10 Most Sought-After Collector's Editions In Gaming

You've seen the statistics - digital distribution is devouring gaming industry market share, steadily eating away at the relevance of boxed product. It's a shift precipitated by significant improvements in internet speeds and coverage, gargantuan hard drives ready to swallow even the biggest of triple-A releases whole, and the ease-of-use associated with distribution services like Steam. This may be an exciting time for those who don't fancy the whole "going outside" concept, since there's barely any reason to go to the shops anymore, but it also brings a great sadness for many of us: a depressing decline of deliciously extravagant, monstrously overpriced Collector€™s Editions for gamers to obsess about. And no, for this demographic, downloadable extras don't count. You can keep your exclusive in-game content, we want the real deal - expensive trinkets that we can display proudly. Or, as is often the case, look at once and then instantly lose or accidentally snap in half. These bountiful treasure chests are Kryptonite for passionate game enthusiasts, plucking at our collector mentality, leaving many of us powerless to resist their shiny wares. Big boxes stuffed with loot, statuettes, cloth maps, hardcover art books, sometimes all it takes is one particularly unique bit of memorabilia to make it worth every cent. Other times it's the sheer volume of goodness - to us, rare and priceless objects of desire, to others, cheaply made junk - that has us frothing at the mouth. Digital distribution makes sense on so many levels, but should there come a day where it replaces physical product completely - and by extension, the lavish limited edition packages we yearn for - it will be a sorrowful state of affairs. So, in honour of these most sought after of treasure troves, lets count down the Collector€™s Editions we would most eagerly pop in our shopping trolleys if money and common sense were no object...