Physicality Games Cancels Pre-Orders For Its Planned Switch Physical Editions, Now Refunding Customers

Earlier this year, physical publisher Physicality Games announced its plans to produce physical editions for games such as Guilty Gear 20th Anniversary Pack – and it was going to take the unique approach of gathering a minimum number of pre-orders before proceeding with such physical game releases. Sadly, however, it appears that this approach has not worked out for the company.

In an open letter addressed to fans, the publisher announced that it would be cancelling pre-orders for its planned physical releases on Switch. In particular, this was because the company was unable to hit the minimum number of pre-orders for these titles after a prolonged period of eight months.

In lieu of this, Physicality Games confirmed that it would begin the process of refunding customers. It is not clear if the publisher will pursue other means of printing physical titles in the future.

Here’s is the announcement in full below:

An Open Letter from Physicality Games:

“We started Physicality Games with the idea of differently providing pre-order exclusive physical video games. We didn’t want the artificial scarcity of limited-print runs to prevent fans from getting the game they wanted. We wanted Deluxe Editions that any fan, gamer, or collector would be proud to display on their shelves, packaged in beautiful, metal, display boxes and containing items meaningful to the game. We wanted a site that would facilitate communities by allowing gamers to easily share their gamer IDs and favorite games across the internet. We wanted something true to our key values of kindness, community, quality, and charity.

In many ways we succeeded. We are proud of the site we created. We are proud of the Deluxe Editions we put together and the high-level of detail that went into every aspect of them. And we are proud to announce that we, from our own pockets, have already made all charitable donations earned through pre-orders.

However, after eight months of sustained effort we failed to achieve sufficient pre-orders for any of our exclusive pre-order titles. We have therefore decided to cancel our exclusive pre-order titles and will begin processing full refunds to our customers per our guarantee. This was a painful decision to make but we can no longer, in good consciousness, ask our customers to continue waiting.

We offer a sincere apology that we are unable to ship and would like to thank each and every one of our fans from the bottom of our hearts for the patience and understanding they’ve shown.

The Physicality Games website will remain open. Non pre-order games and apparel will remain available for purchase with quick shipment. Community functions will remain active and new accounts and profiles can still be created and shared online. However, exclusive pre-order titles will no longer be available.

Thank you for your continued support and understanding during this transition.”

– The Physicality Games Team

For reference, Physicality Games had previously announced physical pre-orders for the following titles, which are now all cancelled as of this announcement:

• Guilty Gear 20th Anniversary Pack
• Slayaway Camp
• Rolling Gunner
• Whispering Willows

We’ll report back if we hear anything new from Physicality Games in the future. Stay tuned.