Those of you with a love of physical media and retro games will no doubt have heard of the name Limited Run.
Founded in 2015 by Josh Fairhurst and Douglas Bogart, the company started out publishing games created by Fairhurt's Mighty Rabbit studio before transitioning to distributing the titles of other companies. Since then, Limited Run has worked with some of the biggest names in the industry to help create unique physical releases for a wide range of modern and retro formats, and in 2022, the company was acquired by Embracer.
Limited Run has given us physical releases for games such as Arzette: The Jewel of Faramore, Blasphemous, Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon, Castlevania Anniversary Collection, Double Dragon Neon, Night Trap, Radiant Silvergun, River City Girls and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge, to name but a few—thereby giving these digital-only titles a tangible presence on our shelves. The company also has its own in-house platform, Carbon Engine, to enable vintage titles to run on modern-day hardware, and it even has its own book imprint called Press Run.
However, more recently, the company has been in the headlines for less favourable reasons. Delays in getting products to customers have been a bugbear for some time, but in 2024, Limited Run was forced to apologise for shipping a 3DO title on a CD-R, and its vinyl release of the TMNT soundtrack came under fire for being of a low standard. Then, earlier this month, the company was accused of selling NES carts which could potentially damage consoles. Limited Run co-founder Douglas Bogart – who left the company in 2023 – has chimed in and claimed that a "cut corners" culture exists within the company—something that, as you're going to see, his co-founder refutes.
We've reported on these less pleasant topics multiple times and have always been keen to get the other side of the story. As luck would have it, a mutual contact managed to connect us with Fairhurst, who was keen to speak with us and address some of the points raised above.
Time Extension: LRG is clearly doing a lot of good things in the realm of physical releases, given the famous publishers and developers you're working with, but there's been a lot of negative press about the company recently. Do you think the negativity is fair?
Josh Fairhurst: I think criticism helps us grow and ultimately become better at what we do. Like any company, we’ve certainly made mistakes, and it’s important for us to recognize those mistakes, internalize them, and use them to improve in the future.
Time Extension: The most recent issue relates to some of the NES games you've released. What's the situation with those, and what are you doing to make things right moving forward?
Josh Fairhurst: When we started regularly releasing retro games with our STAR WARS releases - one of the most important things to me was ensuring that we were using proper voltage, high-quality, PCBs. With that in mind, I selected Retro-Bit as our primary manufacturing partner for cartridges. They had just released Holy Diver and R-Type, and I had observed that the community response to these releases was extremely positive.
Unfortunately, we utilized a different manufacturer for Rugrats and PioPow - they were actually the publisher for Rugrats, which is why we made the decision. When we received the games from them, we played them extensively and found no issues. Upon receiving our first community report about the PCBs, we immediately began investigating and quickly determined, with the help of some friends in the community, that we needed to re-manufacture these games with our usual vendor and replace them for our customers.
Going forward, if we ever have to stray from using Retro-Bit as our vendor, we will be sending those boards through a rigorous process with the community to ensure they meet the highest possible standards. Quality is extremely important for us.
Time Extension: We realise LRG has already given a statement about the 3DO CD-R issue, but do you have any additional context to give on that?
Josh Fairhurst: We’ve subsequently remedied the situation with help from World of Games and have sent out pressed replacement discs for D to all customers. Our follow-up 3DO release, Plumbers Don’t Wear Ties, was never shipped out on a duplicated disc and was only ever shipped on a replicated, pressed, disc.
One thing that I wanted to correct is the allegation that I suggested duplication as a cost-saving measure and allegedly stated I was OK with shipping out a bad product - that’s completely false, it never happened. Our disc manufacturer is Disc Makers, whose pricing is transparent and visible to the public. I believe strongly in the quality of our products and always do everything possible to ensure we are delivering the best possible items to our customers.
We went with duplication on D after the only set of test discs that had functioned consistently on our office hardware was a set of duplicated discs (all of the replicated discs had failed). We naively assumed they would work unilaterally across anyone’s hardware; however, we later found out we were wrong once customers started trying to use them. Thankfully, we’ve fixed the situation for all of those customers, and we now have the process in place to manufacture replicated 3DO discs. We’ve learned from the mistake, and the criticism was justified.
Time Extension: LRG has also come under fire for the lengthy delays between taking people's pre-order cash and actually delivering the product. Why does it take so long for orders to be fulfilled, and are you taking steps to streamline this process?
Josh Fairhurst: This question might take me a bit to answer, so bear with me.
When we first started Limited Run, we used to offer everything on a pre-manufactured basis but this meant that we had to place strict limits on each item because we could only sell what we had in-hand. What this meant was people often left our site empty-handed, bitter and angry with LRG because they couldn’t get a game they loved.
When we sold out of Night Trap on PS4 in under a minute, we saw half of our customer base evaporate overnight, as previously loyal customers who couldn’t get a copy just gave up, pissed off, never to return again. To this day, I still meet people who hate us because of Night Trap! We made a lot of enemies with that release, and it was eye-opening for me.
When we sold our first Switch game we used it as our opportunity to fix this. We offered the game on a time-limited preorder basis and manufactured it to demand. This meant every person who wanted the game could get it as long as they visited our site during the preorder window. Unfortunately, this meant we couldn’t start manufacturing the game until we knew how many we needed.
Thus, the dreaded wait times for fulfilment were born. Standard games can take a few months to manufacture, while Collector’s Editions - especially ones with more complex items like statues - can often take 8 to12 months. It's painful, but there's really no way to do this that would allow for open preorders and also remove the manufacturing time. I think waiting a few months and being able to get any product you want is a better situation than having to fight to get a game you love while ultimately missing out on it!
During COVID, a new problem emerged and that was an inability to ship products for several months. This created a backlog in our warehouse that was nearly impossible to dig out of as new products continued to arrive. Thankfully, with the help of our new COO we were able to clear our backlog late last year and we’re now back to shipping products out as soon as they hit our warehouse.
With that all said, we’ve made huge strides in fulfilment times over the last year, with many standard editions shipping out ahead of our originally advertised dates. We also added functionality so customers can effortlessly and instantly cancel their preorders and get a full refund if they’re ever unhappy with the wait! On top of that, product delays now happen transparently - any time a date shifts, our platform will send an email update automatically. The result of all of this is a better experience, even if the wait is not eliminated.
Unfortunately, Collector’s Editions are still a little more unpredictable as the components come from a variety of manufacturers that must be assembled into the final box once everything is in. We do our best to estimate these arrival dates accurately upfront, but so many things can derail these - from global events like the Suez Canal blockage to things like needing revisions to fix issues or errors with final manufacturing samples. We don’t ever want to ship a bad product, so if we have to delay something to get it right - we’re going to do that. If there’s one line I’ve heard consistently throughout my time at LRG, it’s: “It took forever to get here, but it was worth the wait.”
That being said, we’re putting all of our efforts into shortening wait times and improving the customer experience. As time goes on, people will see these efforts manifest in tangible ways. We’re really putting everything behind it.
Time Extension: The world of gaming is becoming increasingly digital. Why is it important to keep physical gaming alive?
Josh Fairhurst: The key thing for me is ownership. Digital games provide no true ownership - physical products are yours to keep and play as you see fit, for as long as you see fit. With the loss of several digital storefronts over the last few years - not just in games but TV and movies, as well - I think people are really starting to wake up to the fact that digital purchases can be revoked at any moment.
Beyond that, I came from a game development background - the first game I released physically was my own - and what has always been important to me is that physicality gives games a legacy. The worst games on NES are still remembered because people are buying, trading, and discovering those cartridges every day - but how many people remember the worst Xbox 360 games on Xbox Live Arcade? I’m painting this example with the worst games, but eventually, the good digital games will be forgotten as well. I think that’s really concerning.