Things We Hate About Gaming: Collector’s Editions

Things are getting out of hand….

Collector’s editions are both a gift and a curse for gamers. While some games deserve an amazing special edition (Fallout 3 and Street Fighter 4 come to mind) others such as Prey really have no reason to exist in a more costly form than the standard game. I bring this topic up because while I was at a Circuit City recently I saw collector’s editions of both Prey and Assassins Creed sitting there on the shelf. Still at full price. Not going anywhere any time soon.

Perhaps we should first delve into what a collector’s edition is supposed to be. A collector’s edition is an edition of a game meant for collectors. I know that sounds redundant but some people truly don’t understand this concept. A collector’s edition is essentially the same as a limited edition. It has a smaller run than the stand alone game and once it is sold out…it’s gone for good. What is the point of spending an extra ten to twenty dollars on a product that is supposed to be limited when a year or two later I can still find the same product? It’s ridiculous.

Special editions are a different beast and are usually the same as collector’s editions without the limited production run. The problem with these is that they plummet in price and stay on shelves for just as long just as often. A person who is interested in a special edition of a game really shouldn’t bother buying it immediately unless they just can’t help themselves. When I saw the Grand Theft Auto 4 special edition I thought it was very overpriced for what you were getting, so I purchased the standard edition. A few months later I was looking at the clearance table at a Best Buy and came across the special edition for a whopping 35 dollars. Of course I bought it and I have no problem saying it was well worth the 35 bucks that it cost.

Recently even more of these special/collectors editions have dropped in price just weeks after being released. Amazon has had the collector’s editions of Resistance 2 and Fallout 3 for as low as 60 and 50 dollars respectively. Both price drops occurred within a few weeks of the titles initial release. The customer who bought those overpriced editions when they were first released is probably going to think long and hard before making such a purchase again.

The other problem with collector’s editions is the class of games that are getting them; does Saints Row 2 really need a more expensive edition? How about Spectrobes for the Nintendo DS? I completely understand the draw to the special edition versions of some games, they usually come with some cool stuff and I’m glad that companies are making them but sometimes they need to take an honest look at their product and ask if it really needs to have a special edition. It’s getting out of control. Limited/Collectors/Special editions are being applied to controllers now. What’s next?

The last class of overpriced editions of games are the most worrying: limited editions that cost over 100 dollars. The Dead Space and Mirror’s Edge special editions for instance. The legendary edition of Halo 3 was kind of a farce, it wasn’t limited at all and I still see them on the shelves today for around 70 dollars, but at least Bungie had a reason to release such an expensive version. People wanted it. Halo 3 had huge hype behind it, legions of fans dying for the next installment, and the claim (read: lie) that it was the final chapter of the Master Chief. Did Dead Space or Mirror’s Edge have any of those things? No. There was a bit of hype for both sure, but it seems like there is hype for every single game that comes out these days. Why in the hell EA thought it was a good idea to release limited versions of these games is a mystery to me.

Granted, the Dead Space Limited Edition contained some cool stuff and it was actually limited’¦imagine that. Prices on Ebay more than doubled and many horror fans’¦and hoarders’¦ were happy. The execution of the Dead Space Limited Edition was great; it is what a LIMITED edition should be. But the idea that a brand new IP like Dead Space is getting such awesome treatment just begs the question: why aren’t other amazing, more proven games getting the same treatment? I think the Mirror’s Edge Limited Edition was garbage. For 130 dollars you get one of the shortest games of the year’¦and a bag. There wasn’t even any extra game content or a developer interview. Now I admit that I’m not much into the bag ‘œculture’, and I’ve been told that timbuk2 (the company that made the Faith bag for this LE) is a very good brand, but for 130 dollars you could have waited a month, got Mirror’s Edge for 30 bucks, and had 100 dollars left over for buying better games.

Let’s take a look at what came in the Mirrors Edge 130 dollar edition.

Yep…that’s it.

Now here’s a look at the Dead Space Limited Edition as well as a handy list of its contents from EA’s product page. The limited edition was 150 dollars and was limited to 1000 copies.

Here’s what EA’s product page has listed as the Limited Edition’s contents:

‘¢ The Dead Space game
‘¢ Special Ultra Limited Edition packaging
‘¢ Dead Space Downfall Animated Movie (DVD)
‘¢ Bonus content DVD
‘¢ Exclusive custom lithograph art illustrated and signed by Ben Templesmith
‘¢ 97-pg Dead Space art book written and illustrated by the development team
‘¢ 160-pg Graphic novel
‘¢ Ishimura crew patch

Now as I said, this was a bold move by EA, putting all of this into a limited edition of a game that hadn’t proved itself yet. If more companies would make content like this for their games, I’m sure that these limited editions wouldn’t be sitting on shelves years after the game’s release. Of course the quality of the game is always going to be a deciding factor but there are games that deserve this treatment, Little Big Planet could’ve sold a ton of collectors editions if it had included a little sackboy or something of the sort. What about The Orange Box or Lost Odyssey? These were just wasted opportunities. The main gripe here isn’t that special editions of game exist, it’s how companies are treating them and their questionable methods of deciding which games get what.

The good news is that some companies seem to understand that they need help in making these decisions. Capcom went to the fans for input on what to include in the collector’s edition of Street Fighter 4 as well as what new fighters to put in the actual game. Other companies are taking less drastic steps by allowing fans to choose the covers of their games. These are definitely steps in the right direction but it needs to become more the rule instead of the exception.

More things we hate about gaming.