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The "What the HECK Is A 2016 Sonic" Prophecy Thread (two topics from the pre-server wipe in one!)


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Your arguments make somewhat sense but I can't believe this is the only reason. 

 

Like you explained, Kickstarter is almost zero risk because you collect the money BEFORE you develop most parts of the game. Kickstarter is maybe not the right thing for really big AAA projects but if you have a cool project you can easily gather several million Dollar like the projects I mentioned before.

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Can someone explain to me why no big company makes use of Kickstarter?

Pride.

Kickstarter is ultimately glorified panhandling, no matter how brilliant the idea is.

 

Actually that's not the reason why.

 

For starters, releasing a game through Kickstarter increases the amount of legal litigation you have to go through, therefore an increase in costings. 

 

Aside from following the usual policies, Sega would have to factor in their rights and responsibilities through Kickstarter as well, this is an increase in costs on development too. 

 

Furthermore, Sega, like a number of companies have a policy where they themselves can't directly be seen to be taking money from people, no I do not know the exact reasons for this but Kickstarter would likely fall under this. Before anyone asks why did Sonic Boom event charge people? Probably because it was a paid for event which Sega funded 100% and also Sega never directly took money from fans, Ticketmaster did.

 

Like you explained, Kickstarter is almost zero risk because you collect the money BEFORE you develop most parts of the game.

 

lol! Zero risk eh?

 

Kickstarter is not a zero risk, both to the bakers and the people behind the kickstarter.

 

Here are a number of problems that a 'successful' kickstarter can run into.

 

* your kickstarter is successful, but you grosely under-estimate the costs of your final product. 

 

Your product is either...

  • Cancelled.
  • Reduced in scope.
  • Reduced in quality.

Either one of those options will be negative for the people behind the kickstarter. Future products will be much harder to get investment for and you'll likely destroy and chance for future investments again if the quality and scope is reduced. 

 

* Your kickstarter is successful... and you never release the product but claim it's still in production.

 

Your reputation is destroyed and depending how much of a con artist you are, you may or may not risk legal action. 

 

* your kickstarter is successful, but due to problems in development, you fail to release a product.

 

The following happens.

  • You may try to compensate your backers. (increase in your costs).
  • You may have to try and refund your backers investments (unlikely), 
  • You get a loss of reputation.

Either way, with this one, you incur a huge cost over your initial kickstarter goal since you still have to find a way to pay those who worked on the game as well as compensation for your backers.

 

For backers... there are tons of risks too, one example is that portable N64 console which was so blatantly a con, got reported and still took the money, it's months behind development, the project leader has obviously run off with the money... yet nobody has been refunded/compensated. 

 

The product you backed may come out, but a huge reduction in score. So what you get ins't what you expected.

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Don't forget backlash, either. Archie has just discovered that- they didn't have a problem with using Kickstarter, but the consequence was hell raining upon them that a big company would use Kickstarter.

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Thank-you, Hogfather. I've been wanting to say all day that pride isn't the reason that a company like SEGA would abstain from crowd funding. Far more complications come into than that, but I couldn't put pen to paper and make a full post on it. Its just very short sighted to say that that's the only reason (it's the last in a long line of them) and is actually a very valid reason too from a business perspective.

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@Hogfather When I said "almost zero risk" I thought about it that way: If you do a project and it fails you are not losing a lot of money because the backers paid for it and as far as I know they can't do anything if the project doesn't fullfill their expectations.

 

But yeah, you can destroy your reputation and that can be a big problem for the funding of future projects. So that's a good argument against Kickstarter.

 

Although you have to keep in mind nevertheless that big companies usually can do the math and problems on medium-sized projects like the ones you would find on Kickstarter are rather unlikely.

 

Costs only get out of hand if your're having a big budget to begin with (the project is ambitious) and you haven't got a detailed vision of what you want to develop. Inexperienced Indie developers have often problems with planning their projects but I'm talking about companies which have developed countless games without such problems + I'm not talking about "big" titles and instead about something smaller in scale.

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People don't want to fund a big company to produce a game because they consider that a company of such a size should be more than capable of funding game development themselves.  If a big company turns to Kickstarter, the consideration is that either they have major undisclosed funding problems, or that they're cheapskates who aren't willing to risk their own money on a project, which speaks volumes about their reliability.  The recent Archie controversy occurred partly because of a perception that Archie is a big company that should have the money on its own to fund the projects it was developing (though whether Archie is quite so big as that is debateable); on a related note, I can think of Kickstarters that have failed due to asking for too much, and it's commonly reported that game development costs far more than the public perceive it to for even relatively small games.  As such many corporate Kickstarters are already asking for considerably less than they actually need; for instance, Koji Igarashi openly admits that his recent "Bloodstained" Kickstarter is actually only asking for 10% of development costs, with the other 90% coming from elsewhere.  As such, to fully or even partly fund a game worthy of a big publisher like Sega, they would have to be asking for a quite astronomical sum, and the public would certainly wonder why this was their responsibility.

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These are some very legitimate questions.   

 

They sound a little bit like fan catastrophizing out of nowhere to me. 

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Dunno where the whole "Big game companies can't use crowd sourcing" came from.

 

Square Enix is currently using crowd funding to fund 3 of their games.

http://collective.square-enix.com/

 

edit: oh, looks like they launched a platform but not their own games yet. I SWEAR I heard news a while back about them putting one of their own games up.

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Dunno where the whole "Big game companies can't use crowd sourcing" came from.

 

Square Enix is currently using crowd funding to fund 3 of their games.

http://collective.square-enix.com/

 

edit: oh, looks like they launched a platform but not their own games yet. I SWEAR I heard news a while back about them putting one of their own games up.

 

Sega also founded a crowdfounding website together with Fuji TV.

 

https://www.techinasia.com/goopa-anipipo-crowdrive-fuji-tv-sega-networks-gaming-crowdfunding-funding/

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Look who's a horny dudebro himself. It's not 2006 anymore. Stop bullshitting yourself. It's no longer "charming".

Bayonetta plays on the same strings as "Spring Breakers" and the "Dead or Alive" series. Nothing but porn as far as the eye can see.

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The fact that the only games worthy of their existence are dudebro games like Football Manager and Bayonetta speaks for itself.

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Just gonna chime in and say that there's good reasons to be critical regarding Bayonetta's fanservice, even if it doesn't bother me personally. But basically just going "it's porn" and leaving it at that wasn't helpful, so whatevs.

 

And more importantly...is SEGA even involved with Bayonetta at all now? I was under the impression they had basically dropped it, hence Nintendo stepping in just to ensure that Bayo 2 even got the chance to happen. Wikipedia tells me SEGA was in an "advisory" role, so I guess that means something?

 

The fact that their marketing department have reduced themselves into unoriginal unfunny meme generators with a mind of a 12 year old telling the same joke over and over confirming their insipidness rather than challenging it really speaks for itself.

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Because I was in London when these rumours came up I never got a chance to post my thoughts about this. Now that I do...

 

No. NO. NOOOO! All of my NOPE. I hope this isn't true, I really, really don't want this to be true! As most of you know, I'm not a huge fan of Sonic Generations. I feel like it was too lightweight for something as ambitious as an Anniversary game and there was too much fan/nostalgia pandering.

I think an Anniversary title focused once again on the nostalgia pandering, plus Sega franchises which I feel absolutely nothing for since I didn't grow up with Sega consoles and such would be even worse than Gens. In fact, I don't think I would even buy it! I hate the safe route that Sonic Team is taking Sonic in, I wish those games were exciting again and full of charm, wonder and character. A Sega Sonic crossover game just doesn't appeal to me AT ALL ><

 

With this being just a rumour, I'm hoping that's exactly what it is but God forbid if it's true I don't think I'll ever want to get another Sonic game again. I know that sounds super negative, but I just don't like the direction Sega is taking Sonic in!

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I actually love most of SEGA's old franchises, Nights, Ecco, Golden Axe, Streets of Rage, Comix Zone, I grew up with those gems, so honestly I'm totally up for this. Yes it's nostalgia pandering and reeks of "We have no idea what to do with this franchise", but the idea does appeal to me and if the gameplay is on par with the Generations modern stages I'm up for it.

 

As for Colors HD, meh, not needed. However, a Wii-U Gens port of the PC version does appeal to me, since I'd love to play 60FPS Gens on a console.

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Count me in, too. Sega is one of the most hazardously inept companies in gaming (except the PSO2 guys, you rock!). Instead of hoping on a game that may be utter shit or never come, I'm more interested in the Freedom Planet expansion, and possibly some more Sonic fan work and Dust 2.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Another one of those "wait and see" situations I suppose. Although what could his potential video possibly talk about? The only thing I can guess they might have done is allude to something being at E3 through careful word choice. NDAs and all that, this Sonic Team contact can't have disclosed much to him.

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Yep, wait and see...I can't imagine it's anything huge though, maybe a new handheld Sonic game?

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I don't like these guys. He's the cousin of the twat whose father works at SEGA.

I'll wait for SEGA, or a leak (counting on you Microsoft ;P)

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I feel like we can trust this, considering he's from Unseen64. And since we can assume that it's not a Sonic Team game..

 

Lol I think Iizuka was just confused and referred to "Sonic Mach2" not being a Sega game...cause it would be pretty stupid to reveal the existence of an unannounced game

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I feel like we can trust this, considering he's from Unseen64. And since we can assume that it's not a Sonic Team game..

 

..Can it be a Sonic Rush 3, no really, can it pretty please be a Sonic Rush 3? I know I'm not a big portable fan and neither am I a big fan of boost gameplay but #BringBackBlaze2015

This is the best post

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