SOAH City article - "Famous by Obligation

[EdgyTheHedgie]

An interesting article I found on SOAH City. Old, yes, but it still seems relevant.

http://soahcity.com/2014/11/03/famous-by-obligation/

Here's a chunk I've taken out of it:

Quote

 

But what exactly are fans to blame for?

That they didn’t buy what they didn’t like? Yes, they are to blame for that. But… is that wrong on any possible level?

There is a huge propaganda that is trying to convey that modern Sonic games are supposed to be inherently better than the original Sonic Adventure games and games from Sonic Adventure Era. These new games are supposed to be better on some kind of moral level. There is a really loud and vocal Internet group who hates serious stories in Sonic. They hate drama, they hate emotions. They hate story. They hate the notion of grounding the story, environments and appeal of the franchise in reality. They want just simplistic colorful worlds that contain nothing but kiddified version of what Sonic used to be before. There is an anti Sonic Adventure (and especially anti Sonic Adventure 2) campaign raising only recently. It’s because those people realized that Sonic Adventure (2) was indeed dark and edgy. And because it used to be well received back then, now it needs some dirt on its reputation. It would not make sense if serious dark and edgy content was condemned now and yet it was accepted and liked in SA2 times.
The kicker is – most people actually never changed their opinion about SA2. Only the cheerful crowd needs to make it look like it’s the case. They need to create the illusion that giving a damn about the story, tone and edge is fundamentally wrong. They want to make sure that everyone believes that it’s just evil thing to care about these things.

 

Thoughts?

[Vertekins]

Yes. Because God forbid people have their own views of what Sonic should be.

And don't get me wrong here either, I'm no fan of the Colours era either since in no way shape or form has this series been "re-railed" and it's not thriving by any reasonable judgment in terms of truly excelling since nothing about the series post-2010 is remotely exceptional. Merely being good to great is not good enough. And it shouldn't be a standard that is acceptable.

But the author of this article ought to acknowledge that there's nothing wrong with having a preference for that. What pisses me off as a fan who wants more meat out of the games such as the cessation of Solo-Sonica and competently executed alternate gameplay styles involving more characters, competent writing that makes me care about what I'm supposed to be doing by making me invested in the narrative and it's characters instead of the crap we're getting now and well done worldbuilding is that SEGA/Sonic Team are palpably taking the views of those who want such lite experiences and using them as the excuse to churn-out such half-assed stuff that holds no true lasting appeal.

Gamers/Fans who want lite experiences and toss all their toys out of the pram when not pandered to are one thing. But SEGA/Sonic Team pandering to them and not satisfying both camps is the bigger issue because they hold the most power over direction, the fans much less so.

[Rey Skywalker-Ren]

This reads more like a self-entitled fanboy clingling on to there nostalgia. 

[Milo]

....meh, I like this response left at the article's comment section better.

People buy what they want, don't buy what they don't want, and when a good, familiar product becomes unfamiliar and not good, people stop expecting it to be good, and thus spend their money elsewhere. Blaming the fans for this honestly only shows how desperate/clueless the developer is.

It's really nothing complicated about it, and that's exactly what Sonic has done to itself. It has gotten away with selling units off its legacy alone without doing it justice for far too long. And now that it isn't working anymore, "medicore" or "mostly good" is just not going to cut it. Every mediocre sonic game from here on only digs their pit deeper, and it's going to get to a point where the niche fans of the series are going to be their only market.

The problem with Sonic has nothing to do with the fans. The cold hard truth of the matter is, SEGA has yet to deliver a core Sonic title in decades that was good. Not "good points", or "x segment was good", or "would be better if". Just a GOOD GAME, off fundamentals alone. This is the source of all their problems, and they are never going away until that changes.

~Sereph

[Monkey Destruction Switch]

So...the article is basically saying that if Sonic went "serious" again, sales would increase, because sales were higher back when they were serious.

Yeah...personally, I doubt it. He's using very binary, simplistic evidence for his position, and it just comes across as poor argumentation to me. He's considering ONE single, solitary factor - story - to be one of the most important in determining why people buy Sonic games. I find this extremely dubious, and as a result I don't feel particularly inclined to reply to him.

[WakanoBaka]

I actually half agree with this....I SAID HALF.

Yes it was the fans idea to give Shadow his own game, to break away from the Adventure formula to have Heroes, and it was their idea for an SA3 that became 06.

But it's also SEGA who actually listened and screwed up the otherwise mediocre ideas.

No one sez Shadow's game shouldn't have exist, they always say it could have been better.

No one sez Heroes shouldn't have exist, they always say it could have been better.

People say 06 shouldn't have exist, but that could have been fixed if it wasn't rushed, and tweaked the story to be more about friendship between Sonic and Elise than romance.

 

Sega openly state the reason Sonic is the only playable was because fans asked for it.