A Collector's Edition can mean many things: bonus in-game content, beautifully crafted sculptures related to the title, soundtracks, and even niche goodies like maps, keychains, or concept art. In theory, they could include just about anything—and some almost do.
Generally, though, Collector's Editions tend to be the perfect way for fans of a certain game to show off their love for the title by paying more and receiving more. Over the years, a handful of Collector's Editions have separated themselves due to their insane rarity, and, by proxy, have become extremely valuable.
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Dead Space Ultra Limited Edition is a perfect example of the recipe necessary to make any game super valuable. Most importantly, there are only 1000 copies of Dead Space Ultra Limited Edition. It also contained decent swag for its retail price point of $150, including a card hand-signed by Glen Schofield, an animated movie, a graphic novel, and an Ishimura crew patch, among other things. Lastly, Dead Space turned out to be a fairly popular game and managed to spawn a handful of sequels, meaning that the series grew in popularity long after the last copy of the Ultra Limited Edition was sold.
Despite being one of the best-selling games of all time, World of Warcraft's collector's edition is surprisingly rare. More importantly, it's even rarer that the CD Key for each collector's edition has not been used. The most coveted item in the collector's edition—that also came with a soundtrack, artwork book, a cloth map of the in-game world—is the exclusive in-game pet. Unfortunately, it's tied to the CD Key, meaning that most of them were claimed when players first started playing. Over the years since World of Warcraft was released, the number of unclaimed collector's edition CD keys and those wasted on forgotten accounts has meant that the number of unused copies has whittled down to a minuscule amount, making the complete collector's edition, with all the original goodies included, exceedingly rare.
The Fortune Hunter's edition of Uncharted 2 is absurdly beautiful. It comes equipped with an ornate replica phurba dagger, a hand-signed book that contains detailed character profiles and concept art, and a copy of the game's soundtrack. More importantly, though, it's extremely rare. All 200 copies of the Fortune Hunter edition could not be purchased in stores and had to be won via a competition through the game's multiplayer demo, PlayStation Home, and other venues, meaning that for most fans the only way to get their hands on a copy was to pay the exorbitant amounts asked on eBay and the like.
These two are lumped together because they are the rarest of the rare. That, and they never actually sold. The Dying Light My Apocalpyse edition boasted a price tag of nearly $400,000, and the Saints Row 4 Super Dangerous Wad Wad Edition was more than double that, at $1,000,000 for the single copy in existence. Of course, purchasers could expect much more than a mere statue or soundtrack CD, as the Saints Row 4 package came with a Lamborghini and plastic surgery, and the Dying Light Collector's Edition came with a "custom-built zombie-proof shelter."
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