we can't compare this to atari days in wich someone in his basement made 10 to 100 copies of 1 game in their garage. It's usually a couple thousand copies at least with only fewer numbers for the collectors editions wich still are usually in the couple thousand copies range. not to mention that limited run games has releases that far exceed the 10K copy limit of games such as panzer dragoon saga wich is considered part of a sega saturn full set.
How different are they, really? If we could physically see the operations of LRG, would it just be a few dudes running out of a small rented office building? How many of their competitors are probably literally doing the same from a basement? Do those count? Because now there's a bunch of people doing the same business model. Back in the 2600 days there were independently owned toy stores that would contract people with programming skills to make a 2600 game for them to sell in their store. They might have sold 1000, maybe 500, or maybe just 100. Some people consider that stuff part of the 2600 set.
If I was going for a full set, all that would count would be games which made their way through reputable retail venues, as a product that anyone could buy upon release. Not just those in the know of it's release date, with a pre-order requirement direct from manufacture to consumer. To me, it's not really a proper retail game. Gets into that grey area of being more of a novelty item.
so your saying that the discs art work etc are all house made withouth any help of 3rd parties?
I find that hard to believe plus the volume being at least a couple thousand minimum. plus I can't imagine them making their own switch carts. There's got to be some help from a factory with these amounts. If I had to guess The only thing that happens in these office building has got to be the shipping part, or at the very most just getting all the things together to complete a collectors edition when all products are already done. or fitting them cards with the normal releases. It's far to big to compare to those atari examples.
and again where also talking bigger brand names such as castlevania being in here not just indi titles. we also have bigger retro releases here wich where considered part of a full set on past consoles. plus the konami Brand. or what about the panzer dragoon remaster wich is an ip of sega.
I'll say this though your description is a nice way to seperate these kinds of games from the rest. At the very end of the day everyone is going to collect how they want, it doesn't really matter what other people think. multiple definitions of a ps4 official full set will exist
also I'm fairly sure limited run had amazon releases of same games but with a different cover. not for all games but for a smaller selection
Yeah, it's even more grey for the grey area. LRG sells some of their games via retail now, at Best Buy. I guess those would count as retail games. However, a lot of these cottage industry types are usually not the rights holders for the games they're printing copies of, they're just licensed to sell copies of them. Most of the titles are releases which were already made available for download from the publisher.
You can buy all the supplies you need from Nintendo with a business license and cash to buy in bulk, and you can print little inserts and labels yourself, or have it done, no problem. That's partly why LRG use to print in such small quantities. 2000 was probably the smallest affordable investment for them to make in the supplies, since in manufacturing you can only buy in bulk amounts. They wanted to make damn sure they sold everything they purchased so they didn't go in the hole gambling on how much they'd be able to sell. They found their niche, they hyped a bunch of people on it, and they turned a predictable profit every single time with people manic to buy in that small window of time, as well as having scalpers there to ensure everything was sold each time.
It's a much bigger financial risk when you invest in a much larger amount of supplies, and one most of the LRG types will never take. They're riding on the novelty of having a "super limited" item to actually sell all of their investment so it works out. I'd imagine they're already are unhappy with the pre-order model because it means they need to order a certain bulk amount to fulfill that, and probably have some investment left over and unused. However, LRG has made such a name for themselves now with their following, they could probably just run a proper retail shop on their website and let people buy a la carte. I doubt they could go wrong at this point.
