A look into Limited Run's retro revival projects in Episode 259
The particulars of selling old games alongside new ones.
Quite some time ago—about a year and a half, which amounts to several decades now that we live in the 2019 news cycle—I visited the offices of Limited Run Games (conveniently located a few miles from my house) to discuss the very old-school business model they've adopted with their emphasis entirely on bringing digital-only releases to print in physical editions. Although Limited Run wasn't doing much with actual classic games at the time, while I was there, they did give me a copy of Windjammers, and the company co-founders mentioned an upcoming project that would involve custom-made NES cartridges.
That project turned out to be a proper NES conversion of Galf, the mini-game from Golf Story. Since then, though, Limited Run's focus on classic games has expanded considerably. In addition to bringing digital-only releases into print, Limited Run has also been resurfacing vintage titles for reissue in collector-oriented packages. That includes Star Wars, Shantae, System Shock, a cassette release of the Snatcher soundtrack, and even some games whose titles don't start with the letter S.
So, I once again made the long, long drive (approximately 15 minutes) over to Limited Run's offices to talk to them about this new aspect of their business and dug into the nuts-and-bolts of what it actually means to license a classic game, how they decide to give it the Limited Run treatment, and the hurdles involved in reissuing a repro cartridge that actually works on vintage hardware.
Retronauts Episode 259: Limited Run Gets Retro
MP3, 35.6 MB | 1:16:02
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Episode description: Jeremy Parish talks to Josh Fairhurst and Douglas Bogard of Limited Run Games about the company's growing line of classic game reissues, and the behind-the-scenes details of selling new retro game releases.
