On Google I have done searches such as "INSIDE Collector's Edition" and with additions of the words "Playdead", "iam8bit" and "RealDoll" in order to filter out non-relevant searches. Sorting the searches by date and knowing that the Collector's Edition isn't as big as other games out there, it knowingly would be possible to go through all the results until march 2018 when using those words. By reading relevant articles and posts, I would go to the comments and check the interest, and contact anyone that indicates interest or the fact that they wanted to or ended up preordering the CE. In all cases, people who stronlgy indicated or was obvious that had ordered one was added to our Google Document with the date, contact person and name/link to the post/comment that they made. Some results was easy and quick to find, while later CE's (because theres so few of them ever sold) has been proved hard to find. Some searches in for example 1 platform could end up taking 1+ hour because it went really deep and therefore I had to complete the current search in order not to lose track of where I was. For each specific platform in general, I have usually been checking in each day, or several times a week in case there would be new results, which sometimes come up. In some cases in the Google Document, the letter that the sticker represents is faded because we haven't gotten a good enough image of the sticker, but still we know it's letter since it's a repeating pattern.
So by going through different platforms, I have been searching for owners with same keywords across every platform, such as INSIDE Collector's Edition, Playdead, iam8bit and RealDoll. Many people have been contacted in total, but there are very many that doesn't reply right away, or reply at all, whilst some do. Different platforms and places I have searched which resulted in finding sources is as following: Facebook, Twitter, Google and Google images, Youtube, Instagram, Ebay, Discord, Reddit. Below you will find more information on each specific one:
On Youtube I am following iam8bit and Playdead's Youtube channel, and have also been searching for the CE's from since the time we knew the first persons received it. We have been using keywords such as "INSIDE Collector's Edition" with additions of words like "Playdead", "iam8bit" and "RealDoll". By following other popular gaming channels like Inside Gaming and IGN on Twitter and other social media platforms, we was aware that they would likely post unboxing videos of the CE, which they did end up doing. Since that, we have been checking in several times and found other people who have posted unboxing videos which we have contacted. Other than this, we have gone through the comments and it's replies, checking for anyone who have indicated that they bought the collector's edition, and if so, contacted them.
On Google I have done searches such as "INSIDE Collector's Edition" with additions of the words "Playdead", "iam8bit" and "RealDoll" in order to filter out non-relevant searches. Sorting the searches by date and knowing that the Collector's Edition isn't as big as other games out there, it knowingly would be possible to go through all the results until march 2018 when using those words. By reading relevant articles and posts, I would go to the comments and check the interest, and contact anyone that indicates interest or the fact that they wanted to or ended up preordering the CE.
On the images section the same method was applied, and then going through all of the relevant images and checking out the websites they lead to. For example after 12th of december 2019, I knew I probably would end up finding direct evidence of people who had the CE by seeing their "Huddle" image posted which was included in the CE, which was exactly what I did end up finding most of the time, but also of the collector's box itself. Then said persons would then be contacted.
For the keywords, the same process was applied as for the Google search in order to pin-point and filter out non-relevant results. By doing this, we would easily find all the sellers who sold a copy of the CE. By setting up an advanced search on those keywords, we would get notifications when a new one would pop up. It was easier to find the owners on Ebay because there was so few, and because Ebay is easy to navigate and only shows items for sale/buy. We would contact the seller and then leave a link with their name and the product number in the Google Document and the name of the person who contacted the seller and the date of contact.
On Facebook I have been going through different posts made by media sources covering the CE, posts from iam8bit, RealDoll and Playdead, and then checking the comments of each post that could have potential of finding potential owners. On Facebook I have also gone through the shared posts of other official posts, and checked the comments, then contacting all the possible persons. I have also sorted those by date, and by seperate searches like in images, videos and posts. In order to maximize the results further, I joined some groups like PS4 collecting groups and made posts there to let other collector's be aware of it and in case someone ordered it.
The first places we searched was the closest ones, such as the INSIDE's subreddit, Playdead subreddit and LIMBO subreddit. Posts was made to make fans aware of the collector's editions, and as it was easy to keep track and because of the fact that several fans are there, and most people was aware of it, whilst at the same time the amount of members is significantly lower than on other platforms. By going through those posts and comments, we would contact any persons who showed interest. Outside of those subreddits, I have done searches for the whole of Reddit with the keywords "Playdead INSIDE Collector's Edition", which ended up giving some results in other subreddits, where posts and comments was made. One specific subreddit that I check often is /r/gamecollecting, as it usually shows posts of rare games and Collector's Editions. Anyone with bigger collections was contacted in order to gain advice and tips on how to further do the searches more efficiently.
Theres two Discord servers, LIMBO Blobs, which is for the most part inactive, but some people there knew about the collector's edition. Then the most active Discord server, Playdead Unofficial where all ARG's from back in time was solved. As soon as the ARG was discovered with the CE, the effort to track down owners would be done, and by giving said people an unique Collector's Edition role. As Discord is a very active and easily available platform to use full of hardcore Playdead fans, it has been very convenient to find the owners there.
On Instagram, the searching has been a little different as hashtags are mostly used to posts here. By checking iam8bit, RealDoll and Playdead's accounts, I have checked the posts they made, and it's comment and then contacted people who showed interest in the CE. Including this, I have checked posts where said accounts was tagged, because some people would tag them, but not use hashtags. Hashtags however is what has mostly been very helpful here though, but also time consuming on some of them because of the amounts of posts in each hashtags. Here are some examples of hashtags that is searched regularly, but usually with very many posts, all sorted from newest in time and scrolling back in time: #playdead, #realdoll, #huddle, #thehuddle, #inside, #gamecollection, #gamecollector, #gamecollecting, #gamecollections. Then there are hashtags with less posts which are more likely to yield results, which I follow and check several times a week: #playdeadgame, #playdeadgames, #insidegame, #playdeadstudios, #insideps4, #insidethegame, #insideplaydead, #playdeadsinside, #insidecollectorsedition and #playdeadinside. By following and checking those, I have been able to track down some owners, and contacted many people as well with some results.
As with Instagram, Twitter is also somewhat different than the other platforms, and probably the one where the deepest and most time consuming in-depth searches have taken place, but also with a good amount of finds so far. Twitter has all kinds of different options, whilst at the same time is very much used across the globe by a lot of people, which is probably the reason why. By first going through Playdead, iam8bit and RealDoll's posts, I have there checked those posts comments. While the post itself can have retweets with comments, the original comments under it can have more replies and retweets. First I would go through every single comment in the post, then contact the potential owners, then go through the retweets of the post with comments and check if that retweet had retweets or comments. If they did, I would check that too. Persons who showed interest or was obvious that bought a CE, would be contacted. This process would then be repeated with all the potential posts, comments and retweets back in time until start of march in 2018 by using keywords as "inside iam8bit", "inside playdead", "inside realdoll", "playdead iam8bit", "inside collector's edition", "playdead inside collector's edition" and so on. This would be done on posts, image-posts and video-posts. I would also find news and gaming sources reporting on the CE, where all the comments, retweets and the link to the post itself with it's comments would be checked. In many cases we would both DM and Tweet at the potential owners in order to get their response. On Twitter, hashtags such as #inside, #playdead, #realdoll have also been checked. Often the process of going through Tweets & replies back in time on potential people would also be done in order to potentially get more information.
Because we knew the ARG discussions originally started at Steam, we have checked there too for clues. Other additions to this list is places usually found by the Google (image) searches, and results from people who collect games who have given advice on where to search, such as forums.
A result from Google images, a forum where some people in a post showed off their "Huddle" from the CE. Those persons have been contacted, and 1 has replied, but we have currently not yet gotten any sticker results from this search.
A result from Google images that gave one result, with a sticker image, a website that people who collect games usually archive and keep track of their collection.
VGCollect forum with advanced searches, craigslist, kijiji, Facebook marketplace, Finn.no (Norwegian site much like Ebay), NextDoor, collectorsedition.org forum, Mercari, gumtree, letgo, OfferUp, VideoGameSage.com.
The lost stickers section gives you the list of persons who are confirmed to have a collector's edition that we contacted and got answers from, but confirmed that they lost/disposed of their sticker because they wasn't aware of the valuable information it contained. In some cases, an owner had a screenshot/video where the sticker was in, but impossible to see the symbol or/and number it had.
The unknown stickers section is for the persons who are confirmed to have the collector's edition, for example they made a tweet about it indicating almost for sure or that they definetly have the collector's edition. But because we haven't gotten any answers from them yet, or they for some reason couldn't reach their collector's edition or knew if they still had the sticker, their status is put under the unknown section until we get further updates or replies from them.
If you want to see the list of all the stickers with links to the images/information of each induvidual confirmed, lost or unknown stickers, use this link: https://github.com/twinysam/INSIDE-ARG/blob/master/stickers.md