No, because you don't know how many copies you're going to sell. As it is now, they know exactly how many copies will be sold, and the developer knows exactly how much money he's going to pocket. Otherwise your guess would've been as good as his. Will it be worthwhile or not? Who knows?
You don't know how many copies you're going to sell when they order copies ahead of time. LRG assumes they're going to sell every copy but they may not either. There's no guarantee there either. If you look at the history of their releases, they've been increasing the print size over time. You're arguing that they shouldn't increase print runs ever because there's a risk that they won't sell.
The goal here would be less relying on trying to predict the demand, while increasing sales at the same time. Doing this changes the behavior on the consumer side very little because for the most part things are staying the same. In fact to most consumers, nothing would change but a slight uptick in availability would satisfy more consumers and increase sales for LRG as a result. It's a different approach to increasing the print runs which is something they do already with better accuracy and less risk.
Night Trap would have been a perfect candidate for this.
Yeah, and there were millions of people who attended your inauguration, Donald.
Seriously, there is no evidence whatsoever of your gratuitous claims. Is it likely that it would have sold more? Yes. Do we KNOW that it would have sold more, when they had used your sales model? We really don't.
Oh give me a break. Anyone who can critically think can see it would have sold more. Even LRG admits they underestimated demand. You're the only one sitting here trying to argue that they wouldn't have sold more copies of Night Trap. So I guess everyone except you knows they would have sold more. We really do know this.
Is it a "terrible argument" though? Back in January the biggest hurdle for Skullgirls supposedly was a licensing issue. They had expected to have gone gold in that very month. (See:
http://skullgirls.com/2017/01/skullgirls-limited-run-games-update/)
Yes it is because the game wasn't done. A licensing issues means the game isn't done and ready to go. They weren't gold which you even admit. So yes, it is a terrible argument because the game wasn't done. I'm talking about games need to be done and ready to go when you do this.
First of all, you likely don't know how much of a nightmare logistically the situation is or isn't right now for LRG. You're just assuming all those delayed shipments are a jolly good time for them. And your plan would make that a permanent situation for the company, when what's happening right now is temporary only, due to circumstances. There's a difference.
I didn't say it was a jolly good time for them; I said games already aren't shipping on time and the sky hasn't fallen for LRG or the consumers. There's no mass outrage or some mass exodus to their business. The consumers aren't revolting because of it. So the argument that they need the game on hand when it goes on sale is thrown out the window and that consumers wouldn't balk if things shifted to games will be manufactured immediately after the game goes on sale. And really, if things shifted that way, then all it would do is shift the shipping time frame for everything and they would just receiver it later and ship it later like they're doing now. Don't act like this is a huge thing that can't be done or some huge complication.
Also, the funny thing is despite you saying it can't be done, posts right before your reply seem to indicate that they're going to do what I've been suggesting. So maybe you don't quite have the grip on how things work like you think you do.