How the reprint-risk flag works
Short version: the flag scores what publishers have documented about reprinting, and nothing else. Three inputs, 5 points maximum. Where the evidence is missing, the flag says so instead of scoring zero.
Why it is built this way
A reprint-risk score is only worth anything if you can check it. Most collector sites show a coloured badge with no arithmetic behind it, which is indistinguishable from a guess. So this one publishes the inputs, the weights, the evidence note for each input on each release page, and the score. If you disagree with a weight you can see exactly what it did to the total.
Two things are deliberately not scored:
- Print run size. It is tempting to say a 400-copy run is likelier to be reprinted than a 12,000-copy run, but in this category the opposite case is just as easy to argue, and we hold no evidence either way. Run size is displayed as context and contributes no points.
- Age. Years since release is shown because it is a fact collectors ask about, not because we can show it predicts a reprint. No points.
Anything that might be relevant but that we did not verify — digital availability,
for instance — is recorded as unknown and left unscored. Every record in this
build has digital_substitute: unknown, because that was not checked.
The three scored inputs
A second print run of this exact title is documented
3 points, the only route to a High rating. A second production run of the same game is documented in a source we can cite. This is the strongest available signal, because it is a fact about what the publisher actually did. Zero if no reprint appears in the sources reviewed. Not counted if we did not establish it either way.
This publisher has reprinted one of its own titles before
1 point. The publisher has reprinted at least one of its own physical releases at some point, documented in a citable source. This is deliberately worth little: a publisher with hundreds of releases that has reprinted once tells you almost nothing about any single title, so this input can never on its own lift a release above Low. Zero where no such reprint appears in the sources reviewed. Not counted if the publisher's record was not surveyed.
Publisher's stated print policy
1 point, the weakest input. The publisher manufactures to demand without publishing a cap, so a further run is not ruled out by anything they have said. Zero where the publisher states a fixed quantity or states one print per title. Not counted where no policy is published.
Adding it up
Points from the inputs that could be established are summed. If fewer than 2 of the 3 scored inputs could be established from a source, no rating is given at all and the page reads Insufficient evidence. A low score built on one input is not a low risk; it is a thin file.
| Total points | Rating |
|---|---|
| 3 or more | High |
| 2 | Elevated |
| 0 – 1 | Low |
Bands are a reading aid, not a measurement. A 2 and a 3 are not meaningfully different in the world; treat the rating as a summary of what is on file.
Two kinds of rating, and the page always says which
A rating can rest on two quite different things, so every release page states its basis:
- Title-specific. A reprint of that exact game is documented. This is the only route to a High rating, and it is the only basis that says something about the individual title rather than its publisher.
- Publisher-level only. No reprint of that title is documented, and the rating comes entirely from how the publisher behaves in general — whether it has ever reprinted anything of its own, and whether it makes to demand. Every Limited Run Games record in this dataset is on this basis, which is why they cluster at Elevated. Read that as “this publisher does reprint sometimes”, not as a statement about the individual game.
Where neither kind of evidence could be established, the page says Insufficient evidence and shows no rating at all. In this dataset that covers every Red Art Games, eastasiasoft, iam8bit and Special Reserve Games release, because their reprint records were not surveyed.
Distribution across this dataset
| Rating | Releases |
|---|---|
| High | 1 |
| Elevated | 1034 |
| Low | 469 |
| Insufficient evidence | 290 |
1 release is rated on a documented reprint of that specific title, so it is the only High. 1503 are rated on publisher-level behaviour only, with no reprint of the individual title documented. The remaining 290 have too little evidence to rate. A list where most titles sit in one band is a statement about how much has been verified, not a finding about the market.
What would change a rating
One documented second print run is worth more than every contextual fact combined, because it is the only input here that records something a publisher actually did with that specific title. The clearest example in this dataset is Shantae and the Pirate's Curse, which Limited Run Games reprinted in 2024 as its final US 3DS release. That reprint is recorded as an input on the release page, with its source.
A rating of High means the file contains documented reprint behaviour. It does not mean a reprint is coming. A rating of Low means nothing in the sources reviewed indicates one. It does not mean a reprint is impossible, and it is not advice about what anything is worth.
Known limits
- “No reprint found” means exactly that: nothing appeared in the sources reviewed for this dataset. It is not proof that no reprint exists.
- Coverage is uneven by publisher. iam8bit's and Special Reserve Games' reprint records were not surveyed, so their releases are rated Insufficient evidence.
- The dataset is a seed of 1794 releases, not a complete catalogue. 673 of them have no published print run at all.
- Launch prices are quoted in the currency the publisher listed. No conversion is applied, and no sold price or valuation is published anywhere on this site.