The Witcher 2 - Collector's Edition Revealed

Let's put some perspective on this. This is what you will get for 129.99:



My painting instincts are kicking into high gear when I take a look at that sculpture. It's much bigger than anything I've ever painted before, but that won't stop me

I'm buying this thing and all the stuff is going straight into my room of geekdom.

Now compare that to this for $215:

Before it was painted by a professional:



After:



These images are of the Lord of Change's Greater Deamon of Tzeentch from Games Workshop's Forge World. It's a 244 MM miniature. Miniatures/sculptures are not cheap at all. Granted, GW is the worst as far as their prices are concerned.

I can understand if that doesn't interest you at all, but for geeks like me this collectors edition is too good to pass on.

Thrasher said:

Wow! What sort of "playing" cards will those be?

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jeez, you would think we are collecting cards instead of computer games! New Vegas I can understand, but now I have Two Worlds 2 cards as well, and next year Witcher cards? I suppose its safe to say there will be gambling in the game, but I'd really like for them to ditch the cards and come up with something else...

TheGameSquid said:

THAT WORLD MAP BETTER BE CLOTH! Seriously, every CE that has a PAPER world map is an insta-no for me (Thereby giving me plenty of excuses not to buy these editions )

Also, what's the deal with cramming in figurines into the editions? Is anyone even AT ALL interested in these things? They must raise the price a lot and I wouldn't even take 'em out of the box. I might check out those playing cards though

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yes, a cloth map I can understand, but no more playing cards, coins & dice! It seems like there is an unwritten rule that collectors sets need to have these items. Lets get original here!

spiraling69 said:

jeez, you would think we are collecting cards instead of computer games! New Vegas I can understand, but now I have Two Worlds 2 cards as well, and next year Witcher cards? I suppose its safe to say there will be gambling in the game, but I'd really like for them to ditch the cards and come up with something else…

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I think you misinterpreted my feigned google eyes and "cards" reference. It looks like the cards may be nothing out of the ordinary (or Witcher special), unless they're hiding the best ones.

Geez I have to find the motivation to finish the first one. Just so linear...

JDR13 said:

As much as I love The Witcher, I think $130 is a bit steep for what they're offering. I would like to see a photo though…

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In Euros : 95,342 (Curtesy of Yahoo currency converter I found)

This is about the price of the Drakensang PE.

Here in Germany, CEs usually cost around 60-70 Euros.

$130 - ouch! Won't sell here - simply too expensive. In real terms (puchasing power) it's probably closer to $150. It would need a gold-plated widget for me to pay that ;-)

Geralds head is a must have

Not sure what's giving them the idea to sell this for US$129 when the UK version is selling for "only" £69.00 on Amazon.co.uk.

Nice catch, that a $20 difference.

Sir_Brennus said:

what "crap" that has "purpose" would you buy?

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None of it. I play games for the experience of playing them - I don't get what the rest is for. The last retail game I bought (I think) was Oblivion, which came with a collectible coin. What does anyone do with that stuff?

Dhruin said:

I play games for the experience of playing them

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Now this is the sort of philosophy I like !

Me, I'm sometimes buying CEs anyway - but only for a few special games - or if they had been marketed down enough (5 Euros for "Worlshift" ain't bad, I think)

wow, that's one burly collector's edition. I'm surprised you dont get a genuine vial of Witcher sweat.

The thing that bums me out is that STILL they dont seem to want to produce some witcher wolf pendents. Seriously, people have been asking for them and they would be really cool. That's all that I really want in a collector's set.

I'd wear the damn thing while playing. Naked

xSamhainx said:

I'm surprised you dont get a genuine vial of Witcher sweat.

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That's probably the best joke I've read during this week ! :lol:

Dhruin said:

None of it. I play games for the experience of playing them - I don't get what the rest is for. The last retail game I bought (I think) was Oblivion, which came with a collectible coin. What does anyone do with that stuff?

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Why do people collect real coins? Or stamps? Or plastic bags? Or whatever-else-that-you-might-consider-as-crap?
I guess the crazy answer is called having a hobby . Besides there are many CEs of games that actually have a real value (WoW original CE going for -literally- thousands of bucks anyone?) or that have at least not lost any of their original value and/or are likely to increase in value over time.
It may also be nice for some people to enjoy the view of their nicely filled shelf with all of those shiny boxes. I guess it's a bit like having a nice library of valuable books instead of always buying the paperback and reselling it on Amazon marketplace.
Finally there may be the factor of being willing to reward the developer/publisher by spending a little more cash on the special edition of a game or to show them an extra level of appreciation and support by choosing to buy the CE.

For me personally all of the above applies to various degrees and those are the main reasons why for some games I choose to buy the CE instead of the regular retail edition or the Steam/GOG/whatever digital version .
If it wouldn't devalue the CE then the coins or statues and useless crap like that would be the first thing I'd dump in the trash. I'm usually only really interested in a nice map or in-game items/bonuses if there are any. So at least to me it's not really a material interest in the sense of "what do I get out of owning these useless coins" but more of a meta thing made up of the subjectively perceived (partially immaterial) values I stated above.

CEs often have the plus of a physical audio soundtrack CD. Which I can play, in principle, on any oother CD player around this world. I don't need a PC to burn music files on a CD before that.

And the quality might be better, although someone said to me that music files are often in MP3 in the first place, and then pressed onto the music CDs, which still carries the imho not-sogood music quality forward onto the audio CD medium.

Alrik Fassbauer said:

CEs often have the plus of a physical audio soundtrack CD. Which I can play, in principle, on any oother CD player around this world. I don't need a PC to burn music files on a CD before that.

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The non-CE edition of The Witcher 2 has an audio CD too

And the quality might be better, although someone said to me that music files are often in MP3 in the first place, and then pressed onto the music CDs, which still carries the imho not-sogood music quality forward onto the audio CD medium.

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You can't go from MP3 to audio CD format easily, and makes no sense to. Putting mp3 on a CD, fine, but that won't play on a strictly audio CD player. I think your informant is wrong.

I wish there was a mix-n-match option with the extras. I want the map, the art-book, the sound track and maybe the game guide and playing cards. The rest would just get dumped on a shelf somewhere if I got them.

Plus there's no way I could justify paying €100 for a game, even to myself.

So basically I'm torn between getting the GoG version to support the non-DRM policy, or the Premium edition on Play so I can have a physical copy of the map which I always enjoy having.

kalniel said:

The non-CE edition of The Witcher 2 has an audio CD too

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Ah, nice !

I still haven't bought it; but it's still on my "have to buy" list.

Mana Garmr said:

So basically I'm torn between getting the GoG version to support the non-DRM policy, or the Premium edition on Play so I can have a physical copy of the map which I always enjoy having.

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I concur.

Good thing there's still much time to make a choice.