The Last of Us Franchise - Because it's apparently a franchise now. This thread has been double-DMCA’d by Sony Interactive Entertainment.

[Judge Dredd]

The only people who'll buy this are simps who don't know when they're being price gouged for cheapo products.

The whole point of "collectors editions" is to get more money out of rich or obsessed fans. That's why the junk is almost always exclusive to the collectors edition, cheaply made, or both. It doesn't cost the publisher $30 to print a DLC code and a comic book, but they charge that much because there are fans who will pay that extra.

This is basic business strategy. A variant of price discrimination, but with a paper thin incentive on top.

Let me explain it like this. I've never understood the value customers see in post cards, challenge coins, wrist bands, and other shit you see in Kickstarter tier rewards. But they're something that's cheap to make, fit in the box, and gives people something they can't get by downloading it from the internet. You'd never spend $15 on that shit, but put it as a backer reward for your board game, weeb DVD, or comic book, and enough people might pay the extra for it to be worth it. Digital deluxe editions are basically free money as far as the company is concerned. It's just jpgs and mp3s they had laying around anyway.

Others have already gone through the items in the collectors edition of TLOU2, but I wouldn't be surprised if the total cost to make those things was less than half the price of the collectors edition (minus the game itself).

 

[Ginger Piglet]

The whole point of "collectors editions" is to get more money out of rich or obsessed fans. That's why the junk is almost always exclusive to the collectors edition, cheaply made, or both. It doesn't cost the publisher $30 to print a DLC code and a comic book, but they charge that much because there are fans who will pay that extra.

This is basic business strategy. A variant of price discrimination, but with a paper thin incentive on top.

Let me explain it like this. I've never understood the value customers see in post cards, challenge coins, wrist bands, and other shit you see in Kickstarter tier rewards. But they're something that's cheap to make, fit in the box, and gives people something they can't get by downloading it from the internet. You'd never spend $15 on that shit, but put it as a backer reward for your board game, weeb DVD, or comic book, and enough people might pay the extra for it to be worth it. Digital deluxe editions are basically free money as far as the company is concerned. It's just jpgs and mp3s they had laying around anyway.

Others have already gone through the items in the collectors edition of TLOU2, but I wouldn't be surprised if the total cost to make those things was less than half the price of the collectors edition (minus the game itself).

Time was when games came with "feelies" like big printed maps (i.e. bigger than most home printers could handle) or even cloth maps, novels or novellas by actual writers (i.e. not the hacks employed by Sony), manuals that were done up to resemble something in universe, or similar. A personal favourite was Legend Entertainment's adaptation of Shannara, which came with a complimentary copy of the 600-page novel on which it was based. While Life and Death came with a surgical mask, cap, and latex gloves to wear as you took out some digital person's appendix.

 

[AnOminous]

Time was when games came with "feelies" like big printed maps (i.e. bigger than most home printers could handle) or even cloth maps, novels or novellas by actual writers (i.e. not the hacks employed by Sony), manuals that were done up to resemble something in universe, or similar. A personal favourite was Legend Entertainment's adaptation of Shannara, which came with a complimentary copy of the 600-page novel on which it was based. While Life and Death came with a surgical mask, cap, and latex gloves to wear as you took out some digital person's appendix.

Old Infocom text adventures used to have these. Usually they were more humorous and silly than actual game items. I think Infocom may have invented the practice.

 

[DumbDude42]

Time was when games came with "feelies" like big printed maps (i.e. bigger than most home printers could handle) or even cloth maps, novels or novellas by actual writers (i.e. not the hacks employed by Sony), manuals that were done up to resemble something in universe, or similar. A personal favourite was Legend Entertainment's adaptation of Shannara, which came with a complimentary copy of the 600-page novel on which it was based. While Life and Death came with a surgical mask, cap, and latex gloves to wear as you took out some digital person's appendix.

i remember baldurs gate 2 came with a huge manual (over a hundred pages) that included in depth documentation of all the mage and priest spells available in the game. shit was super impressive, i spent hours just reading the manual

 

[UnclePhil]

Time was when games came with "feelies" like big printed maps (i.e. bigger than most home printers could handle) or even cloth maps, novels or novellas by actual writers (i.e. not the hacks employed by Sony), manuals that were done up to resemble something in universe, or similar. A personal favourite was Legend Entertainment's adaptation of Shannara, which came with a complimentary copy of the 600-page novel on which it was based. While Life and Death came with a surgical mask, cap, and latex gloves to wear as you took out some digital person's appendix.

I used to love reading the old Blizzard manuals. If 20+ page sections devoted to the lore and backstory wasn't enough, they went into hardcore levels of contextual detail about every unit/character class. Even if they were making this shit up as they typed it (Amazons use crossbows ingame...because they once used them to defend their islands...from pirates) it felt like extra love and care.

 

[Pumpkin Girl IRL]

Arcanum Of Steamorks And Magick Obscura was wonderful in that regard. Massive, chunky manual with a wealth of lore information presented in the form of an explorer's guide.

 

[Fareal]

Time was when games came with "feelies" like big printed maps (i.e. bigger than most home printers could handle) or even cloth maps, novels or novellas by actual writers (i.e. not the hacks employed by Sony), manuals that were done up to resemble something in universe, or similar. A personal favourite was Legend Entertainment's adaptation of Shannara, which came with a complimentary copy of the 600-page novel on which it was based. While Life and Death came with a surgical mask, cap, and latex gloves to wear as you took out some digital person's appendix.

for a minute I wrongly thought you were referring to the televised abomination they pretended was Shannara and I felt blood drip from my eyes

 

[Sug Benis]

for a minute I wrongly thought you were referring to the televised abomination they pretended was Shannara and I felt blood drip from my eyes

I to this day cannot understand how Brooks let that happen, given how infamous he was for withdrawing the license when people tried to hollywood the series up beforehand.

 

[Marissa Moira]

I to this day cannot understand how Brooks let that happen, given how infamous he was for withdrawing the license when people tried to hollywood the series up beforehand.

A relative had a terminal illness and he needed money fast, that's what I think.

 

[Ma_Hooty]

I'm a sucker for art books. If there's a collector's edition - especially one that includes a hardback that's fit for coffee table viewing, I'll spend the extra $20-30 for it (because buying it elsewhere at retail price is about the same, if not more). I enjoy perusing the pages, reading about inspirations or little known facts about the design process, how characters change from concept to final, looking at the various watercolor backgrounds - they also make for very good reference material.

My bad if this is wrong (this was almost 10 years ago), but I remember that I was able to buy a leftover Collector's ED of Skyrim and it came with a very lovely hardback artbook which gave me the best image resolution in regards to how armor and weapons were designed. I also have an art book for the first LOU and looking at the environmental design and all the various iterations of zombie concepts- *chef's kiss*

Also, I've come to find that weeb games come with better stuff than a lot of western developed vidya: if you bought the SE of Disgaea 4 from the NISA store, you got like a dozen miniature figures of all the main characters. And like I stated in my last post, the TYH edition of Persona 5 got you a messenger bag, a steel game case, a cute Morgana plush, the game soundtrack, and offical hardback~art~book~.

That being said, it seems like I was too young to know what the concept of a collector's edition to a game was until most of the cool stuff had gone by the wayside...

 

[Pinochet Was Right]

Nothing I hate more than nerds crying about spoilers. That Breakthrough guy, who seems to be a legit paid shill, saying anyone who posts spoilers will be banned.....

Spoilers don't make or break a fucking film/game/book IF the story is good. It's why knowing the spoiler for Empire Strikes Back doesn't take away from the experience, it's spoiler is part of pop culture now with multiple movies referencing it - somehow Star Wars continues to gain younger fans who weren't around when they were first released.

The concept of a "spoiler" is stupid. Always has been. "MUH EXPERIENCE!"

It's gotten worse with all the armchair scriptwriters and JJ Abrams wannabes on the internets who jerk off to the idea of "less is more" so much that according to them everything on screen is a spoiler. If it was up to them, we would never have seen the Alien on camera so that "audiences would have been speculating until today what the hell was killing the crew, muh imagination beats anything, isn't that edgy or what?“

 

[Marissa Moira]

I'm a sucker for art books. If there's a collector's edition - especially one that includes a hardback that's fit for coffee table viewing, I'll spend the extra $20-30 for it (because buying it elsewhere at retail price is about the same, if not more). I enjoy perusing the pages, reading about inspirations or little known facts about the design process, how characters change from concept to final, looking at the various watercolor backgrounds - they also make for very good reference material.

My bad if this is wrong (this was almost 10 years ago), but I remember that I was able to buy a leftover Collector's ED of Skyrim and it came with a very lovely hardback artbook which gave me the best image resolution in regards to how armor and weapons were designed. I also have an art book for the first LOU and looking at the environmental design and all the various iterations of zombie concepts- *chef's kiss*

Also, I've come to find that weeb games come with better stuff than a lot of western developed vidya: if you bought the SE of Disgaea 4 from the NISA store, you got like a dozen miniature figures of all the main characters. And like I stated in my last post, the TYH edition of Persona 5 got you a messenger bag, a steel game case, a cute Morgana plush, the game soundtrack, and offical hardback~art~book~.

That being said, it seems like I was too young to know what the concept of a collector's edition to a game was until most of the cool stuff had gone by the wayside...

The Atelier Ryza book that came out in japan had 159 full sized pages compared to the mini one that Americans and Europeans got.

However some of the more interesting books you can still pick up cheap. The Artwork to Myst and Riven is like 10 bucks on average and that book is huge. Working designs also put out a few books to stuff like Lunar.

Dark Horse and Udon are the two main publishers for the game art books in america, and the rule of thumb tends to be if there's a mini artbook coming in a special edition, the real art book is coming later from one of them. Udon published all the art books relating to the Falcom games like legend of heroes and ys.

 

[SolidZone 26]

At this point I just want a PlayStation with an HDMI port that spins my old discs, and upscales them to look decent on the newer TV. It would save money on the tax for repurchasing digital downloads. I don't give too many shits about AAA console exclusives anymore except maybe what Nintendo offers. Nintendo is fluid movement and fun and warm feelings. Sony is walking slow behind someone at inconsistent 25fps and slaughtering pets and your favorite characters.

After seeing how Sony fucked up the PlayStation classic you are better off just emulating the games on PC.

 

[Boobie Bomb]

Something funny related for once for this thread. A YouTuber making a parody video of Geeks & Gamers by making fun of him while still in character. Interesting to see though.

 

[Marissa Moira]

After seeing how Sony fucked up the PlayStation classic you are better off just emulating the games on PC.

Saturn and Playstation and to a lesser extent N64 are notoriously bad at being able to be properly emulated on PC due to the non-standard hardware that is in all the machines. That entire generation is arguably the most at risk for being properly preserved outside of 1950's and 1960's proto console and arcade stuff.

Every emulator has some sort of major issues if it's being run through a PC and not being run off the actual hardware. That's why you have stuff like Pseudo Saturn which runs off the actual Saturn hardware and why model 1 Playstations are the most sought after because of the port in the back which stuff can attach to.

 

[Jaimas]

Is it too late to put up my favorite Biff Queefcrush meme variant?

 

[Trashfire Garbagefuck]

Saturn and Playstation and to a lesser extent N64 are notoriously bad at being able to be properly emulated on PC due to the non-standard hardware that is in all the machines. That entire generation is arguably the most at risk for being properly preserved outside of 1950's and 1960's proto console and arcade stuff.

Every emulator has some sort of major issues if it's being run through a PC and not being run off the actual hardware. That's why you have stuff like Pseudo Saturn which runs off the actual Saturn hardware and why model 1 Playstations are the most sought after because of the port in the back which stuff can attach to.

I'm hopeful about it. ps1 and saturn are fairly accurate now and things can only get better. I'm really impressed with mednafen's saturn core, though some games are too much for my crappy laptop it's a matter of your rig's power rather than the emulator. ps1 though that shit works great no matter what. mednafen for accuracy and epsxe for bumping up the resolution. the only thing I don't know how to emulate is that weird ps1 jogging game where you actually plug a stepper machine into the controller port. as for n64, work on a cycle accurate emulator is still ongoing. current emulation on, say, project64 is currently kinda like znes back in the day. it's way better than it used to be though. I can even emulate the goemon games without crashing., those used to be a huge hassle.

I'm more worried about ps2 and original xbox emulation. even 360 and ps3 emulation are making better progress. I've got a softmodded ps2 with a SD card holding the games, but we need accurate and reliable emulation for the future when these consoles die off. I don't even think xbox emulation is a thing yet.

 

[SolidZone 26]

Saturn and Playstation and to a lesser extent N64 are notoriously bad at being able to be properly emulated on PC due to the non-standard hardware that is in all the machines. That entire generation is arguably the most at risk for being properly preserved outside of 1950's and 1960's proto console and arcade stuff.

Every emulator has some sort of major issues if it's being run through a PC and not being run off the actual hardware. That's why you have stuff like Pseudo Saturn which runs off the actual Saturn hardware and why model 1 Playstations are the most sought after because of the port in the back which stuff can attach to.

Most emulation on PC runs better than the native console. Just look at dolphin. Now that the N64 source code leaked we will soon get perfect N64 emulation on PC.

 

[ducktales4gameboy]

Time was when games came with "feelies" like big printed maps (i.e. bigger than most home printers could handle) or even cloth maps, novels or novellas by actual writers (i.e. not the hacks employed by Sony), manuals that were done up to resemble something in universe, or similar. A personal favourite was Legend Entertainment's adaptation of Shannara, which came with a complimentary copy of the 600-page novel on which it was based. While Life and Death came with a surgical mask, cap, and latex gloves to wear as you took out some digital person's appendix.

My favorites were the Maxis games. SimAnt/SimCity/SimLife/ElFish etc all came with 200+ page manuals that doubled as miniature biology courses on whatever the game's topic was. Those got me interested in biology and research sims in a big way as a kid.

I scored a copy of the hitchhiker's guide text adventure at one point in the last decade and was amazed at the sheer volume of feelies. There were a ton of manuals/pamphlets in alien languages, a subatomic space fleet (empty ziploc bag) and a real life replica of the game's most important item: no tea.

 

[Fuck Y'all]

I'm hopeful about it. ps1 and saturn are fairly accurate now and things can only get better. I'm really impressed with mednafen's saturn core, though some games are too much for my crappy laptop it's a matter of your rig's power rather than the emulator. ps1 though that shit works great no matter what. mednafen for accuracy and epsxe for bumping up the resolution. the only thing I don't know how to emulate is that weird ps1 jogging game where you actually plug a stepper machine into the controller port. as for n64, work on a cycle accurate emulator is still ongoing. current emulation on, say, project64 is currently kinda like znes back in the day. it's way better than it used to be though. I can even emulate the goemon games without crashing., those used to be a huge hassle.

I'm more worried about ps2 and original xbox emulation. even 360 and ps3 emulation are making better progress. I've got a softmodded ps2 with a SD card holding the games, but we need accurate and reliable emulation for the future when these consoles die off. I don't even think xbox emulation is a thing yet.

actually PS2 emulation is making some progress, few weeks ago new version of PCSX2 got released;

XBox on other hand for years was thought as "just a PC with special OS" except it's not therefore people tried high-level emulation and failed