Sonic Forces Super Sonic DLC Will Be Free Forever

[Kellan]

1 minute ago, Blacklightning said:

What on earth gave you that impression?

I guess that I’ve only ever experienced it in this way, and just sort of accepted it as normal. Well, I guess I learned something new today. And I get why having to download Super Sonic would annoy you now. Thanks for the perspective.

[Tarnish]

On a different note, it would be interesting to know how many people/how big of a fraction of the customer base (or potential customer base) was actually complaining that made SEGA change their mind. I was under the impression that the average gamer doesn't even bat an eye anymore when nonsensical DLCs such as this are announced and just accept it.

[JezMM]

Day 1 Patch isn't the same thing as being made during development.  The fact that it isn't on the disc means they either started work on Super Sonic OR it wasn't finished by the time the game went gold and code was sent off for age-rating/disc production.

So yeah, Aaron is saying "this was developed as an extra and was intended to be such from the start", is true.  What Aaron doesn't say is whether it was always planned to be free, and even if it wasn't, that'd be SEGA's higher-up decisions, not the team themselves.

[Salamander]

The decision to make Super Sonic, usually a standard feature of the games, a paid feature whilst Episode Shadow, very clearly an optional extra and one that was considerably more substantial, was given to everybody for free seems arbitrary.  I can see why Sega might have thought of Super Sonic in the context of Forces as a tiny optional extra they could get people to pay for, and it seems clear now that it was developed for exactly that reason, but the logic seems topsy-turvy from a wider view.

I'm also a little confused as to what the point was in later charging for Super Sonic after a lengthy free download period.  With a whole month in which to get the feature for free, falling over a period after which most of the purchases of the game will already have been made, I have to imagine that the number of people who would end up paying actual money for Super Sonic would be comparatively negligible, unless Sega expects Forces to have real legs.  A lot of release-date purchasers of the game probably wouldn't even be tempted back at all for such an insubstantial addition, even at no charge.  Wouldn't surprise me if sales projections and current download figures as much as anything else were responsible for Sega's unusual bout of "goodwill."

[Tornado]

 

10 hours ago, Kellan said:

Technically, that still means that they could have been working on it in the time between the games were printed and the actual release of the game.

This is certainly a possibility. Not every developer is as nakedly transparent with what Day One patches actually do as, say, Capcom; or as "fuck whatever we'll just leave everything we ever worked on in the game and do something after release maybe" like Valve; so it can be hard to tell the state of the Super Sonic stuff after the game went gold.

 

 

But then I'd have to reconcile that with the idea that Sonic Team was at one point actually working on Forces.

[Kellan]

4 hours ago, FFWF said:

 

The decision to make Super Sonic, usually a standard feature of the games, a paid feature whilst Episode Shadow, very clearly an optional extra and one that was considerably more substantial, was given to everybody for free seems arbitrary.

 

I don’t really understand either. On the stream, Webber did say that the Chaos Emeralds didn’t factor into the game’s story, and used that as a partial explanation for Super Sonic being extra, and not a basic feature that they withheld.

So, maybe because Episode Shadow was a prequel, and therefore part of the story, they didn’t think it’d be right to charge for it? That’s the best explanation I can come up with.

[A person, that exists]

This whole situation is kinda like if a burglar stole your wallet, then returned it and asked you to call him your hero.

To be fair, I don't understand why SS even HAS to be In Forces, scince it doesn't make sense canonically (Where were the Chaos Emeralds during the events of the game?), nor from a gameplay standpoint (The levels are RIDICULOUSLY SHORT even without Super Sonic, just imagine how short they'll be with INFINITE GODDAMN BOOST AND INVINCIBILITY AND SPEED. That's just too OP) 

What's next, paid Classic Sonic? Actually, hell yeah, I DO want that for Forces. 

[Roger_van_der_weide]

It's really just a ploy to create pressure for people to buy Sonic Forces last December.
As in, people who were hesistating to buy the game/ waiting for deals or second hand copies would panic when they learn Super Sonic is only available for free for a month.
So they'd abandon their plans of waiting for a better deal and get the game immediatly to grab Super Sonic before he's locked behind a paywall.
It's clear to me Sega was never interested in making money out of Super Sonic. Seems they were more then happy to drop " the threat"  of paid Super Sonic as soon as their marketing ploy had come to an end.

The character as otherwise indeed utterly pointless. But hey, shiny. Me gots to have free shiny.

[Kellan]

3 hours ago, A person, that exists said:

This whole situation is kinda like if a burglar stole your wallet, then returned it and asked you to call him your hero.

I don’t think that’s a very good comparison. I mean, for one, Sega never stole anything from you.

16 minutes ago, Roger_van_der_weide said:

It's really just a ploy to create pressure for people to buy Sonic Forces last December.
As in, people who were hesistating to buy the game/ waiting for deals or second hand copies would panic when they learn Super Sonic is only available for free for a month.
So they'd abandon their plans of waiting for a better deal and get the game immediatly to grab Super Sonic before he's locked behind a paywall.
It's clear to me Sega was never interested in making money out of Super Sonic. Seems they were more then happy to drop " the threat"  of paid Super Sonic as soon as their marketing ploy had come to an end.

The character as otherwise indeed utterly pointless. But hey, shiny. Me gots to have free shiny.

That’s an interesting idea, but couldn’t people still get the DLC for free, even if they didn’t have the game yet? I think I remember some people saying that they downloaded the DLC before getting the game so they wouldn’t have to pay for it later.

Also, Super Sonic was only $1.99, so if I was waiting for the game to go on sale, I don’t think I would buy at full price just to avoid two bucks being taken off of the sale price later. Unless the sale that I was waiting on was only for a dollar off, I guess.

[Gabz Girl]

Thank God they changed their minds and made Super Sonic free like he was meant to be from the start. It boggles the mind, that they wanted you to pay for a cool feature that has been included for FREE since Sonic 2! What the hell Sega? 

[ClassicKnuckles]

19 hours ago, Gabz Girl said:

Thank God they changed their minds and made Super Sonic free like he was meant to be from the start. It boggles the mind, that they wanted you to pay for a cool feature that has been included for FREE since Sonic 2! What the hell Sega? 

Chaotix? Sonic CD? Sonic 3D Blast? 

[JezMM]

3 hours ago, ClassicKnuckles said:

Chaotix? Sonic CD? Sonic 3D Blast? 

In the games that DO have Super Sonic, it's always been part of the base game, not an extra paid feature, that's all they were saying.

[Eurisko]

Free as it always should be.