Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric (Wii U)

[SlickEvan]

Biggest part that kills me is while BRB made a terrible showing, SEGA okay'd it to release. I get there would be major consequences for whatever decision they made but okaying it, in the state it was, was terrible.

[Blue Blood]

The project deadline likely always was Autumn 2014. Delaying a game, especially when it's supposed to be a tie in to another product, will cost money. Possibly much more than it's worth and it would mess up their strategy. I don't think RoL had to be as bad as it was. It was probably actually on the road to being pretty awesome when it first went into production. SEGA gave BRB hell though, switching platforms and all manner of other problems we don't yet know about. It could have been better given more time, but I'm not entirely convinced. One thing we do know though is that...

 

SEGA has a history of rushing games out to meet a deadline...

 

Completely changing the game midway through development...

 

And releasing them regardless of if they're anywhere near finished...

 

Or even if half the game is left on the cutting room floor....

[Tani Coyote]

Given the huge amounts of money dumped on this... is it entirely out of the question they might have already funded the sequel before release?

As I like to refer to, just look at the comics' "based on the hit cartoon series." It's obvious they counted their chickens before they hatched. Given games like Ratchet & Clank had their second game planned before the first was even released... I wouldn't be too surprised if they've already got it in the works.

Now, whether or not they'd cancel it mid-development to save face, who knows.

 

How many of you guys would lose your marbles if they announced a Sonic Boom sequel?

 

I'd be interested to see it. ...and then immediately begin to cry when the pessimism set in. I learned my lesson the first time.

 

The project deadline likely always was Autumn 2014. Delaying a game, especially when it's supposed to be a tie in to another product, will cost money. Possibly much more than it's worth and it would mess up their strategy. I don't think RoL had to be as bad as it was. It was probably actually on the road to being pretty awesome when it first went into production. SEGA gave BRB hell though, switching platforms and all manner of other problems we don't yet know about. It could have been better given more time, but I'm not entirely convinced. One thing we do know though is that...

 

SEGA has a history of rushing games out to meet a deadline...

 

Completely changing the game midway through development...

 

And releasing them regardless of if they're anywhere near finished...

 

Or even if half the game is left on the cutting room floor....

2 good, 1 meh, 1 bad.

Basically what I always concluded: SEGA's very capable of an alright game within their schedules, but the chances of an excellent game are low. Especially given the two good games here are from ages ago with very different people involved. I'm not inclined to be optimistic about the franchise accordingly.

[Detective Shadzter]

Just found this posted online yesterday. SEGA approached PR company Big Evil Robot to create a roadshow campaign to promote Rise of Lyric. 

 

Lots of pics here:

http://www.bigevilrobots.co.uk/sega_sonic.html

 

WTF, SEGA?! Why did this not happen?

[Gabz Girl]

Holy shit that looks amazing! O_O I can only guess why this never happened..oh wait, Sega sucks at marketing their games?

[Salamander]

It's possible they scaled back some of their plans when it became increasingly clear that the game was not going to be the hottest seller.  If the games had been amazing, then I'd agree that this would've been a huge missed opportunity, but...

[Your Vest Friend]

Wait, hold the phone...

 

 

Why are they using these assets? This isn't Sonic Boom!

[Blue Blood]

Wait, hold the phone...

 

 

Why are they using these assets? This isn't Sonic Boom!

 

Some of it isn't even this decade. It's all PoC.

[Tani Coyote]

Sweet Christ.

Where's the humility?

That this exists at all shows just how confident they were this product would take off.

Just because you want to be as big as Disney doesn't mean you're going to be.

Ohhh, it's just a moving promotion. That's not quite as bad.

...still a little overconfident. I'm guessing they canned this as soon as they saw RoL was going to be garbage.

[Indigo Rush]

To be fair, a giant replica of the Death Egg Robot standing outside of a Toys R Us would be awesome

[-Mark-]

Yeah, I can see why this didn't happen. Once they saw the game wasn't turning out how they hoped, they likely figured it'd be a waste of money (and frankly, an embarrassment) to give the game so much fanfare.

 

Also, I imagine money would be a pretty big issue in general, given Sega are in a pretty bad way financially as it is. If the game were great it might have been worth it as it could have got back the money, but quite frankly as launch was approaching the game had gathered so much negative attention that such an effort would likely have been a waste.

[Tani Coyote]

This game shows the pitfall of thinking solely in terms of money.

I can assume the only reason they committed to the deadline was not wanting to spend anymore money on the project.

The damage it did to their brand far outpaces any savings that may have been gained by not extending it, though.

Learn the lesson of the Ford Pinto. Ford reasoned it'd be much cheaper to just pay people who were harmed than make the car safer. Surprise, the amount of lawsuits went beyond expectations, and countless people no longer wanted to buy Ford because of the tarnished reputation. Reputation makes all the difference with money, but it is not something that can be quantified in your equations.

Releasing a subpar product, no matter how much you emphasize the "Boom" element, will inevitably trickle back up and hurt the wider Sonic brand. Companies delay games all the time. I understand Sonic is their cash cow, but it wouldn't hurt to take every other year off if the product isn't quite ready.

[Autosaver]

Yeah, that's exactly why I thought SEGA is dumb for pulling the cord on Sonic Boom. Releasing a game that tarnishes the Sonic brand once again and throws the millions of dollars thrown at the game in a fire is not the way to go. The release schedule of the game was also very competitive.

[Badnik Mechanic]

Urm.... am I the only one who thinks that this company did a pretty poor job here?

 

Yes it looks great through a fans eyes, but from a business perspective, this is really bad and feels like they just let a rabid fan in and randomly photoshop a wet dream onto TRU and Smyths. From a business perspective, this should never have seen the light of day even if Boom sold GTAV numbers. 

 

Now most if not all of this stuff is really cool from a fan perspective, but from a business perspective here are the obvious problems I see. 

 

1: Death Egg Robot/Bigfoot robot standing in the middle of the car park.

 

2: Bungie run thing covering priority parking bays (however I have seen this done in real life at one store). 

 

3: Toys R US branding covered by Sonic (TRU would never agree to this).

 

4: Smyths branding changed, (Smyths would never agree to this).

 

5: Indoor bungie attraction is amazingly dangerous.

 

6: The rings hanging from the ceiling are too low, obstruct both walkways and block products.

 

7: A hot air balloon is required, would need to be re-inflated per day.

 

8: Test your strength stand would need to be manned or have restrictions on it as to when it's in use.

 

9: outdoor inflatable ball attraction would need to be manned for as long as the store was open, first aider would likely need to be present.

 

10: Entire sections of the exterior building have to be redesigned with removable yet weatherproof material promoting Boom.

 

11: Every single thing in this list would be a huge cost to TRU and Smyths.

 

If I were a store manager and this promotion came to me, I'd tell them where to go, maybe I'd take some of the banners and possibly one of the exterior attractions for a day, but massive store redesigns on exterior parts of the building? I used to work at Comet, one day they decided to add a banner above the door to every store in the UK, you want to know the cost for putting a simple weatherproof banner across a door of around 2M in length was? £500. Multiply that by several hundred stores, you get an idea of the costs we're talking about here.

 

Some of it however is really cool, like the AR stuff and the interior temporary floor decorations, but the majority of it, just way to much of a pipe dream.

 

That said, most of the ideas are really cool, but just not practical or economically viable. Though that said... if there's another SOS, I'm definitely pitching a Death Egg Robot to greet people as they come in.

[Autosaver]

Looks like a general mock up to me. I don't think the final product would look like that.

[PickleBrows]

Yeah, it certainly looks like a case of them throwing absolutely everything at the wall just to get even the vaguest idea of it -as you do in creative development- even if it doesn't all quite work from a reality perspective. Look at things like the rack of games that are entirely Sonic Boom exclusive titles.

 

This seems like they took a single image of something like the shop interior and went to town to see how much they could cram into that one area even though in reality not all of it would be used.

[goku262002]

...

There just mock-ups. the non-boom stuff should've been a give away to that.

You look waaaaay too much into stuff sometimes Hog'.

[Badnik Mechanic]

...

There just mock-ups. the non-boom stuff should've been a give away to that.

You look waaaaay too much into stuff sometimes Hog'.

 

It's called looking at it from a business perspective, it looks like a mess.

[Autosaver]

You look waaaaay too much into stuff sometimes Hog'.

#Shirtgate

#BurnFrost

[Jason Berry]

Love the bungee attraction for kids in the middle of two escalators. Nothing wrong there.

 

And yes, even for mock-ups, they're WAY over the top. Even Skylanders on it's biggest promotion at TrU didn't get that big of a display.

[Detective Shadzter]

Found the guys behind Boom's online and TV ad campaigns.

http://www.ayzenberg.com/case-study/sonic-boom-scavenger-hunt.html

 

It has a rundown of everything they did. 

[Badnik Mechanic]

 

Ok, later in the video, at around 9min, they go into that secret room... look behind Sonic, is that more beta footage?

[Autosaver]

Looks like recorded footage of the first level.

[goku262002]

It's called looking at it from a business perspective, it looks like a mess.

The way I see it SOA just threw a bunch of ideas together to see what would fit and what wouldn't, so its supposed to look like a mess. a mess thats not supposed to be taken real seriously because again its a concept of what they wanted to do for a store promotion.

So really lets not look into it too much, its a concept that was throwing out ideas they were never gonna go through with every single one of these ideas and they never did, hell other then the standees that was it that is all SEGA did for Boom in my areas.

[Failinhearts]

Just found this posted online yesterday. SEGA approached PR company Big Evil Robot to create a roadshow campaign to promote Rise of Lyric. 

 

Lots of pics here:

http://www.bigevilrobots.co.uk/sega_sonic.html

 

WTF, SEGA?! Why did this not happen?

 

 

Wow, Sega thought Sonic Boom was gonna take off that much?

 

This just hurts, knowing that this will never happen. I WANT IT!