Collectors editions suck and cost too much

[Daehawk]

Now I love my Fallout 3 one but the cost was crazy. but at least it had something cool..a metal lunch box plus a bobble head and art book. But it seems more and more CEs have stuff in them that should come with them or are totally dumb.....a color map....soundtrack cd....poster....a desktop theme....in game items?? Come on. Stuff like that is not enough to charge your customers $60 and $70 for.

Now I like items like coins or pewter figures and such...but how about a guide book or travelers book or a weapon guide or something. in the old days for regular price you'd get a large spiral bound manual, coin or something, a fake newspaper or so, a 'welcome to the' whatever book/manual and more. Stuff that put you IN the game's world before you even played.

Wing Commander had a Claw Marks reading material from the ship you would serve on, blue prints of the ships in the game and such

the Crusader games came with a giant newspaper like fold out of what was going on in the game's universe and such.

My CE edition of Oblivion has a guide book written in the form of a fellow person in the world who has traveled around to these places, a nice heavy coin from the game, and other nice stuff. I think it cost me $10 more than a normal version.

Now remembering what I said at the start I have to say I do love the Stardock CEs. Ya they dont have a lot and what they do have are desktop addons and music cds and such...but they dont charge you more than other games normal versions cost. I think the CE of GalCiv 2 cost me $39. I thought that was a fair price for what I got.


So how do you guys feel about CEs these days?

[Sarkus]

I agree with your sentiments and it's been some time since I bothered with a CE version of anything.  They are either overpriced for what you get or they don't have anything worthwhile at all.  A couple pages of concept art is not an "art book."  Putting the music from the game on a CD is worthless when it's so easy to extract the music directly from the game itself.  Digital extras are available for free within a day or two of release.  Why should I pay more?

[Redfive]

The next collector's edition game I buy will be my first.

[CeeKay]

I'm fine with them.  sucks for you poor people though 

[jersoc]

CE's are worth it, most of the time. However, it's fucking awesome that atlus gives away what is considered CE shit for free with the price of the game. Pretty much all their games have a sound track.

Also, CE's give the developer/publisher a nice boost in profits. I remember a figure floating around somewhere, can't recall what it was, but it was a pretty nice chunk extra. Now the amazon ghostbuster CE is a prime example of how NOT to do a CE. Don't over price. I love me the GB's and pumped for this game, but I'm not paying the ridiculous price for their CE. The fallout 3 is pretty sweet. You get some nice schwag. I like the blizzard ones cause their artbooks are so freaking awesome to look through. I really love their art style and it's very cool to see some rough drawings and detail ones.

[Razgon]

Age of Conan's CE was wonderfull, the box looked like an old book, it had a beautifull colormap on the inside a huge manual, and a huge art book.

Warhammer online's CE was the same - it even included a comic book, and a pewter figure

[Huw the Poo]

To be honest I don't think they cost too much, generally.  Here in the UK PC games are surprisingly cheap, and the CE usually just means paying what I would consider full-price for a non-CE version.  They're almost always worth it in my opinion.  The Guild Wars games in particular had great bonuses.  The only CE I've bought recently which I thought had a shit package was BFME2, but since it's been so long since the game was released I paid next to nothing for it anyway.

I wouldn't buy CE versions of digital-only games, though.  For the price of a CE I want tangible rewards.  Having said that, it's extremely rare that I buy a digital version over a physical version anyway.

[raydude]

Personally I vote with my money and don't buy the CE and then complain about how it costs too much afterwards. Not that I'm saying people do that here. I think that if more people voted with their dollars on stuff that is even borderline outrageous we would see CE prices be more reasonable.

[coopasonic]

Buy the ones with good stuff that interests you, dont buy the ones with crap. It's really pretty simple.

For example, I love the fallout lunchbox and bobblehead (though the clock was complete crap). I must have the Arkham Asylum Batarang. I wouldn't touch the Ghostbusters CE with a 10 foot pole. I've learned that I don't care about art books or soundtrack CDs and rarely are in-game items worthwhile, but give me a cool looking tchotchke (yah, I typed that) for my shelf and I'm all over it.

[Blackjack]

Yeah, what was great bout the old days is the goodies weren't CE stuff. Stuff like Crusader's poster-size flyers, and Fallout's ring binder manual, or the Dynamix flight sim little ring binder manuals were standard. 

I photographed a Crusader foldout last year for that game box thread I started here:


I think I cried the first time I bought some Microsoft game that was jewel case with no manual. Probably it's better for the environment but not so much better for gamers who like stuff 'in the box.'

[morlac]

Well you have to take into account they we are still paying roughly the same amount we payed for games 15-20 years ago while the cost to produce them has gone up for the most part so something had to give.

[Redfive]

Well you have to take into account they we are still paying roughly the same amount we payed for games 15-20 years ago while the cost to produce them has gone up for the most part so something had to give.

I would argue that we were being overcharged then 

[Goldchamp]

I'm fine with them.  sucks for you poor people though 

This made me laugh 

[Canuck]

I would say  that if you are complaining about the price then you aren't really a "collector".

[Laner]

I don't care about CEs... I don't need more useless junk cluttering up my office.

[ANZAC]

Some of them are worth it, some aren't.

[kronovan]

The only PC CE I have is Half Life 2 anniversary and it was a gift. It was quite cool for it's time as it included HL Source (updated original game) and a nice T-shirt. The only console CE I've bought is the Halo 3 CE w/Master Chief's helmet, and the only reason I bought it was because it was on sale for $60. I think there's some CE's that are worth getting, although must are just filled with fluff. On the console front there is the odd CE that can actually save your $; i.e. I would have been better off getting Halo Wars CE, since I bought the mythic map pack DLC anyways and it cost me more than the extra $10 difference between the CE and the regular game.