Sonic Forces sells an estimated 234,000 units worldwide in the first week at retail.

[Wraith]

There have been instances of Sega making games that sold received well and dropping the ball directly afterward and vice versa. There's no real trend to take note of here in terms of "how will sega react to this game?". Shit's random.

You guys hoping for change should be looking toward Mania. Forces was going to do "fine" no matter what, but Mania succeeding sends a much more clear message than Forces failing does, anyway.

[KHCast]

20 minutes ago, Shaddy the Zaphod said:

Okay, then why do any of the good recent Sonic games exist when any of the bad ones ever sold well? If it's really that easy for them to make money, it would have happened long before now, and with a much worse game than Forces.

Mania wasn’t developed by Sonic team, Generations was 7 years ago, and lost world was average to bad. So not sure what we are referring to when we talk about about good recent sonic games existing? The phone games?

segas quality with sonic ever rarely goes that high, especially with sonic team involved, and while this may not determine where things go, this doesn’t really give any good indication of improvement definitely happening either 

[Shaddy Zaphod]

That's wrong, first off. And it's simply incorrect to act like sales are the only thing that sends the team a message or factors into the series' decisions. Because if that were the case, the series would never go through the whole "throw everything out and make something different" mindset when their games sell well, as they have time and time again. Good sales of bad games have never prevented good games from happening, not with this series. If they did, then we wouldn't have Generations, or Colors, or fuck it Lost World, or any Sonic game released since SA2 that wasn't just a complete derivative of that game and a downgrade to boot. And again, if this trend were to start, it would be with a worse game than Forces. The original Mario and Sonic at the Olympic games was the best selling title since Sonic 2, so by that logic, why make anything other than that for the rest of the series?'

Even if you don't like the current course of the games, acting like SEGA listen only to sales or only to scores would make the series way more consistent either way. Therefore, it has to be clear that that isn't the case, because this series currently has the stretchiest rubber band of quality in existence.

[Tracker_TD]

While it's true that SEGA aren't necessarily only going to listen to sales, their focus in reports and the SXSW panel description on "Sonic Forces' strong performance" doesn't exactly send a message that they're paying much notice to the actual reception of the game.

4 minutes ago, Shaddy the Zaphod said:

The original Mario and Sonic at the Olympic games was the best selling title since Sonic 2, so by that logic, why make anything other than that for the rest of the series?'

Because it's a bloody license-mandated spinoff. 

 

Also yeah the 'you don't want others to have fun!' mentality is an absolutely pathetic rebuttal to the reasoning for not particularly wanting Forces to do well, because of the message is evidently can send. Same goes for when people spewed that at me pre-release for Forces criticism. 

[KHCast]

 

10 minutes ago, Shaddy the Zaphod said:

Even if you don't like the current course of the games, acting like SEGA listen only to sales or only to scores would make the series way more consistent either way. Therefore, it has to be clear that that isn't the case, because this series currently has the stretchiest rubber band of quality in existence.

Okay but let’s not pretend they don’t consider them at all or ignore them. It’s a company. They exist to make money. If they’re getting good scores on certain games or good sales, they’ll take note of that. Usually the money first. Even if it’s not all they consider, they do consider it

Again, sega/Sonic Team already produce average to bad sonic games on average, so their boasting about Forces sales isn’t gonna get anyone excited or hopeful 

[Ryannumber1gamer]

I'm honestly not sure Steam sales are a good thing to be looking at in order to debate this either. Because the Steam version released with its share of shit that would've badly effected sales. Not only did it have the same DRM that people despised with Mania (and reminder - a lot of people wanted to cancel their pre orders until they found out their "delay gift" secretly got rid of their refund period) because of the additional glitches it caused. 

But on top of that, IIRC, Forces launched on Steam for the first few days containing a game breaking bug that caused the game to freeze at a black screen for the first few days.

[Shaddy Zaphod]

6 minutes ago, Tracker_TD said:

Because it's a bloody license-mandated spinoff. 

I know, it was hyperbole. It's also not either a Sonic game or a Mario game. It's product placement in a minigame collection.

6 minutes ago, Tracker_TD said:

While it's true that SEGA aren't necessarily only going to listen to sales, their focus in reports and the SXSW panel description on "Sonic Forces' strong performance" doesn't exactly send a message that they're paying much notice to the actual reception of the game.

Sure, but then that just seems a little flimsy to me. If the panel itself has them saying "Haha yeah it's so great right! Let's do that again" then sue me. But I don't see it happening.

2 minutes ago, KHCast said:

Okay but let’s not pretend they don’t consider them at all or ignore them. It’s a company. They exist to make money. If they’re getting good scores on certain games or good sales, they’ll take note of that. Usually the money first. Even if it’s not all they consider, they do consider it

Obviously? I'm not saying anything like that, just that it's ridiculous to act like Forces selling well automatically confirms Forces 2, or specifically a "bad game", especially when past events show nothing of the sort happening.

[KHCast]

3 minutes ago, Shaddy the Zaphod said:

Obviously? I'm not saying anything like that, just that it's ridiculous to act like Forces selling well automatically confirms Forces 2, or specifically a "bad game", especially when past events show nothing of the sort happening.

Okay no one here said this means Forces 2. But would anyone be surprised if the next game was also lazily made, missed the point of why people liked certain things, and relied on nostalgia pandering again? No, and that’s what I’m at least saying. That since clearly segas proud of the money they got off Forces, I’m in no way inclined to believe they’ll learn or improve. Again, why do you think people say “vote with your wallet?”

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

59 minutes ago, GentlemanX said:

If Forces has done well enough, I hope Sega takes that to mean people want more of the boost style and the characters/tone present in Forces. With most of Forces development going into the Hedgehog Engine 2, that hopefully means we'll see a faster turnaround time than between Lost World and Forces.

Mania meanwhile shows that calculated risks can definitely pay off. Hopefully that allows them to experiment in the future as well.

Both of these are certainly good ideas on the takeaway. Regardless of the output,  Sonic Team did emphasize on better plot and character involvement. 

I could see them hopefully getting the message to not shove aside their characters in the current games,  so that's another reason financial success on Force's part would be good. 

Great on Mania as well for showing that that style of gameplay still strikes a positive chord with the fanbase as well!

[Polkadi~☆]

A game selling well doesn't spell doom.

Hell, Sonic Team constantly changes their games, regardless of how well it sells. Sonic Generations, smash hit that sells over a million, then we go to Sonic Lost World. Or even Sonic Heroes to Shadow the Hedgehog, what a huge change that was.

[DiamondX]

Honestly, some of you guys need to accept that some people enjoyed Forces or at least saw potential in it.

I'm one of those people for example. I liked Forces. Sure, it had problems but I still saw it as an enjoyable game.

I can understand that you guys don't want to support Forces, but you don't have to hate on the fact that some people enjoyed it.

[Tracker_TD]

1 minute ago, DiamondX the Fighter said:

Honestly, some of you guys need to accept that some people enjoyed Forces or at least saw potential in it.

I'm one of those people for example. I liked Forces. Sure, it had problems but I still saw it as an enjoyable game.

I can understand that you guys don't want to support Forces, but you don't have to hate on the fact that some people enjoyed it.

That's nice.

Likewise, people can state they didn't like it, and don't want it to be the future of the franchise. Again, it's a "by saying you don't like Forces, you're stopping people from liking it!" mentality that makes no damn sense.

[Shaddy Zaphod]

24 minutes ago, KHCast said:

Okay no one here said this means Forces 2. But would anyone be surprised if the next game was also lazily made, missed the point of why people liked certain things, and relied on nostalgia pandering again? No, and that’s what I’m at least saying. That since clearly segas proud of the money they got off Forces, I’m in no way inclined to believe they’ll learn or improve. Again, why do you think people say “vote with your wallet?”

And I fully agree that you believe that, but exactly what compels you to believe that it's a product of the previous games' sales? Why did anyone think Forces would be bad from day one when it existed because of the excellent Generations? Was Unleashed anything like Secret Rings when that game sold well? I'm sorry, but regardless of what you expect, regardless of whether you're right, blaming it on sales alone just doesn't fully line up with the series history, and it's taking a lot from what's basically just words from Sega as of right now. Words that hardly anyone here trusts anyway. Sonic has always, always jumped around it's levels of quality with no huge trends or tendencies tying the good or bad games together. Josh said it best:

1 hour ago, Josh said:

Shit's random.

[KHCast]

6 minutes ago, DiamondX the Fighter said:

Honestly, some of you guys need to accept that some people enjoyed Forces or at least saw potential in it.

Yes, we know people liked Forces. You guys make that clear, and no one is telling you not to like it. That’s fine. People are also fine to not like the direction and see not that much potential in it. 

Seriously, who here is hating on people that like it?

3 minutes ago, Shaddy the Zaphod said:

And I fully agree that you believe that, but exactly what compels you to believe that it's a product of the previous games' sales? Why did anyone think Forces would be bad from day one when it existed because of the excellent Generations? Was Unleashed anything like Secret Rings when that game sold well? I'm sorry, but regardless of what you expect, regardless of whether you're right, blaming it on sales alone just doesn't fully line up with the series history, and it's taking a lot from what's basically just words from Sega as of right now. Words that hardly anyone here trusts anyway.

Because they showed classic sonic, showing how they missed the point of what people wanted when they praised him in gens. Also because they were presenting a tonal direction I disliked and was not a fan of before. Because they were blatantly cramming things in for nostalgias sake. Because the gameplay they showed was shallow and not grabbing. Need I go on?

[DiamondX]

My point was that you guys have a "Oh no, Forces sold well. We're doomed." mentality.

I'm sorry for not getting my point across that well. Remember that english is not my first language.

I'd say we should wait for the new announcement.

 

For all we know it will be an Adventure-style game.

[Shaddy Zaphod]

5 minutes ago, KHCast said:

Because they showed classic sonic, showing how they missed the point. Also because they were presenting a tonal direction I disliked and was not a fan of before. Because they were blatantly cramming things in for nostalgias sake. Because the gameplay they showed was shallow and not grabbing. Need I go on?

Yes, actually, because that's kind of irrelevant to what I'm saying, even aside from the fact that we were further into Forces' pre-release at the point that you could have surmised any of that than we are into whatever the next game is pre-announcement right now. If you were to actually address the point I'm making, that'd be much preferred.

[KHCast]

You’re point is ultimately “sales =\= bad games consistently happening” which okay, sales don’t EXCLUSIVELY are the result in that if we’re playing this game. But they definitely can be a thing to look at and see what works, what people are okay with, what they can get away with. The incentive to do better is considerably lesser if you know you can pass through with the very minimal amount. I rarely see sonic team genuinely work to listen to their fans in the important ways. Even when they make great games, it’s not cause they were actively listening to the fan base and taking account of what they were asking. Even with Gens they were pretty shallow regarding things like classic even if his inclusion there was better in every sense. It still wasn’t on mania levels 

[Shaddy Zaphod]

And that's totally true, but I don't think it's necessarily an accurate way of predicting what they're going to do next, when historically it's always been a coin flip and I don't see a reason to believe it wouldn't be this time. I think that tends to come down to the fanbase not having a mouthpiece nor a consistent opinion on what's important in the series' design, aside from the fact that the fandom is near entirely western and the devs are Japanese. I would wholly attribute it to Hanlon's razor, like it or not.

[Swing]

3 hours ago, KHCast said:

I won’t be surprised if Forces did better than Mania in Sega’s higher ups minds inspiring more games like that and less like Mania.(effort and quality wise) Forces got the much better marketing and child audience 

If this is really the case than this will be really sad. Just shows that Sonic fans will just except anything if it has to do with Sonic. 

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

4 minutes ago, Swing said:

If this is really the case than this will be really sad. Just shows that Sonic fans will just except anything if it has to do with Sonic. 

 Can we not do this now,  please? I mean,  sure there's always going to be some fans like that in everything,  but let's not chalk the situation up to that bout of generalization. 

[Swing]

Just now, Jovahexeon Tangle Tango said:

Can we not do this now,  please? I mean,  sure there's always going to be some fans like that in everything,  but let's not chalk the situation up to that bout of generalization. 

I'm sorry, but it really seems at this point that fans just worship Sonic. They do not want a fun game or a good game. They just Sonic and that seems to be enough. 

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

Just now, Swing said:

I'm sorry, but it really seems at this point that fans just worship Sonic. They do not want a fun game or a good game. They just Sonic and that seems to be enough. 

Or they just find fun and legit merits in stuff you don't find to be a fun or good game. There's always that logical line of thought. People like different things.

[Razule]

1 minute ago, Swing said:

I'm sorry, but it really seems at this point that fans just worship Sonic. They do not want a fun game or a good game. They just Sonic and that seems to be enough. 

Well.. it's not quite like that, it's not like they have a Sonic addiction and cry themselves to sleep after playing the latest game, they genuinely enjoy it.

[Swing]

1 minute ago, Jovahexeon Tangle Tango said:

Or they just find fun and legit merits in stuff you don't find to be a fun or good game. There's always that logical line of thought. People like different things.

Okay, sure. I mean I know people from another Sonic forum who see Sonic 06 as a 9/10. I know that people have different taste and like things that I don't like. But we can all agree here, that Forces could have been better and such loyal fans like you guys just deserve a better game from them. I mean, come one. Sonic is still to this day one of the most popular video game series. It is just so sad to see how much effort some developer put in to their lesser popular series like Sly and Ratchet and Clank while Sega just puts in the per minimum.

[Polkadi~☆]

11 minutes ago, Swing said:

I'm sorry, but it really seems at this point that fans just worship Sonic. They do not want a fun game or a good game. They just Sonic and that seems to be enough. 

Take a good look around.

People have debates over how to make a fun game or good game. People constantly argue about how to make the perfect Sonic game, and how not to make one. It's happening in this very topic. And happens all the other time in other Sonic forums.

Saying that we'll accept anything Sonic thrown at us is dead wrong.