Josh Fairhurst of Limited Run Games and Mighty Rabbit Studios has detailed some interesting things about how Limited Run Games came to be.
According to Fairhurst, Limited Run Games grew out of a situation where Mighty Rabbit Studios had a very limited budget and had to make a choice between an ESRB rating or a physical release for one of their games. They chose to do the limited release since an ESRB rating would have cost too much and would have closed the studio due to lack of finances.
From that one gamble that was made, a new business was formed for short physical runs of games leading to LRG as a business. Fairhurst has been vocal about ESRB ratings hurting developers due to the cost for certification. This raises an interesting point. Is the ESRB actually holding back game development in some ways now? Fairhurst raised interesting points and how trying to deal with it led to a new business venture, but for many smaller companies the certification expenses can be a nasty financial surprise. Maybe a reexamination is needed, or smaller developers and studios might struggle more.
You can see Fairhurs’s tweet thread below
I said this to both Kotaku and Engadget and neither picked up on it:
Limited Run Games spawned out of a desperate situation for @TheMightyRabbit. We had $10,000 left and I had to choose to gamble on a physical release of B&C or pay one last paycheck and close the doors forever.
— Josh Fairhurst (@LimitedRunJosh) November 14, 2017
Update: Faorhurst has provided more context for his tweets and a correction for us.
Quick correction – we didn't have to consider the ESRB originally, my tweets were giving context to current events that if we had to pay for a rating, we couldn't have. Thankfully, ratings weren't required when we started.
— Josh Fairhurst (@LimitedRunJosh) November 15, 2017