Josh Fairhurst, one of the co-founders of Limited Run Games, has announced today that he is leaving the company after 10 long years. He says he stepped back as CEO in September 2025, but will remain president at the company until March. Fairhurst says that he feels like it’s time to step back from Limited Run Games and try something new and whatever he’s been working on it sounds like he is bursting to share it. Here’s his full statement as published on X,
“With 2025 drawn to a close, it feels like the right time to announce that I stepped down as CEO at Limited Run Games back in September. I’m still working there as President until March, but after that, I will be scaling back to redirect my focus to new adventures.
I made this decision after I found myself presented with several opportunities to help bring dream games to life. Since then, even more irresistible opportunities have found themselves on my doorstep. I know I’d always regret it if I didn’t seize the moment and pursue these things.
It wasn’t an easy decision to make. Limited Run Games has been my life for ten years. I love what we do and I love the people I get to work with – but I also recognize that Limited Run could benefit from new leadership, who will bring fresh perspectives and original ideas to drive LRG through its next ten years and beyond.
It has been a wild ride, one that I have never taken for granted. I look forward to continuing to support Limited Run as a fan, a customer, and a partner. With the incredible slate of releases we have planned for next year, I know the future is bright for LRG. Once you all start seeing what I’ll be working on, you’ll understand why I couldn’t pass any of this up. We only have one chance to live our life and it’s important to live it to the fullest, even if that sometimes requires tough decisions.
Here’s to an incredible 2026!”
Thanks to Edward B for sending in the news tip!
Leaving a sinking ship.
“breaking news millionaire runs off with profit after years of scamming people”
Oh it’s another Friday already.
May his reputation haunt him wherever he goes.
Limited Run sucks.
There’s quite a backlash with limited run, but I’ve never had any issues. I know before I order games there are several months for delivery on new releases and that’s fine, they always turn up and I’m in Uk too.
Obviously a lot of people have had bad experiences somehow
The quality of their physical releases became extremely poor over the past few years while rising in price.
Almost all of their physical releases of older games required patches.
Their retro releases were abysmal (D for example).
Their retro game releases had game breaking bugs (Tomba and Sparkster).
Also there have been plenty of times I, and many, MANY other customers have tried to contact them about possibly delaying their physical prints until after they receive their final patch, that way they wouldn’t need a digital download at all, hence their so-called moto “forever physical” on their site, but they always ignored fan feedback or played dumb just to rush their products out the door.
They also had their hand in ruining plenty of Japanese releases with underhanded backroom deals, like having English text options removed from Japanese region games just so english customers would be forced to wait a year or two to buy from LRG or Clear River since their versions were the only way to get english at all in certain releases.
They truly have become the absolute worse limited print company.
I can only think of one other company worse than them, and that is 1st Press Games, who are notorious for never releasing their games on time or at all years after taking payments for digital games that have already been on the market for years before 1st press decides to do a physical.
I’m still waiting for my physical standard copy of Chained Echoes and Crimson Clover World Explosion for switch, and I placed my order for those games back on January 3rd 2024.
Mind you I placed my order years after they had them up for preorder, and those games have been out even longer.
These limited print companies are becoming lazy trash, and don’t get me started on Strictly Limited😒
Again, I’ve never had any negative issues with LRG.
But to make the conversation complete, yes, Strictly Limited is kinda trash. I had a few orders with them for years and eventually cancelled them and got my money back because there was just no end in sight. I don’t order from them anymore unless I’ve talked to customer service and gotten a detailed plan of release (like for the upcoming R-Type game).
I have never had anything but great experiences with Limited Run. I can’t understand why there is so much vitriol aimed at one of the few companies reliably trying to keep legit physical media alive for high-profile releases. Why tf would we bite that particular hand?? What’s the alternative? Surrender all game ownership to fickle digital storefronts and “game key cards”? No thank you. LRG forever!!!
Limited Run Games represent the things that are bad about physical media. It’s literally there in the name, “limited run”. Of course many of the games they choose are niche and it wouldn’t make sense to produce loads, but they certainly do underproduce to ensure demand outstrips supply and they can charge too much.
Physical media isn’t the answer anyway. As a lover of retro games and seeing how toxic that market has become now that it is filled with collectors/investors, many of whom don’t even care much for gaming, the flaws are just very apparent. Digital is the way to combat scarcity, it is better to focus on improving digital storefronts than doing something silly like buying a $15 indie game on a cartridge.
I’m willing to listen… how is digital better when the storefront can pull the game from the shop or (sometimes) right out of your library after paying for it? The prices I pay on LRG are definitely not more expensive than the mainstream market. Unless you’re talking about the bundles with all the extras, which I rarely go for.
If a physical game is on my radar, I pre-order it in the like month-long window. I never get shut out. It’s not like they run out of orders, it’s just that I think they only manufacture roughly what gets ordered. It feels more to me like they meet the demand exactly so that they can stay in business, the scarcity is later, after we’ve all had a chance.
The only way digital fosters ownership or combats scarcity is with piracy, which, I’m OK with if physical and DRM-free aren’t options.
Don’t forget that they also went back on their ideals of physical only when they began releasing so-called physical copies of switch 2 game keys.
They’ve been pulling a lot of underhanded crap that many people don’t know about, like making sure english options are taken out of Japanese region games just so LRG’s releases were the only versions with English.
LRG are true scumbags when it comes to physical media.
Which ones were Game Key Cards? I want to be sure to avoid those.
And how do they have so much pull with devs/pubs that they can dictate what language they release their game in??
I myself haven’t had issues with them but do acknowledge that people had issues with them. he did an amazing job despite any issues LRG has had.
If Nintendo made their carts updatable then that wouldn’t be an issue for updates that get released for games.
Embracer as a whole sucks. You do not need 10 publishers. Dark Horse should be shut down.
They just sold Anime Limited. I have to wonder if they shut down and sell off more like Plaion
Thank you for making the Jurassic Park complete collection. I wish you put more games on that game because there is more Jurassic Park games, especially for Sega and Sega CD.