limited run games is a company that is not without contravercy, it always feels like every month i hear a new complaint people have about them but none of the recent issues have ever really rang true for me and i still find myself happy to support them, as a company i think they've come a long way and their worst issues are far in the past, i think they're the best they've ever been and as someone that's been buying from them since almost the beginning (since one way heroics and ray gigant) i've been here to see it all, the best and the worst and all of their early contravercies, i was even a big user of their forums back in the day, i'd like to talk about my experiance as a long term user and why i actually do think they are an overall good for the physical games community.

one critisism i still regularly see, as it was early on is the accusation they use fomo tactics and that their games are still "scalperbait". once upon a time when they released games in the thousand number digits this could maybe have been argued to be true, i'd disagree and i never once missed a release in all my years of near weekly buying even when this was still an issue, but these days its simply untrue, games will alwys give you between 1 to 2 months to order and even beyond that will show up in sales later, bestbuy, amazon or even on their wishlist feature for leftover copies (if thats still around like it was in the vita days), i havent seen something genuinely limited from them since their miku VR release several years ago and i've never genuinely missed a game from them at all, i'd say they're less bad at this than many others tend to be since most, like strictly limited (ily though, keep up the fantastic ports, some of the best releases in the industry) or super rare still do these small number print runs in the thousands, where LRG do not but even beyond this i don't think its fair to behold them to the actions of ebay scumbags, sure some of the older titles are rare like shantae on switch or fata morganna, but that's not their fault, especially for many of those vita games carts were very limited at the time, i was there for it, many games did not get allocated nearly as many carts from sony as they should have but thats not on companies like LRG, it was on sony. the firing of the community manager also, put simply, yeah, the firing was justified, having a contravercial figure as your CM is just bound to end in disaster and considering they ran the whole grifter circut up to and including fox news? yeah limited run made the right call there.

for someone like me its also just that LRG and companies like them are a large part of my buying habits and they give me access to tons of games i'd not be able to get otherwise, i'm all physical, i don't buy digital games and i don't trust digital storefronts, ive been there for the ps3 and vita attempted shutdowns, the wiiu shut down and the wii shutdown, these storefronts are not trustworthy and you do not own digital games, but i own my LRG games and i will continue to, so i buy from them, i find that if it wasn't for companies like LRG that my games would be much more limited overall, most of my indie games come from places like them especially back in the vita days, even now while it has gotten much better with indies, things like eternights, world of horror, omori and stray all getting wide release copies, it's not fully common and i still buy most of my indies from companies like LRG, even just recently with things like this way madness lies, tokyo dark: rememberance and gigabash, games i got from them that i may never have played otherwise and i think what they did by giving those smaller devs a chance to have that release is very important because it gives them that reach to an audiance that never would have otherwise paid attention. i think that over time as things do continue to go more digital that they will only become more and more valuble for people like me.

i won't say they're without flaws neither, some releases like shiren for pc and doom for switch were heavily fudged up and they should not have been and in the early days there were issues for many people with getting those days, though as i said this isn't as much an issue, there were incidents like the london detective mysteria (still one of my fav games they've released though) and fata morgana release wherein they tested a new site layout on the day of two of the vitas biggest releases and it made it impossible for many to get the games, something which i recall was later repeated for spelunky, and in the former incident many otome fans ended up getting the blame for sexist collectors not being able to get copies of an otome game they would never play, i remember that from the forums specifically and those people, if you're reading this, can eat my shit. other incidents like the damascus gear one (where for some reason for many of us these games ended up being flagged by paypal as funding illegal activities and LRG did sort it out for us) or the more recent delisting of bill and ted werent fully their fault, i will blame them for shuttering their forums though, i was a heavy user of them and i have a lot of fond memories of it, it was great for discussing new releases, speculating on what we wanted and giving feedback and when it went away it made me really sad, i don't like reddit nor how its taken over as the only platform for stuff like this outside of discord which is almost as bad, they arent conductive to the kinds of fun convos the forums had, bring back forums! reddit stinks. but overall with these few exceptions i've never had any real issues with the company, sure the wait times can be annoying but they aren't a dealbreaker for me, i'm patiant and i'd rather wait a year to play a game than not play it at all and their shipping has never been too bad either and when things have went missing or been damaged, they've always helped me get my packages, though the price increase was a pain and i do miss the days of flat $15 shipping, hopefully that EU branch opens soon.

like i said earlier i've been buying from them for far longer than most people, my first games were one way heroics and ray gigant for the PS vita, some of the earliest titles and the first two the screamed to me as must owns and when i got both i was very happy with what i got, it was cool and novel at the time to have these small digital games released on a cart and they even came with some cool little postcards (which would later be replaced by the trading cards which have just recently been discontinued too) and i kept it up, buying most of their vita games after this and i do indeed own most of their vita library, over two thirds at least and i'm still buying them here and there, i bought many early ps4 games as well like their release of wonder boy and night trap and never had any issues with them, midway through their vita releases i started using the forum and kept up bigtime, being hype for every new release and loving the speculation because their games are usually really good and their choices have always been consistantly solid, sure i might go a little without ordering one but there'll always be a few things on the horizon or as surprise announcements that get me hype (right now that would be floppy knights, princess farmer and tiger heli), i remember being there for the first LRGE3 (which much later on were always my favourite shows to watch since i knew i wouldn't get hit by digital games i couldnt play) and i still watch every year with hype for all the cool indies i'll get to play or the new ports that they'll do (super excited for gex and tomba), i still buy at minimum usually once a month still, when vita ended for them, which i'm still sad about, i moved to their switch releases and i still buy switch, ps4 and ps5 games all the time and i even got some PSVR releases like miku VR which is one of my favs of theirs so far, though i havent gotten any xbox games, i just don't care enough about xbox but i am happy they finally branched out to that nor do i do any of the repro stuff, it's just not my scene but i do think the hate for it is overblown, it's not like anyone will mistake them for the real thing. i do worry for the future though, the dissapearance of the forum was a big shame and the reddit/discord just seem very chaotic and not the best places for discussion, you just don't seem to have the same communication channels as you used to and the fact embracer is on the scene is just scary, i trust embracer about as much as i trust a digital storefront, but with the way the games scene is going with digital being eventualy the only way at least on xbox, and sony possibly following suit, it's scary for someone like me who does only buy physical, i will not adapt to digital and once that is all there is, i will leave this industry behind to focus purely on retro, it feels inevitable and i just don't know how they will adapt being continuing the ports, maybe thats when i'll jump on those repros i guess, i wish them the best anyway.