone who used the exploit was a reseller I am sure many were just normal collectors who saw a chance to guarantee themselves a copy. That doesn't make exploiting the system any better.
 
The "exploit" of putting things in cart early is incredibly simple and I would almost gurantee that it has been used in some form for most of the releases in the past. It's also impossible to detect if you wait until 10 AM / 6 PM to actually check out. It just gives you a tiny advantage of being a few seconds faster. Purchases that were made way before that time in the last batch were already cancelled by LRG.

Since people here are adamant that the games don't sell out in seconds it shouldn't be an issue.

Let's just look ahead instead of taking a sledgehammer to crack a nut
 
The "exploit" of putting things in cart early is incredibly simple and I would almost gurantee that it has been used in some form for most of the releases in the past. It's also impossible to detect if you wait until 10 AM / 6 PM to actually check out. It just gives you a tiny advantage of being a few seconds faster. Purchases that were made way before that time in the last batch were already cancelled by LRG.

Since people here are adamant that the games don't sell out in seconds it shouldn't be an issue.

Let's just look ahead instead of taking a sledgehammer to crack a nut

Looking ahead won't help the people cheated on this one. I don't see the problem with restarting the sales on this one and letting everyone have a go again. Would clearly solve the problem of any exploited copies being rewarded and would start everything back at square one.
 
Looking ahead won't help the people cheated on this one. I don't see the problem with restarting the sales on this one and letting everyone have a go again. Would clearly solve the problem of any exploited copies being rewarded and would start everything back at square one.

I'm sure you can imagine that everyone who already has secured a copy (i.e. the majority) have a problem with starting over.

Now that people (read: scalpers) are aware of the extremely high demand for Söldner things would be even more brutal and a lot more people would miss out instead, exploit or not.
 
Looking ahead won't help the people cheated on this one. I don't see the problem with restarting the sales on this one and letting everyone have a go again. Would clearly solve the problem of any exploited copies being rewarded and would start everything back at square one.

But a lot of people would, I can understand that missing the game while taking precautions to be their on time is frustrating but even if no exploit was found that would not guarantee you a copy since their might have been a lot of people being there on time who also couldn't get a copy.

The only reasonable thing we can do is issue complaint to LRG and hope that they'll fix it for the upcoming releases.

I say this as someone who didn't participated in the last couple of sales.
 
I'm sure you can imagine that everyone who already has secured a copy (i.e. the majority) have a problem with starting over.

Obviously but I still believe that LRG should recognize the mistakes that occurred with the system and allow people to have a chance that was taken from them by exploiters. Being told another group of people cheated the system and potentially screwed multiple people out of copies of the game is a big enough issue that they should take a hard line approach. Not only would it be a fairer solution to the folks who missed out it would encourage the community to report possible exploits before the sale to ensure their orders are not cancelled. The only other compromise would be to offer additional copies for sale but they have already ruled that out as ever being a possibility.

But a lot of people would, I can understand that missing the game while taking precautions to be their on time is frustrating but even if no exploit was found that would not guarantee you a copy since their might have been a lot of people being there on time who also couldn't get a copy.

The only reasonable thing we can do is issue complaint to LRG and hope that they'll fix it for the upcoming releases.

I say this as someone who didn't participated in the last couple of sales.

I haven't been involved either but I an thinking about the folks that missed out on copies because others cheated and I doubt it is a small number of people like some are suggesting. I am betting a pretty good number of people knew about this and used it in this one and earlier runs. The fact that they are getting away with it and have actively hurt other customers seems like something LRG should take into account for this release. However their hardline stance on additional copies make the best solution unusable and instead leaves me with the idea to cancel all orders and start fresh.
 
Obviously but I still believe that LRG should recognize the mistakes that occurred with the system and allow people to have a chance that was taken from them by exploiters. Being told another group of people cheated the system and potentially screwed multiple people out of copies of the game is a big enough issue that they should take a hard line approach. Not only would it be a fairer solution to the folks who missed out it would encourage the community to report possible exploits before the sale to ensure their orders are not cancelled. The only other compromise would be to offer additional copies for sale but they have already ruled that out as ever being a possibility.

A "fairer solution to those who missed out" doesn't do jack shit for the people who got it though. People missed out on past sales as well, should those have been cancelled as well so the people who missed out would have another chance? You don't go potentially screwing over legitimate customers because people are missing out on some of these releases, it's seriously asinine to even suggest that. People will miss out whether they redid the release or not because demand was underestimated, what part of that don't you understand?
 
I haven't been involved either but I an thinking about the folks that missed out on copies because others cheated and I doubt it is a small number of people like some are suggesting. I am betting a pretty good number of people knew about this and used it in this one and earlier runs. The fact that they are getting away with it and have actively hurt other customers seems like something LRG should take into account for this release. However their hardline stance on additional copies make the best solution unusable and instead leaves me with the idea to cancel all orders and start fresh.

But then what happen if some people cheat again? Not to mention that LRG is working on a tight budget and any delay regarding their potential base of income could hurt them pretty bad.

I just think in this case that there's no perfect solution and leaving this episode behind while improving and limiting the risk of it happening again is the best way to move forward.
 
Obviously but I still believe that LRG should recognize the mistakes that occurred with the system and allow people to have a chance that was taken from them by exploiters. Being told another group of people cheated the system and potentially screwed multiple people out of copies of the game is a big enough issue that they should take a hard line approach. Not only would it be a fairer solution to the folks who missed out it would encourage the community to report possible exploits before the sale to ensure their orders are not cancelled. The only other compromise would be to offer additional copies for sale but they have already ruled that out as ever being a possibility.

C'mon man. You wouln't be saying this if you managed to snag a copy.
 
Looking ahead won't help the people cheated on this one. I don't see the problem with restarting the sales on this one and letting everyone have a go again. Would clearly solve the problem of any exploited copies being rewarded and would start everything back at square one.

That's never going to happen sadly for those of us who had store problems and I honestly wouldn't agree with it anyway given most people probably purchased perfectly legitimately.

I'd rather they just look into ways of ensuring people who want copies can get them for future releases, the whole thing with trusting a shopping system which clearly has some issues with it and having scalpers purchasing stock to flip before they have even received the game wouldn't be as much of an issue if there was a system in place for people to guarantee their copies early. I'm sure it would make life easier for a lot of people wanting the collection to not constantly have to worry about being there at a specific time to purchase too.
 
Would anyone object to one of the two subscription services suggested?

Let me put more flavor to it:

Let's say we have a subscription service that works in $200 chunks. It works like this:

- Customer pays $200, any time. No refunds, no takebacks, no game choices.
- As the time arrives for a game to go to print and for LRG to set a print size, they deduct $X from your account with them.
- If a customer has a "bank account" that's below $X, he's asked to renew if he wishes to.
- After the "print" date passes, print sizes are locked in: There will be however many copies are currently using the subscription service, and however many other LRG and the dev wishes to print.


Now, obviously this can't be started now for Rainbow Moon, but it certainly can be started for whatever isn't off to the presses yet, right?

Keep in mind, this is meant as a premium service to people that do not want to miss any games, and do not mind paying ahead of time. I set the price purposefully high, but that value can be adjusted by LRG themselves.

It's a system that's easy to keep track of, too: Their current Shop system already saves values of purchases. Dealing with customers that subscribe only requires two queries on a very simple database of customer IDs and simple dollar values:

- One that checks how many customers are currently subscribed and with account values >$X
- One that checks how many customers are currently subscribed, but with account values <$X


A "subscription" becomes simply an item to be purchased on the web store. Everything else is run on the background through a query system and two or three columns of Excel.

Any objections?
 
First and foremost, Limited Run Games is doing a brilliant thing releasing these games and securing deals with developers. I feel that more than anything they should continue with their efforts to reach out and keep bringing the range and diversity of releases.

I think us as customers have to be pragmatic too, and understand that demand is probably going to outstrip supply - whether a game sells out in 5 minutes or an hour, all copies are sold in a relevantly short period of time. That's the business model, and I will try to buy the releases I want. But ultimately if I miss out, I miss out.

But if there is a way to improve things, it is to allow non-refundable pre-orders at the time of announcement. You could still limit these to say, 2000 copies, but this pre-sale would form an early picture for Limited Run to understand how popular or not the release will be and react accordingly. At the moment, it's all largely guesswork, and that isn't ideal for either party.

That might be too impractical for them and I can totally understand that. So even if nothing changes, I'm still massively thankful for these releases.
 
They've mentioned time and time again that they can't offer subscription services since they can't promise a set amount of releases for every month/year.
 
They've mentioned time and time again that they can't offer subscription services since they can't promise a set amount of releases for every month/year.


Read the post above. A subscription service does not require a set number of releases or even a set value for different releases.

You just need to use a value-based subscription rather than a quantity based one.
 
Read the post above. A subscription service does not require a set number of releases or even a set value for different releases.

You just need to use a value-based subscription rather than a quantity based one.

Not all releases have the same price. What happens if your subscription ends short of a few dollars for the next release? What if you want to skip one of them? What happens if you want to cancel it midway? I'd love to be able to pay once and don't worry about it for another year, but there are several issues that can't be solved easily.
 
Not all releases have the same price. What happens if your subscription ends short of a few dollars for the next release? What if you want to skip one of them? What happens if you want to cancel it midway? I'd love to be able to pay once and don't worry about it for another year, but there are several issues that can't be solved easily.


1) If you are a few dollars short, you pay up and resub.

2) You don't get to skip releases.

3) You don't get to cancel.


This is meant strictly for completionists. No refunds, no changes, no skipping releases.

Like I said, it doesn't even need auto-renew or other confusing features of subscription services. It would literally be an "item" you can buy on their currently existing shop.

And what happens if the system fails and there's no interest other than, I don't know, me and a couple of other people? It doesn't impact anyone that didn't like, and just quietly disappears if LRG wants it to.
 
Rainbow Moon is 1 per platform, so I can't get my cousin one. :(
I guess it's back that system.

Rainbow Moon goes on sale August 19th.

Already set a reminder/alarm in my calendar. From now on I'm not going to even attempt to buy multiple games (like PS4 & Vita copies) in one order. Just going to click through on the Vita copy first. Then go back for a separate PS4 copy if I want it and if it's available.
 
C'mon man. You wouln't be saying this if you managed to snag a copy.

I didn't want a copy their store is to much of a clusterfuck on most releases that I don't care anymore. At this point they are having the exact same problems they did at the beginning and now it has been shown that people can cheat the system and all they do is shrug and say they will fix it next time. I am looking forward to seeing if the glitch still works on the next game.

And no even if I had gotten a copy knowing so many people were screwed I would be willing to start over.
 
Looking at it, the cover art for Rainbow Moon Vita is really plain. Just the title over a white background. Wish it was a little better. :/
 
I didn't want a copy their store is to much of a clusterfuck on most releases that I don't care anymore. At this point they are having the exact same problems they did at the beginning and now it has been shown that people can cheat the system and all they do is shrug and say they will fix it next time. I am looking forward to seeing if the glitch still works on the next game.

And no even if I had gotten a copy knowing so many people were screwed I would be willing to start over.

As I asked several times already, what the fuck would your solution do when the demand for the game was underestimated and people would miss out whether they started it over again or not? What happens when people abuse it again because it's unlikely that anything worth mentioning is going to be done to fix it in a matter of days? You want them to cancel orders again and retry another time, pissing off even more people? They can't keep trying over with this release when they have dozens of others that they want to get out eventually. They're smart enough to learn from a mistake like this or else they wouldn't continue doing this.

They know there is an issue, they aren't as blind as some of you seem to think. They have more to lose than there is to gain by letting the problem continue. Coming in here and shitting on them because you don't believe anything they have to say sure as hell isn't fixing anything either.
 
yeah not sure why they did that. Don't like it at all

Supposedly it's to invoke memories of FF7.

https://twitter.com/LimitedRunGames/status/759827045329297408

The game is kinda different, and not all of us have played FF7, but whatever. Not a big deal, I guess.

Where is the cover?

CorU_CuUsAELrLu.jpg
 
As I asked several times already, what the fuck would your solution do when the demand for the game was underestimated and people would miss out whether they started it over again or not? What happens when people abuse it again because it's unlikely that anything worth mentioning is going to be done to fix it in a matter of days? You want them to cancel orders again and retry another time, pissing off even more people? They can't keep trying over with this release when they have dozens of others that they want to get out eventually. They're smart enough to learn from a mistake like this or else they wouldn't continue doing this.

They know there is an issue, they aren't as blind as some of you seem to think. They have more to lose than there is to gain by letting the problem continue. Coming in here and shitting on them because you don't believe anything they have to say sure as hell isn't fixing anything either.

People are going to miss out regardless but letting a group of people get away with having an advantage over everyone else with an exploit is different from not making enough copies and people missing out that way. As for when they redo it I assume they would fix the problems first but as we have seen they haven't really fixed any of the websites problems from the first release. You could argue it is on shopify to fix but maybe they should consider using a new platform if they aren't working with them enough. But honestly since they had so many issue with Soldner including the website not working right and the exploit they should print additional copies but they have stated they will never do that under any circumstances so I have no solution to people missing out due to the low print run.
 
OK, there are clearly some misunderstandings here. The huge chunk of inventory that disappeared before the add to cart button went live was not a glitch nor anyone buying the games early. It was me adjusting the supply down for the first batch! I usually do this at 8AM prior to a sale but I went Pokemon GO hunting and ended up doing it later (around 9:50, I believe).

Only two orders came in before 10AM. They were from the same guy and both were for the Franchise Bundle. They were swiftly canceled and the guy was then banned. We couldn't list the bundle until the inventory was freed up through the cancelation and the guy banned (because he would have come back).

The simple fact is that 12,000 unique customers showed up on Friday - up from about 6,000 on July 4th. 12,000! We did not expect this. Söldner-X 2 went in to manufacturing back in June when Octodad took nearly 3 days to sell out (and about 15 hours to sell 3K copies on Vita at two per customer). There was nothing that suggested the game would be this popular. Many have said "It was a SHMUP, you should have known!" - I can't just wildly assume we should print 5K of every SHMUP in the same way I can't assume 5K for every RPG would be right.

We have to make sure our releases sell out quickly because the money is immediately invested back into the next game. I'm literally wiring the money from Friday to Sony tomorrow morning for our September releases. If games start piling up and don't sell, we're finished - plain and simple. We can't just recklessly increase runs or overprint games. Clearly what happened with Söldner-X was specific to it because Deadline still lasted two days.

We're definitely reevaluating certain print runs right now but know we can't fix the sizes of runs already in production (notably, Rainbow Moon).

Finally, RE: Shopify. It's not the cheapest solution, it's the best. No other eCommerce solution serves what we are doing better. In fact, the other solutions we tried prior to choosing Shopify were trash with absolutely terrible inventory management. MONDO has been doing limited run merch way longer than we have - I'd consider them the leader in this sector. They use Shopify too. Most stores use it (vBlank, Indiebox, Fangamer - they all use it). It has a lot of quirks and issues, but nothing beats it. We are going to be doing a lot of work on the site in the coming weeks and will likely invest money im hiring a professional to do that work. I doubt we can improve the checkout situation much, but we can certainly close loopholes and tighten things up.

Thank you to everyone who is sticking with us through these growing pains. Sorry to anyone who missed out! Know that there was no funny business here - the cart loophole was not widely known. Söldner-X 2 sold out legitimately, lightning fast.
 
The simple fact is that 12,000 unique customers showed up on Friday - up from about 6,000 on July 4th. 12,000! We did not expect this. Söldner-X 2 went in to manufacturing back in June when Octodad took nearly 3 days to sell out (and about 15 hours to sell 3K copies on Vita at two per customer). There was nothing that suggested the game would be this popular. Many have said "It was a SHMUP, you should have known!" - I can't just wildly assume we should print 5K of every SHMUP in the same way I can't assume 5K for every RPG would be right.

Just think if half or more of those people wanted to buy Soldner. How exactly would that much interest be gauged beforehand, when no Vita title so far could have pulled those numbers in anything less than several days? Even on other message boards I noticed people weren't talking about this release more than any of the others, yet the interest for this was seemingly huge.

inb4 "but preorders?????"
 
Thank you to everyone who is sticking with us through these growing pains. Sorry to anyone who missed out! Know that there was no funny business here - the cart loophole was not widely known. Söldner-X 2 sold out legitimately, lightning fast.
Thanks for addressing this but this is kind of contradicting one of your earlier replies. On twitter you told someone you had no way of knowing who used the cart exploit but here you say it was not widely known. Can you tell or are you guessing? How many copies of the game were sold within the first few seconds of going live?
 
Finally, RE: Shopify. It's not the cheapest solution, it's the best. No other eCommerce solution serves what we are doing better. In fact, the other solutions we tried prior to choosing Shopify were trash with absolutely terrible inventory management. MONDO has been doing limited run merch way longer than we have - I'd consider them the leader in this sector. They use Shopify too. Most stores use it (vBlank, Indiebox, Fangamer - they all use it). It has a lot of quirks and issues, but nothing beats it. We are going to be doing a lot of work on the site in the coming weeks and will likely invest money im hiring a professional to do that work. I doubt we can improve the checkout situation much, but we can certainly close loopholes and tighten things up.

I would suggest to make it so, if possible, that your cart at least reflects it when you haven't actually reserved a game for 5 mins. This is highly misleading, and leads to a wholly unsatisfactory customer experience. When your cart indicates you're in a waiting line, you at least know right away that you were too late for a reservation.

Just think if half or more of those people wanted to buy Soldner. How exactly would that much interest be gauged beforehand, when no Vita title so far could have pulled those numbers in anything less than several days? Even on other message boards I noticed people weren't talking about this release more than any of the others, yet the interest for this was seemingly huge.

inb4 "but preorders?????"

Don't forget that there was also the B&C franchise bundle! Given how prices of the orignal game shot up like crazy on eBay, it's safe to assume there were quite a number of people trying for that too on Friday.

Also the shoot 'em up genre is a bit of a special breed. If you look at aftermarket sales, a lot of money is paid for anything that is somewhat of an uncommon shoot 'em up. It shouldn't be compared with sales of games like Octodad.

Anyway, as LRG said, there's a high risk for them tied to it, so they can't go randomly increase the print numbers. So it's understandable they stuck to 3200. But clearly, it was not a great estimate of demand.
 
OK, there are clearly some misunderstandings here. The huge chunk of inventory that disappeared before the add to cart button went live was not a glitch nor anyone buying the games early. It was me adjusting the supply down for the first batch! I usually do this at 8AM prior to a sale but I went Pokemon GO hunting and ended up doing it later (around 9:50, I believe).

Only two orders came in before 10AM. They were from the same guy and both were for the Franchise Bundle. They were swiftly canceled and the guy was then banned. We couldn't list the bundle until the inventory was freed up through the cancelation and the guy banned (because he would have come back).

The simple fact is that 12,000 unique customers showed up on Friday - up from about 6,000 on July 4th. 12,000! We did not expect this. Söldner-X 2 went in to manufacturing back in June when Octodad took nearly 3 days to sell out (and about 15 hours to sell 3K copies on Vita at two per customer). There was nothing that suggested the game would be this popular. Many have said "It was a SHMUP, you should have known!" - I can't just wildly assume we should print 5K of every SHMUP in the same way I can't assume 5K for every RPG would be right.

We have to make sure our releases sell out quickly because the money is immediately invested back into the next game. I'm literally wiring the money from Friday to Sony tomorrow morning for our September releases. If games start piling up and don't sell, we're finished - plain and simple. We can't just recklessly increase runs or overprint games. Clearly what happened with Söldner-X was specific to it because Deadline still lasted two days.

We're definitely reevaluating certain print runs right now but know we can't fix the sizes of runs already in production (notably, Rainbow Moon).

Finally, RE: Shopify. It's not the cheapest solution, it's the best. No other eCommerce solution serves what we are doing better. In fact, the other solutions we tried prior to choosing Shopify were trash with absolutely terrible inventory management. MONDO has been doing limited run merch way longer than we have - I'd consider them the leader in this sector. They use Shopify too. Most stores use it (vBlank, Indiebox, Fangamer - they all use it). It has a lot of quirks and issues, but nothing beats it. We are going to be doing a lot of work on the site in the coming weeks and will likely invest money im hiring a professional to do that work. I doubt we can improve the checkout situation much, but we can certainly close loopholes and tighten things up.

Thank you to everyone who is sticking with us through these growing pains. Sorry to anyone who missed out! Know that there was no funny business here - the cart loophole was not widely known. Söldner-X 2 sold out legitimately, lightning fast.

As long as you don't go out of the business I'm happy,I thought that oddworld number of copies were low and it lasted a day or so, so it's very difficult to know how many copies are the perfect number.
Just solve the cart problems and glitches that have happened although I haven't noticed any, it seems that many complains come from the second batch in which I can't share an opinion since I didn't participate on it.
I love how you are transparent to customers despite others saying the opposite.
Thanks and I want to know the august 19 game!!
 
If games start piling up and don't sell, we're finished - plain and simple. We can't just recklessly increase runs or overprint games. Clearly what happened with Söldner-X was specific to it because Deadline still lasted two days.

Thanks for a good post! :) but stock lasting 2 (two) days is still insanely fast and could be increased in volume, atleast a little :D I do though understand that this might be a bubble and when you attempt to print 9000 copies of the next game you might end up selling only 3000 of them and HC collectors being soured in games becoming mass produced.
 
Thanks for a good post! :) but stock lasting 2 (two) days is still insanely fast and could be increased in volume, atleast a little :D I do though understand that this might be a bubble and when you attempt to print 9000 copies of the next game you might end up selling only 3000 of them and HC collectors being soured in games becoming mass produced.

I fear that may be what's happening to Indiebox these days. They've started printing 5K copies of each game (6,5K for some), and months later they're not sold out :/
Btw I'm really starting to worry about them, but I hope they manage... The community doesn't appear very dynamic, and I hope this stock situation doesn't mean they're too low on cash. Fingers crossed !
 
I fear that may be what's happening to Indiebox these days. They've started printing 5K copies of each game (6,5K for some), and months later they're not sold out :/

Yeah it's understandable. There's a always a big demand in the beginning, which drops off shortly after.
 
Only two orders came in before 10AM. They were from the same guy and both were for the Franchise Bundle. They were swiftly canceled and the guy was then banned. We couldn't list the bundle until the inventory was freed up through the cancelation and the guy banned (because he would have come back).

Just dropping here that we're talking about people abusing the backend system to BUY stuff. This alone should give away how much all this needs a rethinking.
 
Yeah it's understandable. There's always a big demand in the beginning, which drops off shortly after.

Indeed. They should probably go back to print smaller runs :x
Although I think another problem here is that they don't do advertising, like, at all. At one point, some famous Youtubers talked about them (namely Projared) and that dramatically increased their sales (from what I saw), but since then it's like their relying only on events, such as PAX East, and on word of mouth.
Towerfall, Rogue Legacy, Axiom Verge quickly went sold out at the time, but now even some great games such as Nuclear Throne or Dust An Elysean Tales are piling up.

I really hope I'm mistaken and everything's actually fine for them.
 
Just think if half or more of those people wanted to buy Soldner. How exactly would that much interest be gauged beforehand, when no Vita title so far could have pulled those numbers in anything less than several days? Even on other message boards I noticed people weren't talking about this release more than any of the others, yet the interest for this was seemingly huge.

Yeah, I really didn't see anything that suggested demand would be quite as high as it was. Possibly the fact that there was no PS4 version of the game?

But really, the only game I think was under-printed was Oddworld. Maybe the fact it didn't sell out quite as quickly as Soldner means it wasn't so bad, but I always thought for such a historic, popular IP the print run was really small.

August's secret title may be up for sale on the same day as Rainbow Moon. Also, it may be announced this week.

Well, not like there's long between announcement and release anyway. Since we know it's a Metroidvania (right?) I wonder what it'll be!
 
Other August release is going to be Shadow Complex for PS4. Mark my words

Exhibit A) Sticker for the other Aug release


Exhibit B) Metroidvania

Exhibit C) Pretty sure they teased something "remastered for PS4", but I can't find it anymore

EDIT: Here we go

P8u8U5P.png
 
Shadow Complex would be their biggest release yet. Acclaimed cult classic from the makers of Gears of War. It would be a stellar release for gaining some momentum for LRG. It almost feels too "big" for LRG at this point IMO but you never know.
 
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