Limited Run Games, Inc. is an American company that sells video games. It is based in Apex, North Carolina. The company mainly sells small numbers of physical copies of video games through its website and some retail stores. Josh Fairhurst and Douglas Bogart started Limited Run Games in October 2015 because Fairhurst wanted to keep the games made by his studio, Mighty Rabbit Studios, which were only available digitally, on physical media. The company's first game, Breach & Clear for the PlayStation Vita, sold out quickly, and they later released Saturday Morning RPG. Oddworld Inhabitants asked the company to make a physical copy of their game, Oddworld: New 'n' Tasty!, which led Limited Run Games to release games made by other developers. From 2018 to 2022, the company grew a lot, including starting to publish games and focusing on older games. In September 2022, Embracer Group, through its Embracer Freemode group, bought the company.

History

Limited Run Games was started in October 2015 by Josh Fairhurst, the chief executive officer (CEO), and Douglas Bogart, the chief operating officer. They met in the sixth grade, and Bogart later joined Fairhurst’s video game studio, Mighty Rabbit Studios, as a tester. Because Mighty Rabbit Studios only released games online, Fairhurst worried that these games might disappear if online stores closed. After seeing the success of a game called Retro City Rampage when it was sold in stores, Fairhurst decided to create Limited Run Games to preserve his studio’s games by selling them on physical copies like CDs or cartridges. At the same time, Mighty Rabbit Studios had no work and needed money, so Fairhurst took a teaching job at a community college and hoped that starting Limited Run Games would help the studio survive. Fairhurst borrowed $85,000 and spent eight months working to set up the company, contacting 12 groups to arrange details. Sony, the maker of PlayStation consoles, agreed to lower the number of copies needed for the first game, Breach & Clear, to 1,500, which made it easier to produce. Bogart was then brought in to help market the game and build excitement.

Limited Run Games was first created as a part of Mighty Rabbit Studios, which was based in Cary, North Carolina. The company released Breach & Clear on its website on October 29, 2015. This release was meant to test how well the company could sell its games, and it sold out in 108 minutes. The company then released another game, Saturday Morning RPG, also made by Mighty Rabbit Studios. At this time, Fairhurst and Bogart were the only employees. Shipments were handled from Mighty Rabbit Studios’ offices, with some staff helping prepare packages. By avoiding selling through stores, Limited Run Games avoided paying for expensive ratings from the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB).

The first game from another company that Limited Run Games released was Oddworld: New 'n' Tasty!. The publisher of this game, Oddworld Inhabitants, asked Limited Run Games to help release it, which led to more partnerships with outside developers. Limited Run Games decided to fund these games fully and keep 30% of the money earned from sales, as Bogart said a smaller share would not be enough to stay in business. In 2016, the company began using a distribution center to handle shipments after releasing Futuridium EP Deluxe. That year, Limited Run Games released 46 games. Initially, the company made a fixed number of copies, but later changed to allowing customers to pre-order games to match demand. Fairhurst said the limited time to order helped the company reach the number of copies needed. The company also started making special collector’s editions. As Mighty Rabbit Studios returned to contract work, the two companies officially separated. By October 2017, Limited Run Games moved from Cary to nearby Apex.

In September 2017, the ESRB lowered the cost for rating games that moved from digital to physical formats. However, major console makers required all games to have an ESRB rating, forcing Limited Run Games and similar companies to pay for ratings for each game. This added a challenge for the company, as it covered all production costs. In October 2018, Limited Run Games partnered with Best Buy to sell limited copies of games like Yooka-Laylee and Golf Story in stores.

Also in October 2018, Limited Run Games sued the Spanish publisher BadLand Games. The two companies had agreed in 2017 to release a physical version of Axiom Verge for the Wii U. Fairhurst said his company paid $78,000 for BadLand Games to deliver 6,000 copies by November, but the company missed the deadline and stopped communicating by March 2018. Two weeks after the lawsuit, BadLand Games’ CEO said his company had shut down and formed a new one, BadLand Publishing. He planned to pay debts but said the rights to Axiom Verge had gone back to its developer, Thomas Happ. Limited Run Games worked with Happ to release Axiom Verge in March 2019, spending $120,000 on new copies, though Fairhurst believed only a third of that would be recovered from sales.

At its first press event during E3 2018, Limited Run Games announced it would help other developers release their games for the Nintendo Switch. Previously, the company only released Saturday Morning RPG this way to learn how to bring games to the platform. Its first such games were Cosmic Star Heroine and Night Trap. In 2019, Limited Run Games partnered with Disney to release collector’s editions of older Star Wars games. This marked the company’s first major effort to sell retro games, as it had focused mostly on newer games before. Demand for Limited Run Games’ products grew greatly between 2020 and 2021, the early years of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, delays in manufacturing from China during this time affected the company’s ability to produce games. By September 2020, the company had released over 500 games. Its staff grew to more than 50 people by October 2021, up from 20 in March 2020.

In April 2022, Limited Run Games opened a retail store at MacGregor Village, a mall in Cary. The store mainly sells the company’s games, with 25% of its space for other items. The store is run by a company owned entirely by Limited Run Games, called Limited Run Retail, LLC. In July 2022, the company announced a partnership with a Japanese company, 8-4, to create SuperDeluxe Games, a joint venture to sell Limited Run Games’ games in Japan. Limited Run Games owns 40% of SuperDeluxe Games. In August 2022, Embracer Group announced it would buy Limited Run Games from Fairhurst and Bogart for an amount not shared publicly. The purchase was completed in September 2022, and Limited Run Games became part of Embracer Group’s new division, Embracer Freemode, with Fairhurst and Bogart keeping their leadership roles. According to the company’s marketing director, the acquisition gave Limited Run Games access to many intellectual properties owned by Embracer Group. Later that month, Limited Run Games announced the launch of Press Run, a book imprint led by Jeremy Parish and Jared Petty, former editors at USgamer and IGN.

Bogart left Limited Run Games in May 2023. In 2024, the company faced criticism for selling the 3DO version of D on CD-R discs, which are burned instead of pressed, causing problems with playback on 3DO consoles. The company said it used CD-Rs because pressed discs had quality issues and CD-Rs worked better with the console, but this claim was later shown to be incorrect. Bogart claimed Fairhurst chose CD-R

Carbon Engine

Limited Run Games created the Carbon Engine to allow games from older video game systems to be played on personal computers, newer Xbox models, the PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and Nintendo Switch. The Carbon Engine uses emulators for each supported platform, with some emulators developed by the company and others obtained through licensing agreements. As of 2021, the Carbon Engine supports games from the Game Boy, Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, Nintendo Entertainment System, Super Nintendo Entertainment System, and Sega Genesis. Later, support for PlayStation and Sega CD games was added. The first games to use the Carbon Engine were Shantae and River City Girls Zero. The development of the Carbon Engine was led by Joe Modzeleski and Dimitris Giannakis, both of whom left the company in 2025 to work at Digital Eclipse.