As time marches forward and we continue growing farther and farther away from physical releases, game publishers are doing everything in their power to get customers spending more money. Through “Day-One Editions” to “Gold Editions” and the fabled “Collector’s Edition,” most of these exorbitantly priced variants of the same thing exist for a single reason: to get you spending more cash. Sure, dedicated players might get something out of it, but are these different versions really necessary?
For the scope of this post, let’s stick to the most antiquated of these special releases. Back when the only method of distribution was through retail outlets, gamers were tempted by the allure of what a Collector’s Edition held. If you were deep into a series and wanted to express your love for it, spending a little extra to get a fancy box and physical goodies felt like it was worth it.
I’ve even dabbled in a ton of collector’s edition packages over the years. One of the first I remember grabbing was for Return to Castle Wolfenstein in 2001. Housed in a massive metal tin, you got the game alongside a themed manual, iron-on patch, and small poster. It was only $10 more and the box was glorious, so I begged my mother to get me it. I’ve lost some of the goodies over the years, but still have that lovely tin.
Blizzard was also churning out insane collector’s packages for most of its major releases. World of Warcraft is probably the most famous of these as it sold out months before the ridiculously popular MMO even released. I remember having to convince a friend in Florida to grab me one after she spotted it in the wild. At least, in this case, these bundles came with a ton of behind-the-scenes material and absolutely stellar art books.
Where the trend really took off was with a few key releases in 2004. I distinctly remember that average game prices were $50 before both Ubisoft and Microsoft tested the waters of a $60 release for Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory and Halo 2, respectively. Coming in slim steelbook cases (possibly the first of their kind), the gimmick cemented the fact that gamers were willing to pay extra to grab an “exclusive” version of their favorite games. Both of these were also relatively lame collector’s editions, in retrospect, with only a bonus DVD included.
From there, the market exploded and publishers continued to pump out more and more useless guff. You would find PC versions of games coming on DVDs -something that hadn’t become standard at the time-, but these versions were mostly just the same thing with a higher MSRP. It wasn’t until the seventh console generation that the collector’s edition as we know it began.
It’s hard to figure out who struck first, but our old pal Ubisoft was definitely up to the plate with a luxurious bundle for Assassin’s Creed in 2007. A completely unproven IP, a cool $150 got you a bunch of nonsense to go along with a game that many now consider a boring slog. The sequel got a similarly priced edition that came with a fetching statue of its main protagonist housed in a rather large tin box. At least that had some fandom behind it instead of being a marketing ploy.
At the time, these expensive versions felt like they were worth it. An objective eye could have pointed out that these were simply marketing stunts to eventually train customers to spend more, but it was something new to celebrate your love of this wonderful hobby. Nintendo and Sega never did anything like this in the 90s and I know I would have killed for a Super Mario Bros. bundle in my youth. I’ve basically done as much with more recent collector’s bundles for The Legend of Zelda games.
Whether or not these extravagant editions are worth it comes down to some personal factors. Do you have any affection for a particular brand? Is the price fair? Will you use this nonsense in your daily life? I can’t answer these questions for everyone, but we can look at specific collector’s editions to see what they did right and wrong.
The Call of Duty series might be the most eponymous when it comes to this trend. Before Activision attempted to launch some paid subscription service alongside Modern Warfare 3 with Call of Duty Elite, these packages came with plastic toys of extremely low quality for triple the regular price. I’ll never fault steelbook cases (those are pretty awesome), but the night vision goggles included with Modern Warfare 2 were a total joke. Black Ops even one-upped it with a more cheaply made RCXD car.
Once Elite rolled around, the higher-priced variants started to include paid DLC in your purchase. That’s an entirely different can of worms, but there could be some justification for spending the extra dough if you only played Call of Duty. It still highlights how publishers simply want your cash for nebulous content that may or may not even arrive. The idea isn’t to celebrate a series but to extrapolate your hard-earned money.
Other bundles are similarly stupid, such as DOOM (2016), but longtime fans of a series may value the little trinkets included. I still have the Revenant statue on my desk, for instance, and routinely clean it so it looks pristine. I’m not ashamed of spending the cash on that, as ugly as some people may think it looks.
As far as collector’s editions go, your own personal attachment to a franchise will ultimately be what determines if dropping that money is worth it. Obviously some research is required to avoid a situation like Marvel Vs. Capcom: Infinite – the Infinity Eggs are calling! – but I can’t fully state that all editions are worthless. Just know that at the end of the day, these aren’t created with the love of a series in mind. They really do exist simply for marketing purposes.
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