What is the worst collector's edition you've seen?

Collector's editions, they are usually quite expensive, and they don't give you all that much, if you really think about it. There have been some pretty bad collector's editions over the years, some expecting you to pay 30€ or more extra for a cheap plastic toy, a soundtrack and possibly some small in game extra. But what collector's edition is the least impressive one you've seen to date?

The one that tops it for me is the Myst 4: Revelations collector's edition. The box itself looks quite nice (though not nearly as nice as the collector's edition for Myst 5). It is shaped like a book, though it looks a bit too glossy to really fool anyone, and it also feels a bit flimsy. The content though is probably the least impressive CE content to date. Apart from a DVD case containing the game itself, it also comes with a deck of cards (32 cards, so it is not even a full deck), and a DVD containing a 25min making of video and "the most beautiful songs from the soundtrack" (in other words, an incomplete soundtrack, the rest sold separately).
This CE is, when I'm writing this, actually cheaper than the standard edition on amazon.co.uk. It was also cheaper when I bought the game, so that is why I own it.


The Myst 5 collectors edition is not all that good either. It comes in a nice looking box, that at a distance might fool someone into believing that it is leather bound. In it is the game itself, a 147page book (of which 40 pages are dedicated to notes, and thus are blank pages), that goes through some of the history of the series, and also gives an introduction to the D'ni language. There is also an extra DVD with a making of (slightly longer than the Myst 4 one), some trailers and a very incomplete soundtrack (the rest is sold separately, again). Not a great collector's edition, and again when I bought it it was cheaper than the standard edition.

I have once bought the CE of Uru on ebay - doesn't look that great either.

The CE of Yager contains only the "prequel" novel, and i think the soundtrack, too.

The CE of The Settlers 5, which is rather like a "Gold" version (main game + all add-ons) contained a small statuette and the soundtrack on CD.

My personally *worst* Collector's Edition is that of DDO, as mrketed here in Germany : The package says there's an Audio CD included - but on the CD are merely .WAV files … Even an employee of Turbine was astonished as I told about it on the Games Com … Seemingly Atari made a really bad job, then.

Poor Myst series Even finding a decent image of what URU CE contained was tricky, and I have to agree, that was not a good collector's edition.

And I really wish companies would stop calling compilations collector's editions, it just confuses things. Ubisoft did the same with HoMM5, where their "gold edition" was known as both gold edition and collector's edition.

.wav files on a collector's edition soundtrack CD? It sounds like whoever handled the German edition did not really care about doing his/her job properly.

No offense meant but why haven't you guys checked what was included in CE before forking all this extra money? Caveat emptor? After being burned couple of times, I have simply stopped buying CEs...

Of course, as I stated in my first post, the reason why I bought those collector's editons were because they were cheaper than the standard editions. The stores were trying to get rid of them (I bought both Myst CEs in 08, long after their initial release)

Surely the worst Collector's Edition is Dungeon Lords CE? Includes wonderful extras like - houses now have furniture!

I am sorry Fnord. I have missed that bit

Shagnak said:

Surely the worst Collector's Edition is Dungeon Lords CE? Includes wonderful extras like - houses now have furniture!

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That sounds more like the standard edition was junk

Fnord said:

And I really wish companies would stop calling compilations collector's editions, it just confuses things. Ubisoft did the same with HoMM5, where their "gold edition" was known as both gold edition and collector's edition.

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Personally, I believe that, historicaslly seen, this form of the "Collector's Edition" was the first one. Because it stays true to its name : It collects everything about a certain game, everything a collector of this particular game would like to have bundled.

The second meaning of this term arose much later, I think. The Collector's Edition for someone who colects games. Games in general, I guess (and almost assume), not a particular game especially.

.wav files on a collector's edition soundtrack CD? It sounds like whoever handled the German edition did not really care about doing his/her job properly.

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Yeah, and that's just one of the many reasons why I just don't like Atari.

The game was translated/built for Germany by Codemasters, by the way.

This CE did contain 2 figurines, though. With the size of table top figurines.
And a CD with artwork, although nothing too special, as far as I can recall it.

Were those figurines from the chainmail range of D&D tabletop wargaming models? I remember Pool of Radiance's collectors edition coming with one (another bargain bin collector's edition that I picked up. It was cheaper than a single metal warhammer mini, so I bought it in the hope that I would get something fun. What came in the box was the worlds ugliest orc, it looked so bad that I stuffed it in my bits box (where I store spare warhammer bits) and never looked at it again), and at around the time of D&D online's release they seemed to be quite desperate in their attempts to get people to actually play the game.

Alrik Fassbauer said:

Personally, I believe that, historicaslly seen, this form of the "Collector's Edition" was the first one. Because it stays true to its name : It collects everything about a certain game, everything a collector of this particular game would like to have bundled.

The second meaning of this term arose much later, I think. The Collector's Edition for someone who colects games. Games in general, I guess (and almost assume), not a particular game especially.

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Ah, you are probably right on this one.

Never really got the point of CEs.

I mean, I'd buy the occasional CE if it meant the developers benefitted - but my assumption is that it's just extra cash for the publishers.

The "stuff" is almost never about the actual game, and I couldn't care less about accumulating worthless junk just because.

I bought exactly one CE so far, and that was Oblivion. It was a mild dissapointment, mostly because of the game itself. However due to some mailing chaos at Bethesdas I got two of them shipped to me, so I guess I got my moneys worth. I have kept one of them in the original shrink wrap and will sell it for a fortune on Ebay when I retire 25 years from now.

Fnord said:

Were those figurines from the chainmail range of D&D tabletop wargaming models? I remember Pool of Radiance's collectors edition coming with one

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Yes, I think so. The CE actually had 2.

And no, the European CE of Pool Of Radiance : Ruins Of Myth Drannor didn't come with that. At first, they didn't even want to bring out a CE here in Europe, and I guess that protests "changed their minds".

Read the differences here under "Description" : http://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/pool-of-radiance-ruins-of-myth-drannor-collectors-edition

Here are pictures of the packages where you can read about the contents (click on them to enlarge the pictures) : http://www.mobygames.com/game/windo...-of-myth-drannor-collectors-edition/cover-art

In short : The European Collector's Edition had nothing but a mouse mat, a map, and a figurine.

That was totally ridiculous. I have never seen a more crappy CE compared to "the other version". This European Collector's Edition was one of the sources of my bitterness against gaming companies. This CE made me believe that companies prefer the NA market over the EU market. If you come across one of my "hate posts" here, blame Ubi Soft for that.

By the way, I bought the novel a few years ago for cheap. I liked it.

I've never really done the Collectors Edition thing. Very rarely, I've picked one up if it's been really cheap or had something quite good in it, but most of them these days seem like a complete waste of money. The better ones seem to come with a toy of some sort, but otherwise they've got even less than the standard games of yesteryear.

So I could say my worst is [insert next game that has one] and stand a good chance of it being right.

I have once bought the CE for "Worldshift" for 5 Euros, because I figured that getting an Audio CD would be at least around the same price, if not more.

(The CE of Worldshift contains a mouse mat, a lanyard, an audio CD, the game of course, a poster, sticker, an art book. It probably didn't sell here in Germany because it is a game which can only be played online, even in SP mode.)

My copy of Pool of Radiance Ruins of myth dranor came with a chainmail mini, and if my memory serves, we got the CE at the same time as the standard edition was launched. They even had a rather heavy marketing campaign for the game in our local (and long since defunct) pen & paper RPG/tabletop games magazine.

witcher 2 without a doubt

I too bought the Collector's Edition for Oblivion, mainly for the extra book - Pocket Guide to the Empire. Some nice backstory and geography in there. The septim coin? Big deal.

I guess the only collector's edition of a game I ever bought - or rather, who someone else bought for me - was the Duke 3D Atomic edition which came with a T-Shirt that I still wear in bed, and I wanted it because it was the only edition available at the time. Usually I don't seek out CE's. But I really like when a preorder comes with goodies that weren't announced … goodies added by the retailer, mostly, but still.

Oh, and I have the horrible Fire Warrior (or whatever the name was). I didn't buy it for the lead miniature that came with it, but in the end the figure happened to be the only good thing about the game.

I did not know that they even made a CE for Fire Warrior. Did they really think that that game would generate enough interest to warrant one? Anyway, how was the mini? I can't seem to find a picture of it online.
Shame about the game, by the way. It is very rare to have a game from the alien's point of view, and when we finally got one, it turned out to be a sub-par FPS.