What are the consequences of Forces failing to sell?

[Blue Blood]

15 minutes ago, Meta77 said:

Unused dialogue. Unused species. Unreleased stage ideas like infinite in nul space. There was a lot cut. Using the excuse that's how products come together is a poor excuse   now it's called delay and add them or dlc both which Sega knows noting of unless it's pso2. Sega today us a far cry f the innovative one of the 90s

Unused dialogue because it was likely deemed unnecessary, and is left over from an earlier design. 

Unused species that never made it past the concept stage. Whilst they could still be added as DLC in the future, that's not the point. Concept ideas are only that - "conceptual". Just because an idea gets looked into at one stage but is absent from the final product does not mean that it was removed to save time. It's equally possible that the team thought "no, we don't like that idea" or that it didn't fit in the scope of what they were able to accomplish when planning the game. Similarly, Infinite in Null Space shows up on a piece of concept art, as does the Death Egg looming in the background of Green Hill and the other avatar species. Prove to me that any of these things are cut content and not just ideas that didn't get taken further.

[Meta77]

21 minutes ago, Blue Blood said:

Unused dialogue because it was likely deemed unnecessary, and is left over from an earlier design. 

Unused species that never made it past the concept stage. Whilst they could still be added as DLC in the future, that's not the point. Concept ideas are only that - "conceptual". Just because an idea gets looked into at one stage but is absent from the final product does not mean that it was removed to save time. It's equally possible that the team thought "no, we don't like that idea" or that it didn't fit in the scope of what they were able to accomplish when planning the game. Similarly, Infinite in Null Space shows up on a piece of concept art, as does the Death Egg looming in the background of Green Hill and the other avatar species. Prove to me that any of these things are cut content and not just ideas that didn't get taken further.

Since when as Sega not not cut content. They did the same Thing with 06 the rainbow and online play and items. Tgis is sadly not the sega! I grew up with  with. Where they were are well respected conpany

[Blue Blood]

15 minutes ago, Meta77 said:

Since when as Sega not not cut content. They did the same Thing with 06 the rainbow and online play and items. Tgis is sadly not the sega! I grew up with  with. Where they were are well respected conpany

So you don't actually have anything to back it up then. Cool.

When you look at something like '06, the game contains a ton of unused assets and is blatantly broken. Forces doesn't really have that at all. There are a few odds and ends about the data, but nothing particularly large. Forces is a pretty complete game, and it simply happens to be relatively small and not very good.

[Meta77]

2 minutes ago, Blue Blood said:

So you don't actually have anything to back it up then. Cool.

When you look at something like '06, the game contains a ton of unused assets and is blatantly broken. Forces doesn't really have that at all. There are a few odds and ends about the data, but nothing particularly large. Forces is a pretty complete game, and it simply happens to be relatively small and not very good.

And what do we have to say it's complete  And not rushed to get two games out in a year? unless a Sega staffer that worked the game is on the boards we don't know what was cut. 06 was rushed out the door amid a torrent of staff splits and leadership changes

[Blue Blood]

11 minutes ago, Meta77 said:

And what do we have to say it's complete  And not rushed to get two games out in a year? unless a Sega staffer that worked the game is on the boards we don't know what was cut. 06 was rushed out the door amid a torrent of staff splits and leadership changes

We have little tangible evidence of it being rushed or subject to cuts. That the development went awry is quite believable, but the game that was Sonic Forces as we always knew it probably didn't change much at all.

[Meta77]

2 minutes ago, Blue Blood said:

We have little tangible evidence of it being rushed or subject to cuts. That the development went awry is quite believable, but the Parkeston that was Sonic Forces as we always knew it probably didn't change much at all.

I'll give you that one floating head

[Tornado]

There are games where it is obvious that something happened in development based on the sheer amount of (or differences from final release) cut content therein; and there is a decent selection of games in this franchise to choose from in that regard going all the way back to Sonic 2. Your Chrono Triggers and Half Life 2s and Goldeneyes and Ocarina of Times and System Shocks. That's not to necessarily disparage Forces for that reason, because not every game needs to be a landmark title of that nature, but those are the games that do end up usually changing dramatically over the course of development and/or being too overambitious in development, and those are the games that end up absolutely loaded with stuff hidden within; and nothing I've seen from Forces before or after release has suggested that it was that sort of game with those kind of development secrets or that Sega intended it to be.

 

It also can't be overlooked that it's also far, far easier to just dummy out pointers that access content and leave it on the disc you don't plan on using than it is to remove it and maybe accidentally break the whole game because someone on your development team actually used that art asset you just removed on day 2 of development and it is day 600 and the game goes gold tomorrow; so even if Forces did have a lot it wouldn't necessarily mean something was amiss by itself.

[KHCast]

19 hours ago, Mad Convoy said:

You guys both have been on this forum long enough to know just how cynical about Sega I am (particularly SoJ), but I'd never purposefully say anything that points to the problem mainly being lack of effort or a cash-in on anybody's part unless overwhelming evidence indicates such, because even the Mighty Number 9s and Shadow the Hedgehogs of the world have more to the story than just that (and its often a heck of a lot more interesting of a story than "it was just a cash-in" or "they didn't try", I'll add).

Well if these games aren’t lazy or cynical cash ins, then they’re just shit at their jobs. There’s not more to the story, there’s no defense. They’re just not good at it

Sega wouldn’t cut corners and rip classic sonic from Gens, and put him here when mania JUST released and showed how to do it. Modern wouldn’t be a boost hallway supreme when Gens most praised levels were open and explorative, with more natural well built level design, and controls that felt better. That these are clear downgrades, and Sega didn’t decide to spend time actually improving on these formulas or considering why they were praised, gives off the heavy implication of cynicism and/or laziness 

[Mad Convoy]

40 minutes ago, KHCast said:

Well if these games aren’t lazy or cynical cash ins, then they’re just shit at their jobs. There’s not more to the story, there’s no defense. They’re just not good at it

Sega wouldn’t cut corners and rip classic sonic from Gens, and put him here when mania JUST released and showed how to do it. Modern wouldn’t be a boost hallway supreme when Gens most praised levels were open and explorative, with more natural well built level design, and controls that felt better. That these are clear downgrades, and Sega didn’t decide to spend time actually improving on these formulas or considering why they were praised, gives off the heavy implication of cynicism and/or laziness 

I wasn't trying to defend it so much as explain it. I mean, nothing I said excuses anything in Forces, Shadow, Mighty No. 9, etc. if you meant to imply that I did.

 Its just that its interesting, and people kind of miss out on the valuable lessons you can get from said stories when they just summarily dismiss it with an easy to make excuse. And its not always that they're just incompetent or whatever. Things happen. People get put into situations where they signed up for one job but got into a situation that necesitated that were beyond their job description-- for example, Iizuka didn't want to write for Shadow the Hedgehog, he just signed up to be a producer, but he was given no access to any of the writers Sega had to offer or given a chance to find anybody because Sega had zero faith in the project, so he made a decision to volunteer himself just to keep his dream project alive. Were either of the groups unreasonable in what they did? No, Sega had a valid point that a Shadow the Hedgehog spinoff game wasn't a good idea, Iizuka had the understandable motive that he didn't want his dream project to just fizzle away like it was nothing as would have happened if a story-driven game like Shadow the Hedgehog couldn't get any kind of writer at all. Sure the resulting game didn't turn out well, but that doesn't mean the problem can be just boiled down to sheer incompetence. "Producers are not writers" is the obvious lesson to take from this, but its also important to point out that it demonstrates why trying to passive aggressively kill or save a project through undermining or making desperate decisions is a bad idea. Its a lot more frustrating and trying but its ultimately better to be direct about things-- on the behalf of the publisher, maybe refuse to print a game until it meets a certain criteria in terms of concept, on behalf of the developer, advocate for these kinds of things ahead of time so that you don't end up in a role you're not qualified or hired for or with your dream project dying. Both would have saved each other a lot of money and embarrassment if even one of the parties followed that advice. And all those lessons are pretty damn applicable to negotiating, well, anything.

So in short, you could theoretically sum it up as "they're shit at their jobs." and technically not be entirely wrong, but that cuts off so much context and facts surrounding the situation that it holds no meaning at best. I've heard many people here, you included, allude to knowing that not being entirely wrong isn't anywhere near the same thing as being right when they criticize Forces for being mediocre. The same applies with excessively reductive and misleading summaries too.

Granted, I don't know the nitty gritty of Forces development and we probably won't find out for several years, but I don't intentionally imply that I've said is anything but thoroughly thought out speculation and I apologize if I came off as forcing an opinion on everybody by mistake at some point.

And I'm not really sure what the point of the second paragraph is? I know the issues with Forces. I know the issues other people have with Forces. It is neither fortifying your argument nor actually telling me anything I haven't heard before. Its just that I'm not getting that supposedly heavy implication and am in fact seeing parallels with other situations where that didn't happen and the situation really was more complicated. You don't have to agree with me-- this is the internet, universal agreement isn't gonna happen and I accept that-- however, I ask that my point of view is acknowledged and respected as @Blue Blood (to name one example) has demonstrated well here, just as I acknowledge and respect your viewpoint too even though I have several problems with it.

[KHCast]

The point of the second paragraph is that sometimes you can boil things down to a company being cynical and/or lazy regarding the quality of a product. Forces doing the things I layed out, isn’t some “well if you look at it this way” deeper situation, it’s a pretty obvious case of either not caring and cutting corners to garner attention, or being incompetent. When they spend most of the time on a engine, and get newbies to develop the games level design, and this is what we’re left with, I personally am more inclined to think it’s a bit of both. Ignorance and incompetence on Segas end regarding decisions on this game is a problem that deserves calling out. I’m not gonna be easy on them like they’re children making mistakes. I’m not shutting on your opinion either btw, I’m disagreeing and giving my own thoughts, not sure why you made that assumption, but alright.

[Mad Convoy]

4 minutes ago, KHCast said:

The point of the second paragraph is that sometimes you can boil things down to a company being cynical and/or lazy regarding the quality of a product. Forces doing the things I layed out, isn’t some “well if you look at it this way” deeper situation, it’s a pretty obvious case of either not caring and cutting corners to garner attention, or being incompetent. When they spend most of the time on a engine, and this is what we’re left with, I personally am more inclined to think it’s a bit of both. I’m not shutting on your opinion either btw, I’m disagreeing and giving my own thoughts, not sure why you made that assumption, but alright.

Good to hear that it was a misunderstanding on my part.

Guess we'll have to agree to disagree at this point.

[Baconjack]

On 12/30/2017 at 10:45 PM, Gabz Girl said:

I’m personally hoping that due to Sonic Forces’ failure it will lead to a BIG change within Sonic Team, something like what happened after Sonic 06’s release. Bring in some new blood, young, talented developers who really care about the franchise. Go back to older Sonic games like the Classics or Sonic Adventure and see what made them so special, try to improve on that. Don’t overuse the boost mechanic, instead keep it limited to a couple of stages like what Sonic 06 did with the Mach Speed sections. Of course it should be FAR more polished and fun to play than the glitchy, janky shit in Sonic 06! 

I want this to happen so badly, but it probably won’t of course. With the Sonic movie due in 2019 there’s bound to be a licensed game and both movie and game will most likely be a commercial and critical bomb unless some kind of miracle happens. The future is not looking good for 3D Sonic. 

I think the film will get pushed back. But, when the film does come out, I can expect that Sonic Team's latest big project will come out with it. Regardless of what happens, I hope Sega have took notes on what happened with Ratchet and Clank's movie - sure, the film was crappy, but the tie-in game was fantastic. I don't know for certain what the plot for the film will be, but what I can assure you, is that they'll be touching upon the plot from a previous game. I'm looking at Adventure 1/2 for this. Like what Insomniac did with Ratchet and Clank, Sonic Team should try to 're-imagine' the Adventure formula, whilst integrating the plot of the film to make it a proper tie-in. Get rid of the idiots who thought it was OK to make levels like Lost Valley, and hire some new folks who, you know, have respect for the franchise. Forces had everything going for it - a good plot, lovely visuals, and a well-established gameplay style that has done well in the past - but I could see the elements of the game that were half-assed by either complete noobs, shit novices or lazy veterans.

Edited January 5, 2018 by Sir Laptop
Triple post

[molul]

Wow... A good plot doesn't fit with the walkthrough I watched. Well, maybe for kids (no offense, but I can't really see Forces plot better than that).