Deluxe edition. Special edition. Royal edition. Enhanced collector's edition.. whatever edition.

How likely is it that somebody would prefer to have "the best" edition but isn't willing to pay its asking price, and doesn't want to buy the standard a.k.a. Inferior Edition? And therefore does not purchase a given game at all?

How many people get bitter or feel conflicted about developers releasing Inferior editions of their Art while milking people with the editions that aren't artificially lacking in assets and extras that have been created anyway?

Just a thought.

If I were a game developer (soon I might be), I'd probably want to give everybody every reason to love my game and never make an Inferior edition on purpose. And I wouldn't want to divide the player base into haves and have nots, the rich and the poor..

Just another thought.

What do you people & cats think?

i generally hold off buying games at full price because i know that there usually will be a better edition down the line
i also hate being nickle and dimed for dlc crap
so i generally wait for the super duper uber special champion ship turbo edition for any given game
and if there is no such thing ill just wait for a sale

That's definitely me. Also I've already seen ridiculous amount of special editions on one product, so I'm suspecting that another one might come after I will buy the current best. I just don't purchase games like that.

Edit: Others said that there are editions with only fluff added, for these I do not care too. Just added content (like Crusader Kings II)

Are we talking about a certain game that I'm sure we all know about?

That aside, I'd always get the cheaper edition if there are only superficial differences, or not at all if it's part of this season pass BS.

i can think of a lot of games actually
usually from square or telltale or EA or acti blizz

I don't care about fluff (soundtrack, wallpapers etc) so if the more expensive edition has no in-game relevance, then I go with the cheapest one.

Or Ubi, Paradox...

or bethesda

Pretty much the same here, there is frankly nothing to be gained from buying early, aside maybe the bragging rights of owning the latest title now (and unless your in your early teens, it's more a sign of idiocy than an achievment, and even if you are that young, it doesn't bode well for your future :P ), smartest decision is to always wait and buy once there's either a "complete edition" or there ain't any likelyness of DLC / Expansions coming around anymore... and usually at that time the game is likely to get regular discounts/sales anyways.

I only get these edition because I wait it out and look for a good price, not because I am a fan of them. In fact they are very annoying and confusing to sort through trying to figure out which edition to get, especially if you don't know much about the game. And besides, its all digital stuff, its not like real life edition where you get a free cloth map or something.

The only special edition I want is the Morrowind's Collector Edition, but it's so freeking expensive so I probably never will.

Depends what those special editions make them special. I only want the version which has all the relevant gaming content (maybe éven exclusing multiplayer, I am not likely to play any game that is not called Team Fortress 2 online at this point), I am not interested in the "better" versions if the extra they contain is only fluff like a separate soundtrack, making-of videos, comic books etc. As long as all the gaming content/DLCs are there, I am fine.

Hence, the only thing that annoys me about the various editions is that I have to find out which exactly is the edition that contains all the gaming content... and nothing more. E.g. with Pillars of Eternity and various other games. I want buying games to be as effortless as possible, I don't like having to do detective work beforehand to learn what the differences are between the different editions (like PoE having three or four different editions, blech...).

Oh, that's me. Additional game content is a must, for soundtracks it's the fear of missing out.

I think the fans that go crazy and buy the $700 edition are too tempting of a target for deva to pass up.

I have passed over games bc I wanted the full edition before. And then by the time it came out, I lost interest. But it hasnt happened a lot and I'm a cheapskate.

I always hold off buying games from rip offs like gearbox and 2k who tend to release a bare bones base games and tack on a lot of paid content later only later to shaft the initial purchasers by releasing complete edition , GOTY edition and what not.

Still stuck with base versions of Borderlands , civilization 5, dishonored, Skyrim because they shafted the early purchasers , the dlcs prices makes no sense and dont go in deep discounts meanwhile the complete editions always go on huge discounts.

One thing that really really bothers me is that these days you have to buy the soundtrack separately or get one of these milk editions for it.

With the older GOG releases where soundtracks are often included by default, it's a good reason to buy a game that I might not like so much. At least I might like the soundtrack. Take that out, and I have much less reason to buy a game. And somehow I do not feel like buying separate soundtracks for games I do not own; it would feel a bit like buying an expansion that builds on the story of the base game, without ever owning the base game. So I don't. That's ultimately a loss for me and loss for whoever was trying to make monies.