Sega Puts a Stop to Streets of Rage Fan Game

ArmorArmadillo

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Mar 31, 2010
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True Nero said:
i never really understood the things that Sega does. i mean, you've got a fanbase bigger than the entire population of Canada even though you CONSTANTLY disappoint us with horrible Sonic games and other lack luster wastes of time. and so when a bunch of rabid fans try to pay homage to their childhood and how awesome Sega is, LAWYERS AWAY!

seriously, Sega doesn't seem to give a crap about their fans at all. hell, you look at any other developer out there right now, and they would be ecstatic to see fans do all this work. having fans show that you guys are doing something right. not only that, but having fans be so motivated to make something like this Streets of Rage fan-game, it's a sign that you guys really made an impression on someone.

this is the same thing that Sega did to YTMND with all the sega parodies. they should feel honored that people love them so much even though all they do is practically everything but punch us all in the face individually. it's like they live to destroy.
Again, its an unfortunate aspect of copyright law (and probably one of its bigger flaws) that you are obligated to go after known copyright infringements or you risk losing any claim to them.
 

Syntax Error

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Sep 7, 2008
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I would understand if Sega just pulled the plug quickly, but the fact that the makers contacted them about it beforehand is what makes this really asshole-ish.

EDIT:
DTWolfwood said:
LawlessSquirrel said:
SEGA seems to be very...unfriendly to their fanbase. One of the worst of the big companies, I'd say. I look back with nostalgia at the old SEGA, but the current one is like a grumpy old man telling the kids to get off his lawn.

I hope these guys take a legal sidestep, rename the game and throw in a pallete swap or something to keep SEGA away. It's a real shame when loyalty is rewarded by destroying years of your fan's work on a tribute.
seconded that motion
Making palette swaps might take a lot of time though.
 

Dastardly

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Apr 19, 2010
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Logan Westbrook said:
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It's a hard truth to swallow, but sometimes something done as a well-meaning tribute can be bad for the company. If you're giving away part or all of a product I'm selling, you're undercutting me... it amounts to unfair competition. Publicity is nice, but it's not as though Sega is an unknown. And publicity doesn't pay the bills for the next game's team.

Gone are the days when a fan-made tribute could be expected to stay within a close-knit circle of friends, or even a fairly-limited web. Now, if you create it, everyone can get their hands on it. That means even the simplest, most well-intentioned projects are subject to greater scrutiny, because they sometimes really are in competition with the real thing.

My heart goes out to the guys, but it appears this was a "labor of love" to begin with, so this ending shouldn't change much for them.
 

Aurora Firestorm

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First Square Enix shuts down all the Chrono Trigger fan projects when they have no desire to give the series a real remake or a better sequel, and now Sega?

Man, you guys. May as well try to shut down the fanfiction and fan art communities. Don't want anyone doing better than your artists, right? It's not like fans actually need creative outlets, or want to sing praises to your games by making their own, huh? Nope, fans never need to be happy.

A big Screw You to Sega, and Squeenix while I'm at it.
 

shadowmagus

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So first Sega tries to slam Nintendo in the portable gaming market and gets egg not only on their face but their fancy shoes as well, and now they shut down an insignificant group doing a remake of a game over 10 years old.

Someone in Sega's press department needs to be shot for suggesting "Let's make bad press" week.
 

noble cookie

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Aug 6, 2010
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Fucking SEGA.

(Supposed to read that in the original "SEGAAA" way, got it?)

Fucking SEGAAA, they be all jelly up in this ***** because homeboys makin' dey own games better dan SEGAAA. Dayum.
 

SenseOfTumour

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Dastardly said:
Logan Westbrook said:
Permalink
It's a hard truth to swallow, but sometimes something done as a well-meaning tribute can be bad for the company. If you're giving away part or all of a product I'm selling, you're undercutting me... it amounts to unfair competition. Publicity is nice, but it's not as though Sega is an unknown. And publicity doesn't pay the bills for the next game's team.

Gone are the days when a fan-made tribute could be expected to stay within a close-knit circle of friends, or even a fairly-limited web. Now, if you create it, everyone can get their hands on it. That means even the simplest, most well-intentioned projects are subject to greater scrutiny, because they sometimes really are in competition with the real thing.

My heart goes out to the guys, but it appears this was a "labor of love" to begin with, so this ending shouldn't change much for them.
I agree in part, I think however instead of getting straight on the hotline to the lawyers, they could have tried a compromise and worked on making it an official Sega release.

Maybe they did and Bomber didn't go for it, who knows, but I just sense it's another case of using lawyers to crush anything that can't afford to legally defend itself, right or wrong being irrelevant. I'm sure with some actual thought Sega could have made easy profit here, especially by treating a team that already love them the right way.

Hell if I did some Faith No More inspired songs and covers and released them for free online, and Mike Patton contacted me and said 'I love your stuff, I'd like to release it on my own record label, but it's gonna be a 95%/5% cut in my favour' I'd just be so happy he liked my stuff I'd go with it.

I sense Sega heard the old line 'no publicity is bad publicity' and decided Zynga, EA and Activision were getting way too much press attention. In breaking news, Bobby Kotick is looking for a transfer to Sega.
 

Gennadios

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I would like to thank Bit Torrent for making the download possible and for Sega being douches for letting me me know the game existed.

Forget Sega getting publicity, SORR will get more downloads this way than the devs could have hoped to otherwise.
 

Arsen

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Nov 26, 2008
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Dear people who remake, revise, or do "fan projects"...

DO NOT MAKE IT PUBLIC UNTIL YOU HAVE FINISHED THE GAME. I repeat. DO NOT IN ANY WAY, SHAPE, OR FORM MAKE IT OBVIOUS THAT YOU ARE WORKING ON A GAME SUCH AS THIS.

Release it later.

Arsen
 

Rad Party God

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Feb 23, 2010
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Sega does what Ninten... ehh... does?

Seriously, what a dick move, just like Nintendo with anything fan related to their games.
 

Aurora Firestorm

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Arsen's right. The correct way to do this is never publicize your fan game, then blast it out over the Internet when it's done too fast for anyone important to notice.

I don't know if you'd get sued or not, but in the end, no one could stop it.
 

punipunipyo

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um, one point down for SEGA, for being a dick-tits, but on the other hand, the "remake" team, should REALLY consider their project now having NOT as a TOTAL ANNIHILATION, but just a "set back", because they ACTUALLY TOTALLY RE-coded the entire game from GROUND UP! at this point, FORGET SEGA's characters, dump the old arts, and "re-skin", "re-name" all the characters, heck, a cheap Monday-night cop-beat-on-gangs story plot is NOT that hard to make...

What I'm saying is...
"hey, guys at the RAGE REMAKE PROJECT, i followed(watched) your project grow, and have always wondered, why remake/revamp a game that's this old, and are accessible through emu? and having risks that the regional makers would come out and put a stop to your project(which DID happened)... I'd say since you are THIS close to finish the game, why not MAKE a brand new game!? (I bet the next move from SEGA is to sell you short, offer you fraction of your worth, and say... perhaps play good cop, and BUY the project off you, and make it a DLC game, offering you last resort...) DON'T! make this your own! You can do it! if you need (pixel? maybe HD? to catch up to current demands? like the new KOF?) art works in (ani)gif form, ask, I can help you, after all, I AM a animator (actually, an animation teacher, who couldn't finish my education at Academy of Art University; it was too RICH for my ass...) and I CAN animate, and I AM a okay character designer, didn't have a portfolio, but I did once have a DA account(long ago... need to update...)... (PuniPuniChan is the name) anyhow... don't let that get you down, these days... many new-retro-look titles CAN and WILL stand on their own, if half wit games like Scott Pilgrim; with game flaws and overpowering items, money bugs...etc can make big bucks... your game CAN, and WILL stand alone, and you don't NEED to pay loyalty to stupid SEGA. Form your own team... call it... RAGE-GAMES, or something... "

YOU CAN MAKE IT, you HAVE SUPPORTERS!
 

Sabrestar

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Apr 13, 2010
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Being legally in the right doesn't equate to being smart.

How much money would they be losing off of (legitimate, but probably negligible) non-sales of old SoR games, versus getting the rights to this (perhaps by hiring the designers on a contractual basis?) and selling it themselves?

Congrats Sega, you did the right thing legally and in the process shot yet another hole in your own foot.
 

vid87

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May 17, 2010
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I can understand the need to protect an intellectual property, even just on principle rather than profits, but this really strikes me as a missed opportunity on Sega's part to really look into consumer demand: maybe there were enough downloads of this project to justify a proper sequel. Megaman 9 + 10 and Final Fantasy The After Years apparently did well and those were primarily driven by nostalgia.
 

AugustFall

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May 5, 2009
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Why not do a valve and take what is no doubt better than anything you could have done and hire the dudes and rerelease it? Eugh I dunno I see why they did it but it still sucks.

This seems appropriate:

<youtube=sUXEpO4uflE>
 

PrototypeC

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Apr 19, 2009
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Sega is destroying this for no reason. What was your big plan for Streets of Rage, Sega? Full 3D? A tetris rip-off with a Streets of Rage theme?

You weren't gonna do shit except re-release the old ones online. Now sit the fuck down and leave your true fans alone.
 

Fappy

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What I would give for a new Streets of Rage. SEGA (at least in America) has been kicking their fans in the balls for the better part of the last decade. This and the Sonic 2 remake could be opportunities to win some of these fans back. They don't have to damn the projects! :<
 

FogHornG36

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Jan 29, 2011
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sega, you know, that company that failed at making consoles, and are now failing at making video games.
 

bricklayerofd00m

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I have it here, downloaded it before Sega had it removed. Awesome game, you can play with a bunch of extra characters, you can make your own SoR game (with a feature called SoRR editor), you can play a bunch of extra modes (battle, volleyball, survival, boss rush). The single player campaign is a branching one, with multiple routes to be taken and tons, tons of extra features to unlock (from cheats to little cool extras such as character profiles and stuff).
 

fulano

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This is hearbreaking. I, myself, spent some time with the game and can attest to the quality of the overall product.

I'd like for them to sort of change the name and the graphics so that they could keep going, but who knows. As far as I can remember the project was open source so I could see someone forking the project into something else ala Rage of the Dragons (anyone remember that game?).