Critical Miss: The Sega Guide

[plugav]

[W]hen you figure you now won't see "Sonic Furries Fandemonium" or whatever it makes it worth it.

Won't you, though? Sega didn't take down any of those terrible flash games out there, they only went after a project that could rival their own releases.

The group kept the name because they wanted to honour the original game. That's why it's called a fan project. They didn't rename it to Avenues of Anger and try to make big bucks selling a rip-off.

I'm not saying "screw intellectual property." I am saying, however, that fans are people who like what you do and it's generally bad karma to f*ck them over. Sega had the right to do what they did, but that doesn't lessen their douchebaggery.

 

[zombie711]

Sega has the right to do this. Did the fans ever bother to contact sega in the EIGHT FRIGGGIN years it took to make that game and ask for permision to use their IP, (no seriously a group of guys spent 10 years making a kings quest game, and they were allowed to release because they asked for permision from Activision). I know 8 years is a lot of work, but most fan games (except mario games) are shut down so you should have seen this comming.

 

[The Wooster]

Not only did they have permission from Sega, they obtained it *several times* during the life of the project.

Got a source on that, Kingbro? I haven't heard about Sega responding.

Sega has the right to do this. Did the fans ever bother to contact sega in the EIGHT FRIGGGIN years it took to make that game and ask for permision to use their IP, (no seriously a group of guys spent 10 years making a kings quest game, and they were allowed to release because they asked for permision from Activision). I know 8 years is a lot of work, but most fan games (except mario games) are shut down so you should have seen this comming.

Yes. Yes they did.

 

[coldfrog]

They had permission from Sega.

As far as I can tell, there was no official "You have our permission" statement from Sega. All it sounds like from what I've read is that they were informed of it, and they made no response in any direction. That said, I haven't read every single blog or thread about it, but if you can point one out where they state that they were in fact given permission, not just that they notified Sega, I'll gladly concede this point.

After all that's said, as much as I feel sorry for the work gone into this wasted, if they didn't receive an official statement from Sega up to this point, I'm not all that surprised. It's unfortunate, but it's also big business for you. I wish they'd be willing to look at it from the point of view of other developers and say "Hey, why don't you work for us to help us make better games", but obviously they see that bad games sell just fine thank you, and they will stick with that. Pretty much the reason I won't buy any new Sega games.

 

[Mordwyl]

Again, like the Chrono Resurrection project, I give SEGA the facepalm award for not greenlighting this project and actually make money off it. Seriously sometimes I don't think these guys reason with their wallet sometimes. They don't like money.

 

[Furioso]

didnt square do this with chrono trigger

Well not really, they added new features including an entirely new, long, dungeon (wasn't that good but it was something) and an interesting monster arena thing that I had fun with, also allowed people to experience the game who couldn't before and didn't have the know how for emulating, in other words, yea they made a port but it was good

Oh and they had cutscenes, I also enjoyed those

 

[Furioso]

Come the fuck on reCAPTCHA.

serek smmukar? are those even words?

 

[Mokuren]

Sega has all the rights to shut down this project.

Actually, every company has the right to shoot down fan contributions and defend its own stagnation through hamfisted legal tactics, worrying about potential to make pennies first and tossing away every potential there is to gather new people, new ideas and actual passion and maybe have any hope of returning to past glories.

It's dumb to the point of being suicidal, both in terms of actual ability to release quality content and uphold a reputation that can't be resumed with "Terrible", but they can do that, and no amount of whining will change it.

Don't be angry at Sega, it's pointless and most importantly it's not even news anymore that they're a bunch of idiots devoid of any form of creativity and common sense. You should be mad, mad like hell, at investors that actually keep dumping money in a company like this; they're the one that keep it alive and keep allowing this crap to happen.

 

[mjc0961]

*snip*

All of that would be a nice speech... Except that there are already tons of shitty fan-made versions of Sonic games on sites like Newgrounds. So they aren't shutting it down to save us all from shitty Sonic games. That doesn't make sense anyway, seeing as they release most of the shitty Sonic games themselves (regardless of what anyone might think of stuff like Sonic 4, stuff like Sonic the Hedgehog Genesis and Sonic Classic Collection are undeniably bad as referenced in the first panel of the comic today).

Also, remember that it was a Streets of Rage game they killed.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Once again, business trumps quality.
It's why we cannot have good things; but rather just those things that are marketable.

Because remember; ANYTHING can be "justified" with greed and profit. ANYTHING.
It's a catch-all argument! The "Profit-Card"!

And if you disagree, you're a pretentious asshole who doesn't understand how the world works!

Jaded sarcasm aside, it's difficult to remain optimistic when business regularly chokes creativity to death. In gaming, you need both creativity and business; not over-emphasis of one of the other.

 

[duchaked]

really brings to mind the mice and men image yahtzee painted with sonic

 

[Onyx Oblivion]

Critical Miss: The Sega Guide

Sega do what Valvedon't.

Read Full Article

I want to hate them for this...

But they published so many good new IPs these past few years...

Valkyria Chronicles, Bayonetta, Vanquish, Alpha Protocol...to name a few.

 

[OceanRunner]

Ugh, GBA port of Sonic.

That's the exact moment in my young life when I started actively TRYING to pirate games before I bought them. Worse waste of seventy dollars EVER.

Also the Sonic compilation on DS. They could've fit more than the first for games on a DS cart.

 

[ArmorArmadillo]

Legally the situation is black and white; Sega has every right to shutdown a fan project. That doesn't mean we have to agree with their decision; nor does it mean we can't view it in a negative light. Since by all outward appearances they let the game go through the full 8 years (maybe less) of development and shut it down only when it was released. If they didn't want them making it they should have shut them down long before now.

It's slightly more complex than that. A sad feature (and big flaw IMO) of copyright law is that if you are aware of something that violates your IP, you are OBLIGATED to shut it down, and if you don't you will be seen to have waived your right to enforce your IP and will lose claim to it in the future.

The smarter move though: Find great fan projects, and then convince the fan devs to come make it into an official project that they can release.

Also, why pick on Sega when other people are doing the same thing and yet still fanatically praised by fans. Star Fox 64 on the DS? An 'update' of Kirby Superstar where the only new level was a palatte swap?

 

[twaddle]

Oh for the love of god people. The 2d sonic games were great, yes, but the sonic adventure games were great as well. The first sonic adventure had it's flaws yes and sega realized these said flaws and completely fixed them in the next game Sonic adventure 2. And the sonic advance games weren't that bad either especially sonic advance 3. I can't speak for the other games because they did seem bollocks. There was one more sonic game that was actually quite good that i can think of since the old 2d style ones and that was sonic rush. It was the first time they introduced a new character we were actually interested in and you have to admit that fight between blaze and sonic dragon ball z style was pretty sweet. Sonic Team isn't all bad they have a few good games it's just they don't know what to do with themselves.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

What baffles me is why these companies never hire the teams behind these fan projects and then releasing said fan project as an official title and profiting off of it.

 

[geizr]

Sega definitely is not the extreme powerhouse it once was back in the heady days of the Genesis-SuperNES War. Back in those days, Sega(and, particularly, the Genesis console) was emblematic of hardcore, adrenaline-rush gaming. However, a number of bad hardware and business missteps precipitated a horrible decline for Sega(it didn't help that they were re-orging just about every year). After that, the talent left, and Sega just withered into a shadow of its former glory. Sad to see.

(Bayonetta is OK[I have it for PS3], but the pacing and choreography of the game is way off for the aesthetics and style, in my opinion. It just fails to properly maintain the "rush".)

 

[vxicepickxv]

didnt square do this with chrono trigger

Well not really, they added new features including an entirely new, long, dungeon (wasn't that good but it was something) and an interesting monster arena thing that I had fun with, also allowed people to experience the game who couldn't before and didn't have the know how for emulating, in other words, yea they made a port but it was good

Oh and they had cutscenes, I also enjoyed those

Plus you have to look at how obscene a copy of Chrono Trigger for the SNES was. It was pretty bad, cost wise.


Yeah, Sega doesn't care about anything these days, except trying to turn a profit, and the best way to do that is to use old, profitable IPs to rape childhoods.

 

[The Wooster]

Legally the situation is black and white; Sega has every right to shutdown a fan project. That doesn't mean we have to agree with their decision; nor does it mean we can't view it in a negative light. Since by all outward appearances they let the game go through the full 8 years (maybe less) of development and shut it down only when it was released. If they didn't want them making it they should have shut them down long before now.

It's slightly more complex than that. A sad feature (and big flaw IMO) of copyright law is that if you are aware of something that violates your IP, you are OBLIGATED to shut it down, and if you don't you will be seen to have waived your right to enforce your IP and will lose claim to it in the future.

Now a lot of the apologists for Sega (and Square when they shut down that sweet looking Chrono Trigger Remake) cite this particular law and the biggest counter point is, yet again, Valve. There are countless mods/remakes/adaptations of Half Life and it's code yet somehow no shadowy forces have swept in and stolen the Half Life IP from under them.

 

[jackpipsam]

I still think SEGA are great people who do great things.

note: my tag