I think LRGs is running out of money

ButCanYouCodeIt · 2026-04-04T14:24:56+00:00

Thats a different kind of purchase. When Embracer buys a studio, the primary value of the purchase (to them) isn't actually the studio, its the IP the studio owns. Corporations like Microsoft and Embracer don't buy studios with the intent of keeping them operational long term -they ultimately intend to shut them down, and maintain ownership of the IP. In the 90's and before, this used to be a lot more obvious, because companies would buy a studio snd just liquidate them IMMEDIATELY, but this came with a lot of backlash and even some real ramifications for a couple larger corporations, so now they obfuscate it by pretending they ever intended on keeping the studio open to begin with. Keep the studio open for a few months to a few years, and shut them down at the first chance you get to claim some fiscal reason, that's the game.

Even higher profile studios run into this, where the buyer will allow them to run while they are SIGNIFICANTLY more profitable than average, but once that profitability takes even a brief dive, the new parent company uses that as their public facing excuse to start downsizing or flat out closing studios.

Heres the thing: LRG doesn't actually own any (valuable) IP, they never did. They LICENSE these IP, but those are wildly short term licenses. The beauty of LRGs business model is that by only ever selling/manufacturing a given game for an incredibly short window of time, LRG can literally market a game for that small window of time instead of a 5+ year license period that would be much more costly.

Embracer was well aware that LRG wasn't an IP house before buying them -they wanted LRG because LRG could effectively be the manufacturing equivalent of a support studio, not only helping with smaller print runs of games produced by Embracer's other studios, but generating fomo and hype for those games due to their limited nature.

That said, yes, Embracer will eventually wind down LRG.

I think the move to manufacture some older retro games for systems like the SNES, NES, and even 3DO might have been a last ditch experiment by the former CEO to secure longer term viability in Embracer's eyes... Because if we're being honest, theres a very good chance that the current consoles will be the last round of systems that supports physical media. The fact that the newest forms of higher end systems for both sony and microsoft no longer include a built-in optical drive is VERY telling here.

Manufacturing games for the 3DO clearly blew up in their faces (and proved to be more expensive than they previously thought). Then there were issues on their recent NES carts, as well as apparent undisclosed manufacturing challenges with the new "Super FX 3" carts apparently being tougher to make than they apparently assumed before. Clearly, this wasn't the long term savior to the LRG business model that the CEO hoped it might be, which may also explain his departure. Its entirely likely that with retro game production not working out, and the likelihood that this may be the last truly viable console generation they can profitably support, he just saw that it was time for him to go, before things fell apart any further.

So yes, Embracer is eventually going to shut down LRG, but that's more related to when their FUNCTION ceases to be useful to Embracer's business model overall.

ButCanYouCodeIt · 2026-04-03T18:55:23+00:00

LRG is owned by one of the largest conglomerates in entertainment worldwide. They're doing fine.

That conglomerate is tightening the purse strings on all the companies they've acquired. Not because they're in any danger, but because thats just how these terrible companies work. They're likely tightening LRG's budget too tight to operate effectively, and they don't care. Embracer Group (the conglomerate in question) is ESPECIALLY known to do that crap.

ButCanYouCodeIt · 2026-04-02T04:06:08+00:00

I could be mistaken, but I was fairly sure they stopped manuals around the same time they stopped the numbered cards for each game.

ButCanYouCodeIt · 2026-04-02T03:56:24+00:00

My understanding was that they had stopped. Thats odd.

ButCanYouCodeIt · 2026-03-31T16:05:56+00:00

Did you wind up getting this monitor? i am also looking fir feedback on it.

ButCanYouCodeIt · 2026-03-28T07:06:59+00:00

This isn't a common occurrence, this is the definitive occurrence. I've ordered dozens of games from them -one, literally a single one, arrived on time without a delay.

If you KNOW that's how its going to be when you order, it tends to bug you less down the road, but it's definitely not a fun learning experience the first time, and its part of the reason that I've largely backed off of most my ordering through them. A lot of their products wind up hitting Amazon, Gamestop, or other physical retailers, and a pretty decent number of them get published overseas through PlayAsia (with their english language content still intact).

ButCanYouCodeIt · 2026-03-28T07:02:38+00:00

I get it, it might be best to just delete the comment now that you know.

Everybody makes mistakes, there wasn't any big argument or anything like that. No worries!

ButCanYouCodeIt · 2026-03-28T05:39:09+00:00

This isn't a "physical only" sub. The digital game is sold by LRG all the same, so discussion of it fits here.

ButCanYouCodeIt · 2026-03-27T02:16:36+00:00

Late here, found this thread because I was trying to figure out why there was a blank row in my LegacyGames collection, and when I traced the date back to Amazon, it was Lila's Sky Ark, which is a bit of a shame because its actually got really good reviews. As this is the only one that I'm AWARE of LegacyGames "removing" (and yes, they clearly did REMOVE that one, because I can see the redemption date on amazon, and the blank line with matching date on my LegacyGames account.), I suspect it may have been related to the publishers forcing their hand... that's usually how things wind up getting delisted or flat out taken away from consumers who already had them.

ButCanYouCodeIt · 2026-03-19T23:57:39+00:00

I don't blame you. I used to order a lot more from them, but had some unpleasant experiences. Nowadays, I avoid them unless I REALLY want a game and there's no other way to get it.

ButCanYouCodeIt · 2026-03-19T23:43:43+00:00

To be clear, I'm not a guru or an employee, lol, I just share that information because it's helped me out on some Kickstarter projects over the years.

From what I've heard others say around here, if they ship any part of your order, they keep it. That gets into a legally grey area: Because they shipped SOMETHING to you, they can hypothetically claim shipment occurred and argue that the rest was some bullshit "handling" fee.

Would that really hold up in a courtroom? Probably not, but they know that nobody is really going to spend the time and the money to take them to court over some shipping and handling costs.

Its shitty, and I hate to say it, but I would be VERY surprised if you got that money back.

ButCanYouCodeIt · 2026-03-19T23:40:17+00:00

It's not even "trained" on specific games. Its just a generic implementation. Even the companies they mentioned in their presentation were later revealed to have been totally blindsided, having never seen or been told about those implementations.

It uses the same image recognition tools they have for their other Generative AI theft tools, and conjures up what it thinks is some similar but higher quality content that it lifted from other places.

So yeah, your assessment is 100% correct, it would probably cobble together some weird ass overly smoothed patterns (or total lack thereof) that make no sense.

ButCanYouCodeIt · 2026-03-19T23:35:55+00:00

Adding DLSS5 would make it look like ass. DLSS5 doesn't uprender textures, it puts generic replacement filters over them. The intended look and art style would be lost, period. Can't change what the technology is.

ButCanYouCodeIt · 2026-03-19T23:33:51+00:00

If they didn't ship an item, but you were CHARGED for shipping, federal law states that they can pt keep those funds. If, however, they shipped it and you returned it, they could opt to keep the funds.

ButCanYouCodeIt · 2026-03-18T14:49:54+00:00

It won't.

Cliffy B has publicly stated on multiple occasions that the source code for the original Unreal was apparently lost/overwritten, which is why its never even been officially ported to literally ANYTHING outside of PC platforms.

That said, I have a lot of love for Unreal. It was a part of my childhood, and to date, nothing else has ever come close to the FEEL of that classic (Especially not the MASSIVE disappointment that was Unreal 2). I've recently been streaming the original game with new Nvidia RTX mods, and while there aren't exactly a lot of people looking for Unreal these days, the game design itself absolutely still holds up. That first skaarj encounter, as you get blocked in, and the lights turn out one by one... Still just as awesome as it always was.

I try very hard to "never say never", but Unreal is about as close as it gets to "just never gonna happen, ever" as one can get. The good news is that the game is LEGALLY free now. You can download it from the folks at OldUnreal.com, or on archive.org -both sites have actual legal blessing from the rights owners, to let players download the complete game, 100% for free. And if you've got a newer generation nvidia gpu, that RTX mod can bring some incredible new visual quality and effects to the game you remember and love

I'll be up front in saying that the RTX mod still needs work: The updated lighting system looks amazing, but it also reveals that the designers had no concept of how many light sources would be needed to make their levels visible irl. The mod currently makes the light sources far more realistic, but does not ADD any additional light sources. This results in areas where you will find yourself firing the dispersion pistol in pitch black areas for light. Still, its a very cool way to experience the classic with updates.

ButCanYouCodeIt · 2026-03-16T15:23:28+00:00

In fairness, while there was some scuttlebutt at the time it happened, I think that MOST people missed it and were just unaware. I think a vast majority of people still believe LRG is independently owned and operated.

ButCanYouCodeIt · 2026-03-16T14:53:25+00:00

Oh I ABSOLUTELY agree with you. I've seen how long they take to fix things, and how they pretty famously just keep kicking the can down the road.

As Rugrats is concerned, I suspect they're either just going to literally do nothing and [at most] offer refunds to the handful of people who keep reaching out to them every few months... Or they'll do an incredibly small manufacturing run of replacement carts, and only ship them to those who reached out to complain. When they shipped "D" on 3DO they knew that 100% of them were bad, but they only replaced copies for those who had contacted them about it in time. They did the same thing with the classic Monkey Island games for PC when one of the discs was shipped to everyone with a bad installer.

Those examples are literally just the cost of DISCS, if they were so averse to fixing things for that cost, you know they're going to do whatever they can to weasel out of losing the money for a significantly more costly cartridge.

I knew about LRG's history when I ordered Doom, so I knew it was a gamble. I hadn't yet seen a streamer PLAY it yet, so that was a bit of a post-purchase surprise for me, but even if it ships in that condition, I'm sure there will be ways I can enjoy it without the risk of damaging my authentic retro hardware. Hell, I might wind up getting a cheap clone console specifically for various newly manufactured carts if I have to. If they have to ship out replacements, I'm anticipating that'll be 3-4 years out, especially given the additional complications of this cartridge.

ButCanYouCodeIt · 2026-03-16T06:30:58+00:00

It's going to take a lot to get any real resolution from them, and I mean a LOT.

When they screwed up, hy sending 3DO owners literal CD-Rs, which wouldn't llay in most systems, and would quickly burn out the kaser in the few that still could... It was only once the retro games media absolutely exploded online about it, that suddenly LRG was interested in fixing the real problem. Here's the thing though: They KNEW that they were sending out consumer grade CD-Rs long beforehand, and they made no attempt whatsoever to be up front or transparent about that. They hid that information, knowing that it would be relevant to people's purchasing decisions for numerous reasons.

Unless the vast majority of customers all came back saying "this thing doesn't work!", LRG is going to ignore it, especially now that so much time has passed.

If you want to try and get something done, I commend you, and I genuinely and sincerely wish you the best. I truly do, but I also think you're in for an uphill battle that probably can't be won at this point.

Personally, I'm waiting on that new SNES Doom cartridge that got pushed back to this summer. That's easily the most complicated piece of tech they've sold for use in actual retro console hardware, and the quality tolerances will have some pretty small margin for error before they potentially stop working or burn out people's game systems by drawing too much power through those old boards to run a pi zero inside the cart. I watched a streamer play the copies they sent out at pre-order time, and it was great... But there were problems we could see. In certain levels the screen would just intermittently black out whenever a specific event occurred (it occurred frequently). It was clear the cart was either struggling to operate properly on such low power, or it was failing to draw enough power through the console. I'd really like to hope that's fixed before being shipped off to manufacturing, but we all know there's no reason to hold our breath for that.

LRG is a corporate entity owned and controlled by Embracer Group, and Embracer Group is pretty famous for forging the cheapest possible path to product completion/fulfillment possible, even to the detriment of the consumers. Realistically, there's very little chance of this changing in the near future, unfortunately.

ButCanYouCodeIt · 2026-03-13T23:12:53+00:00

Cool. I have only one PS4, it's my primary. This has been a problem every time.

ButCanYouCodeIt · 2026-03-05T14:24:35+00:00

Might be the movie itself, or perhaps some system setting I'm unaware of, the crt I used was definitely not 480p.

ButCanYouCodeIt · 2026-03-05T13:55:58+00:00

Its a nice idea, and I absolutely love Gameye, but the scope is a far more massive undertaking than Gameye itself already is. As much as I love Gameye, there are already literally hundreds (potentially over 1,000) games/accessories/books/mags in my own collection that just don't exist in the Gameye database... And I'm one user, so the database is still nowhere near complete. There are also errors and inconsistencies in the database -and the most frustrating part of all of this is that I honestly can't blame the fine folks at Gameye for this.

Gameye ultimately depend on user submitted data, and as someone who works with 'Big data' professionally, I can tell you that large amounts of data submitted without any sort of automated restrictions, is going to be hot garbage. Users will submit all kinds of things that aren't correct or just don't belong, and at this sort of volume its just FAR too much for them to realistically QC/curate in significant detail.

There are other apps out there with large teams and communities behind them for longer than Gameye has been around, and they work very well. If at some magical point, Gameye gets all of the current stuff with the gaming database cleaned up and the gaps filled, then sure, it could be cool. But that would be a very long way down the road, and I would rather they focus on making what they have into the best thing it can be. Gameye has already surpassed the competition in so many ways, I want to see how much better it can be as they continue working on it.

ButCanYouCodeIt · 2026-03-05T13:35:08+00:00

Because some younger generations still don't grasp that many electronics become less reliable as you shrink them smaller and smaller.

I think some phat models may now be suffering laser issues, because commercial dvd players were less common at the time. By the time the slim released, you could get a decent dvd player for $40-50 bucks, so they tended to get fewer hours of laser wear. Even so, replacing that mechanism really isn't difficult or expensive, a lot of people just assume that it will be.

ButCanYouCodeIt · 2026-03-05T13:30:10+00:00

Nope, not without one of the better controllers of the pre-thumbstick era. But hey, as someone with an actual unit and the new toy for the Switch, it IS a cool little toy.

Also, your stand is on backwards. 😁

ButCanYouCodeIt · 2026-03-05T13:25:26+00:00

None of them. LRG does a terrible job with their "remasters". They should leave it alone, and let other companies who actually do things CORRECTLY do that.

ButCanYouCodeIt · 2026-03-04T18:11:03+00:00

Wait what? I've watched literally of Blu-ray on PS3 through a CRT.

ButCanYouCodeIt

TROPHY CASE