Limited Editions offer gamers something else other than just the game itself. Whether be a figurine, a statue, a soundtrack, or an in game downloadable content, all of these are bound to suck you into pre-ordering them. Companies like EA offer an even better incentives for the core gamer by giving it to them exclusively online such as the Dead Space Ultra Limited and the Crysis 2: Nano Edition – which are both quite expensive on the second hand market.
The word limited means it is limited and it should be. If the content is good, the reviews are stellar, there will be a demand for such an item. But why even call it a limited edition if it’s really not a limited edition? It’s a term that perhaps lost it’s meaning over the years. Maybe it was intended to be, but like always, money changes everything.
The reason I brought this up, is because I noticed that Dragon Age 2: Signature Editions, for all 3 platforms, are still in stock on Amazon.com. I posted it a little while back before it was released. If you look at the date in which I posted it, it was past the cut off date making it impossible for you to even acquire it. GameStop had stopped doing the pre-orders as well. So basically, this particular version of the game is supposed to be made-to-order. It’s even written on their website:
The BioWare Signature Edition will be available until January 11th, 2011. After that date, you can no longer order the BioWare Signature Edition of Dragon Age II.
Really BioWare? I guess if Amazon orders a few thousand of them, it’s just hard not to say no. The PC version of the SE was actually one of the first one to go up in value due to the fact that it played better on the PC compared to the 2 other platforms it’s released on. But a few months after, Amazon seems to have gotten an exclusive reprint and it’s been in stock ever since. Publishers almost never release any information as to how much they’re willing to release. The last time someone did that, they lied and told everyone one number, but turned out to be false just to fool the unsuspecting collector (points a finger at NIS America).
It seems too early to tell, but Atlus’ Catherine Deluxe Edition might be in stock for a while. Isn’t that supposed to be made-to-order also?
All in all, if the product works good, it’s a product that will sell and it seems like the publishers intend to do so for as long as people are buying them. They want you to forget what they said before about how limited it’ll be. It just sucks that you and I have to be deceived in order for the whole process to work. But it is something that we should always look out for when it comes to these so-called Limited Editions. We’ve seen that price cuts for both systems and games are inevitable. If an interesting Limited Edition set comes around, I think i’ll wait until Amazon.com cuts the price down to 75% off.
