FinaruDensetsu
Member
I wish this was ever true of the oddworld new and tasty game. Can't find those for anything less than $150.
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Limited Run Games |OT2| Sweet XOXO for Digital to Physical Media
- Thread starter GodzillaDB
- Start date
I wish this was ever true of the oddworld new and tasty game. Can't find those for anything less than $150.
i wonder if Night Trap will get hit by the delay the last couple games have been having
btw do we know if ROM 2064 and VA-11 HALL-A will be coming in 2017?
I don't understand how that adds any redtape whatsoever.
If anything, they could start prepping boxes before the sale date, because they would already have a list of names and addresses to use.
brianmcdoogle
Member
I think a subscription for those that want it and willing to pay would be fine SO LONG AS subscribers don't dip into the stock for the rest of us who buy only the games we like. But, I kind of fear that they wouldn't increase their print runs to compensate, or subscribers would get preferential shipping or preorders, and the rest of us would get screwed somehow.
I mean, I like buying the physical releases of games I like or games that are good, but I don't want to be penalized for not buying some of the pretty bad games (or generously, incredibly mediocre) that get released.
I mean, I like buying the physical releases of games I like or games that are good, but I don't want to be penalized for not buying some of the pretty bad games (or generously, incredibly mediocre) that get released.
foobarry81
Member
I thought that was painfully obvious, but apparently it isn't.
Let's see. For starters, a subscription service would mean that LRG would have to keep a list of subscribers up to date. Because people can unsubscribe as well, right? A subscription service would affect the size of their runs. But those are often negotiated months in advance. What if, in the meantime, they would lose lots of subscribers, and they've already signed deals to produce copies based on a much larger number of subscribers?
Also, what kind of subscription service would it be? All PS4 games they put out? All Vita games? Four games every month? All of their releases? I guess people would want options too, which means more lists to keep up to date.
Next you'd preferably have a system that automatically charges subscribers. A system they haven't readily available currently afaik. More work that they are not even paid for, unless they'd charge subscribers a fee. They can't afford to have to wait until subscribers pony up what they're due. But if people don't pay up, they're stuck with more reserved copies.
Additionally, a subscription service will likely lead to more pressure on CS, because people are going to have questions.
There are probably more issues imaginable.
It has to cut into the totals, but with some experience they'd get a feel for the delta between subscribers and additional sales. This would let them sell more product in the end.
There will never be a consensus on this
It's an inherent trade-off between people that have more money than time and people that have more time than money.
If they don't want to make a portion of customers annoyed, the company will never change.
Any business that is in it to profit will ultimately choose to service the customers with dollars. If they want to optimize this so they can buy maximum Mentos and JP Dreamcast games, they should setup subscriptions for their "more money than time" customers, while still offering enough release day product for the frugal customers. If your theory is correct then it doesn't make sense to annoy their customers that have surplus cash to spend.
They will obviously have to procure additional sales services, or contract some software services. It's ok though, since they seem to sell everything they publish in minutes, for the most part. This isn't a bare bones charity they're running.
It's easy to say "well they sell out every game easily". The thing that gets lost there is that they are leaving money on the table because they are risk averse.
foobarry81
Member
Are you their bookkeeper? Because if you aren't, you have likely no idea how risk averse they are or aren't. Afaik they put their last coin into this entire venture to begin with. I guess that wasn't all that "risk averse" then?
And from what I can tell, they still can't afford more than a very limited number of their runs to go awry (with them being stuck with several hundreds of copies). This is not a company with a Nintendo like war chest. I think Josh and Doug are far off from being able to swim in coins Scrooge McDuck style tbh.
I guess you would prefer them to risk the very existence of the company with every single run...?
This is pure speculation on your part. This is a gamble, it is far from obvious they'd make more money this way.
Wow, prices have exploded. It's an old game but still.
I'm struggling to find Astebreed below 65$ (not losing hope !).
It's definitely a risky business. They are in no way in the same leagues as "leaving money on the table" as a certain Nintendo company...
You want to lecture me about how I have no inside knowledge regarding their finances, then you turn around and do the same thing.
They demonstrate that they are risk-averse through their various Twitter and forum posts. They fret about the size of print runs and such publicly. This is not a secret.
My point is by having a subscription service they have MORE data to make decision with than they have today. They know how many people DEFINITELY will buy X, Y and X+Y each release. Those sales are in the bank, so the speculation then becomes about how to handle the rest of the release. They are also appeasing their most committed fans by doing this, the ones that will put down max cash for each run. From there, they can do preorders or whatever else to finish out each release. It sounds like they wouldn't go this way due to production logistics, but who knows.
Regarding the concept of leaving money on the table, if you sell out in minutes or hours then you've left money on the table unless you believe you wouldn't sell any copies over the next days/weeks. It's a matter of tuning to find the right spot. Maybe for a game or two you end up with a couple hundred copies left for a while, but you make up for it on others.
There are easy solutions to all of those issues (a record company like Joyful Noise keeps two subscriber lists with less employees than LRG), but I'm not going to play armchair economist with you.
As I said, no consensus will exist because we all have our preferences.
foobarry81
Member
Ermm... no, I don't. And no they don't. You on the other hand assume that they are well off and can afford to do anything you're proposing.
In forum posts and through Twitter they "demonstrate" that they don't want to risk losing their company. That is not the same as being risk averse. That is just not being reckless.
Again: when they started the company, they risked a considerable amount of their own money. I don't see how you can describe that as "being risk averse". No entrepreneur is ever risk averse when they start their own company. That personal money they invested is potentially (partially) still in the company. It's not "being risk averse" to want that money back.
They've always stated that they don't have large margins on their runs and that they need previous runs to succeed in order to being able to afford funding future runs. In the beginning the number of copies they had printed was literally all they could afford. So they LITERALLY put all they had on the line. No sane person would call such a thing "risk averse". Meanwhile their overhead costs must've increased considerably, given how they have to travel more (abroad) to sign new deals, and given how they hired personnel to do some of the tasks they originally did themselves. Also, they've offered some more services to their customers. All those investments eat away (partially) any increase in profits they may have had over their runs in the meantime.
Again, not a very good point. First of all, they tried pre-orders, didn't like it for their way of working and basically ruled them out for the future. Not sure why you went there again..?
Secondly, as I stated above in a reply to another poster, the data they have from a subscription service is valid only temporarily. Say that they have 5000 subscribers in January 2018. They negotiate with a company in the same month to do a run of 7000 copies for a particular game, based on their subscription base. Due to all kinds of circumstances, the release of that run is delayed to July 2018. Going by how long ago they've announced some of their partnerships, this is all but unimagineable. Meanwhile, 2000 people unsubscribe for various reasons (people don't like their output for several months and quit, Josh was too rude on Twitter, people can no longer afford it, competitors with better terms pop up, etc ...), so by July 2018 they have 3000 subscribers.
Meaning, they only have 3000 "sales in the bank" - as you stated it - by July, rather than the 5000 they thought they had in January. And the risk for them is way higher by July than they initially thought. So subscription service numbers aren't necessarily as reliable as you make it seem.
It's not "leaving money on the table" when you need any money you got from selling out over the weekend immediately to fund new runs, pay yourself back the money you invested in the company, pay your employees, and re-invest the money in innovation. If you need that money right away, and you don't have it yet because your stock doesn't sell out, you would need to get it elsewhere, e.g. increase your debt with new loans. There is an end to amassing debts eventually, so you can't keep doing that. So whether they're "leaving money on the table", heavily depends on what their current financial situation is. You seem to know for a fact they are doing very well, and can afford to sit on hundreds of copies. Meanwhile Josh is time and again acting all nervous on Twitter when runs don't sell out fast enough (meaning: over 1 friggin' weekend).
Only you did play armchair economist with me by comparing an indie record company with an indie video game publisher, because they are exactly the same thing?
An update regarding available quantities of Undertale from Fangamer. Last figures from Dallow_BG were :
As of today we have :
["Collector's Edition PS4"]: -2344
["Collector's Edition PS Vita"]: -447
["Collector's Edition PC"]: -695
["PS4"]: 4274
["PS Vita"]: 455
["PC"]: 3786
That means in ten days they managed to sell a few more CE, but the standard versions have come to an almost complete halt. Knowing this, there probably won't be a second run for these ones.
As of today we have :
["Collector's Edition PS4"]: -2344
["Collector's Edition PS Vita"]: -447
["Collector's Edition PC"]: -695
["PS4"]: 4274
["PS Vita"]: 455
["PC"]: 3786
That means in ten days they managed to sell a few more CE, but the standard versions have come to an almost complete halt. Knowing this, there probably won't be a second run for these ones.
Kresnik258
Member
Surely they can take the copies from the SE's and put them in the LE's packaging if they're selling so far beyond capacity on those, right?
That's what I'd be doing if I were them. Perhaps they are.
Just order more CE materials.
Demand has apparently been quenched on the short term so maybe they'll resort to that.
It'd be a good surprise for those who ordered the "second batch" CE and could receive them quicker
Dr. Black Jack
Member
After the beta I'm stoked for Lawbreakers. Torn about whether to get the CE or not.
Personally I wouldn't be surprised to see orders get cancelled, if they can't meet demand.
Orders for which edition?
isn't the point of fangamer doing a pre-order so they can give everyone that pre-ordered a copy and then sell off the remaining stock from the next tier of print runs they had to do?
Not really the case here apparently : they have already ordered a set number of units for a first batch in September. The second batch (December) seems to be à la carte, so I'm guessing they have yet to pass a formal order. They theoretically could cancel it if it were too small.
Any edition with numbers in the negative.
Admitedly I didn't know this. Before Undertale, I never ordered anything from Fangamer. However my own experience with retail, those that sell videogames that is, tells me that there are times when a retailer takes to many orders to the point they can't cover them all. End result being cancelled orders. Fangamer operates differently I guess.
They closed orders when they sold out the allotted stock. After a few days, they opened orders again, saying that they'd leave it open for a few months and produce another batch to ship in December.
Fixed that for you.
Nachtfalke
Member
News regarding the Ys Origin LE from Asia:
https://twitter.com/HeavyArm_Store/status/892057223668486144
https://twitter.com/HeavyArm_Store/status/892057223668486144
First ever MS game here
The other good piece of news is : the Euro currency is at a two-year high ! LRG games feel much cheaper now than in December for European buyers \o/
So the distributor is saying it is the English version and everyone else says it isn't. Weird.
First ever MS game here
The other good piece of news is : the Euro currency is at a two-year high ! LRG games feel much cheaper now than in December for European buyers \o/
Congrats! It's the same for Canadians. Our dollar has gone from $0.7 to $0.8 compared to the USD so importing is much cheaper. It's several dollars of a difference, especially when factoring in shipping, per game so it gets significant for those of us who buy frequently.
Dragon's Trap was one of the few Master System games I played as a kid and the only one that blew me away and that I've been wanting to buy the console for so I'm super happy about this physical PS4 release.
Yeah I wouldn't mind a rough ETA for these two games. Please.
Neat ! That's a bigger increase than ours, we went from $1.05 to $1.15. That's still a 10% discount
i3allistic
Member
excited for LRG Wonder Boy this week, was debating if i should get the limited edition, but realized i got a wedding to pay for soon ...so standard edition it is ...
FinaruDensetsu
Member
Is Lawbreakers like Overwatch?
KingdomHeartsFan
Member
Getting the standard release of Wonderboy, gonna pass on Lawbreakers.
salaciousdrift
Member
Already picked up Wonderboy digitally for Switch and am not inclined to double dip. Out until Night Trap. Pretty convinced Night Trap is going to be an ugly bloodbath and I hope I am able to score one.
otaku-asia
Member
Same here. Already got Wonderboy as it's out in Asia. Not interested in Lawbreakers.
AtomskEater
Member
Gonna try for Wonderboy, it'll be my first LRG if I can get it. Made an account and saved a shipping address, just hope I can be quick enough.
blazeuk
Member
It's going to be another release where I'll probably have to try and get what I want from the second batch (which thankfully has been ok the last 2 times), I want Wonderboy CE but more worried I'll end up missing out on Night Trap CE next week since I'll have to do the same then too. Still undecided on Lawbreakers though.
i3allistic
Member
Congrats ! Unless it's not your own wedding and you're getting ripped off somehow
thanks, wedding are ripped off anyway ...but that just my IMO, gotta make the wifey happy i guess ....i rather spend 30k on something else but whatever... happy wife happy life ... =X
Yup, it's the LRG standard version for me. No fuss or confusion with what I'm getting.
Do we have any additional info at all on the loyalty tickets?
The redemption form still hasn' changed from what it was a few months back.
Also, are there any other pictures of the Wonderboy CE other than the tiny one on the website?
Finally, do we know if these are all on hand and ready to ship?
The redemption form still hasn' changed from what it was a few months back.
Also, are there any other pictures of the Wonderboy CE other than the tiny one on the website?
Finally, do we know if these are all on hand and ready to ship?
Shpeshal Nick
aka Collingwood
None of you bastictches better get in the way of me and my Wonder Boy LE.