Limited Run is celebrating ten years at their physical store in Cary, NC. I had the pleasure of meeting with and speaking with the President of Limited Run, Josh Fairhurst. In addition to the more formal interview below, I was able to chat with his casually about games as well as observe and listen to his interactions with both his employees and customers.

Josh is the kind of individual that makes you feel like part of the group. Many company Presidents tend to work from afar, but he was the opposite of that. He worked the crowd the entire time I was there (and longer). He’d chat with anyone who wanted to talk, and topics ranged from how Limited Run functioned to people’s favorite games. In fact, there were many times where Josh asked a customer what their favorite game was, and he would go out of his way to check and see if there were any in stock. He even found a rare copy, mixed it in the shelves of games in the physical vault, and let two fans hunt for them as part of the vault event. Josh also checked in on me from time to time to make sure I had what I needed. It was refreshing to see a leader in the gaming industry as grounded as he was, and I could tell Josh is a passionate gamer at heart. With that said, let’s move on to the interview. Enjoy!

Author’s Note: This interview was translated manually with paraphrased responses, intended to be presented in a narrative manner

Stephanie: How does it feel to be here, celebrating ten years of Limited Run?

Josh: It’s hard to believe sometimes. When I first started Limited Run, I thought that it was going to collapse after the first ten releases. As each game released, I’d think, “this is when people are going to stop caring.” And it took me until about 100 releases to stop feeling that way. I can now tell that this is something that will stay around. As long as we can continue making physical media for game systems, there’ll always be someone that wants it and wants to support it.

Stephanie: What were some of the challenges you’ve experienced in the early days of Limited Run?

Josh: It’s getting people who are focused on digital to understand the value of physical, and this is still a challenge today. It is especially so when trying to work with older companies who are so used to working with retail. With retail, you give away so much of your margin to the big box guys and distributors–everyone in the middle. So, many developers are making less money with physical units than with digital. They look at physical like a waste of time, especially when they can make all this money on digital. So, we have to convince them that our route can make them just as much as digital, or more. But it can be hard to believe and can take years to convince a company to work with us. We want to get them on board that there is still value in physical.

Stephanie: With over 1,000 games published, has this challenge become easier at all?

Josh: It has become easier over the years. Sometimes it takes working with one company to earn the trust of, and partner with, another company. There’s one partnership that we finally solidified that we’ve been trying to work with for almost nine years. We’re going to announce this partnership at LRG3. So, in like, four days. As we build our network, it is becoming easier.

Stephanie: Did you have any reservations about the success of a brick-and-mortar store?

Josh: It was never really seen as a profit thing for us. Actually, it was something that came about during the pandemic. Somebody posted a picture of a Blockbuster store from 1995. It was a concept store that opened in Jacksonville. I saw it and thought, “I want to make something like that.” And I needed a project. Everyone was supportive and said, “let’s do this.” Worse case scenario, this will be a place for our community. So, it ended up as my pandemic project.

Stephanie: How do you go about selecting and working with partners?

Josh: I play a large role in that. One example is when we hire a new employee, I find out what their favorite game of all time is, and I make it a point to try to sign that game. It’s worked out fairly well, honestly. For example, one girl we hired loved Pajama Sam, and we ended up getting to do that, and she was super excited. I know that’s a deep cut. Another example was Persona. I also have an employee whose favorite game will be announced soon. If I can make something meaningful happen to someone who works here, and we can ship a better product, I know there’s a lot of love and care put into it because there’s true fans that are working on it. I try to go after things like that. You can tell in the execution of the product when a fan is working on it.

Stephanie: Tell me more about Embracer Group’s role with Limited Run.

Josh: In 2022, we were acquired by Embracer. At the time, they had about twelve arms, and we were under the Free Mode arm. From then, there has been some restructuring with the company, but we’ve been pretty safe from that because we’ve been steady as a business. They’ve helped us fix some problem points that we had like our warehouse. It was backed up. It was slow. It was running inefficiently, so they helped us fix that. It did require hard changes, but ultimately, things run smoothly now instead of remaining 3-6 months behind. Now, we are getting more integrated into the group as a whole. There are duplicated services within the group, and the larger strategy is to utilize resources across the group. So, if someone within Embracer wants to publish a physical, they can come to Limited Run instead of starting their own physical thing. Everyone can prosper from the resources. Another example is Darkhorse. We will be putting a lot of books out on Darkhorse now. Previously it was very siloed. Now working together like a family and collaborating. At Limited Run, we still make creative decisions, and that’s why you get games like Plumbers Don’t Wear Ties.

Stephanie: What some of your personal favorite Limited Run games?

Josh: My favorite game is Shadow Complex. We published that game in 2016. Shadow Complex was the first game I ever downloaded, and I wondered why it was never on disk. This feels and plays as well as Super Metroid, so why is this not on a disk? Why can’t I buy it and own it forever? Being able to revisit a 2009 game and make it physical was a pretty nice, full circle moment. That was the first inkling of the Limited Run idea.

Stephanie: What’s up for Limited Run for the next ten years?

Josh: I want to just keep making cool stuff. We want to make things, we want to connect, and we use that as our guiding compass. We’re just going to keep doing the best and coolest stuff.

It was truly surreal to sit with Josh within the Limited Run retail store, and I was grateful for his time and the time I got to spend with all the employees. Because I had the ability to visit as press, I was able to see the fandom side and behind-the-scenes, and both aspects blew me away. Please continue to follow us as we cover announcements from Limited Run.

Boss Rush Podcast – A Podcast about Video Games

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