If You Don’t Like Sonic, It’s Your Fault
August 13th, 2009Or so seems to be the gist of Sega’s latest messaging. In short, the company would like you to know that the poor reception of Sonic & the Black Knight was mainly due to the fact that people over the “age of 12″ just don’t get the character.
I actually started this post to lament the fact that gamers over the target age are far too harsh on Sonic titles that come after the Genesis era (I actually really liked his first Dreamcast outing). But reading the Kotaku post referenced above, I just can’t bring myself to do it… the excuse is just too silly. It seems to me that the main problem gamers have had with Sonic games is that they haven’t been very similar to the first three titles (and a few others, like the Game Gear iteration).
What Sega doesn’t seem to get is that people don’t really love specific characters, per se - the Sonic vs. Mario angle they play up is probably misguided. Rather, people loved Mario because they enjoyed playing his games - they liked the style and energy and emotions that it conveyed. If you put Mario in a really bad game, people wouldn’t like him either. Similarly, just because Sonic had specific characters doesn’t mean that people will want to play any game with those characters… rather, they need to feel connected to the same emotions that game initially sparked in them. Gamers who are older and have fond memories of the original games don’t like the latest games because they’re too different from that original experience.
The fact that Mario fans are able to separate their interest in him from the game styles in which he appears perhaps belies the supposed maturity of some Sonic fans. But that hardly is reason to complain that they’re to blame, rather than the company whose job it is to cater to their interests.
Posted in Etc, Geoff |
August 15th, 2009 at 3:13 pm
i got a better solution: kill off both of them.
Start new IPs. Bury your useless nostalgia, fan service IPs that make you say “Wow Innovative and Worth Buying!” To a “It’s OK” or “Meh” game.
August 16th, 2009 at 12:33 am
First, how is that a solution? People say that all the time, “New IP!” “No more rehashes!” but honestly, new IP or not, a shitty game is a shitty game more or less, just as a great game is a great game. Particularly with Sonic, the games ARE changing, they are essentially the same as a “new IP” but they populate it with existing franchise characters. Mario is much the same. Mario has been reinvented repeatedly, used in new IPs in many cases. Modern mario games are vastly different from the original outings of the italian plumber. Hell, in the original Mario Bros. if you jumped on a turtle, you would die. Or Mario 2 in the US, it was a new IP reskinned with Mario characters. Or look at something like Star Fox Adventures, it was originally a new IP, something like Dino Planet?, but they turned it into a Star Fox game at the last minute, virtually unchanged. In both these cases, people bitched about the changes. Games are often “new” without being new “IP”. Likewise, games are often rehashes, even if they use characters we’ve never heard of, i.e. GTA clones, zelda clones, etc.
That being said, I do agree with Geoff, Sega is a bit misguided. However, they do make one point. If the game is honestly targeted solely towards 12 year olds, it’s not surprising that a 30 year old sonic fan might not enjoy it. (i hate the use of the term “get” it). I’ve used this example ad nauseum but it seems to fit here. I am a big Star Wars fan. I wanted nothing more than for Phantom Menace to be the next coming. But alas, I hated it……at first. Then I watched it with my nephew. He LOVED it. He laughed, he was scared, he was enthralled. I realized that Phantom Menace wasn’t simply a bad movie, it was a movie that wasn’t made for me. I wasn’t any less disappointed but watching an interview later with George Lucas sounded a lot like what Sega is saying. I just hope Sega has some kids enjoying modern Sonic as much as kids enjoy the modern Star Wars movies. I’m not so sure that they do though.