Do you think that fans will start petitions or boycotts to change the direction of the franchise?

[Rabbitearsblog]

So I was wondering, do you think that fans will start up petitions or boycott against SEGA in order to get the franchise in a better direction or at least change some of their mandates regarding certain characters?

For my personal experience with petitions, they tend to not be that effective since I'm assuming that most big corporations wouldn't deal with petitions, unless there was a huge number of fans petitioning against them.  As for boycotting the franchise, I don't think that fans are willing to go that far with making SEGA change the direction of the series.

 

 

[Zaysho]

There were segments of this fandom that posted flyers to boycott Sonic 2006 over Griffith. Stuff like this doesn't matter.

[Rabbitearsblog]

16 minutes ago, Zaysho said:

There were segments of this fandom that posted flyers to boycott Sonic 2006 over Griffith. Stuff like this doesn't matter.

Just because of Jason Griffith?  Well, that's odd...

[Cosmos Rogue]

Any hope of an effective boycott would require the fandom to actually agree on what should be done with the series which, um, lol.

[Mr. Ion]

I kind of doubt it. If I'm understanding correctly, it wouldn't really make sense to boycott Sonic because of the direction fo the franchise alone. Heck, the Sonic franchise tends to change pretty often anyhow, and I feel like the only way to really protest is just...not buying any Sonic products. I feel like the Sonic fanbase is so diverse and different that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to even do so. Though, as a hypothetical, I'm sure we'd get Sega's attention. I feel like a bunch of people spamming the Sonic Twitter would get the message across anyhow, or something like that. Heck, we've seen something like that with the #RallyforSally over the summer. It's an interesting hypothetical, to be sure.

[Zaysho]

22 hours ago, Rabbitearsblog said:

Just because of Jason Griffith?  Well, that's odd...

More specifically it was over 4kids' involvement because people were not happy about the changes at the time. Griffith just usually happened to be the one that got the most shit slung at him. It took me a bit to find

 

 

While I don't think it's an issue for fans to criticize Sega's decisions or anything I just don't expect anything out of any movements or anything of that nature. Some are nice to see, like the Sally one (not the above insanity), and it's nice if the social media team acknowledges it, but they also don't have any actual say or pull. All fans can do is just not be dicks and not spend money on things they don't like. It won't send a message to Sega, but it'll be better for their own peace of mind.

Edited May 18, 2021 by Zaysho
Slightly changed my wording

[Multikaris]

I recall some around the time Sonic 4 Episode 2 came out... there were forum banners and everything. A user on SEGA Forums seemed to be the head of the boycott.

[Rabbitearsblog]

1 hour ago, Zaysho said:

More specifically it was over 4kids' involvement because people were not happy about the changes at the time. Griffith just usually happened to be the one that got the most shit slung at him. It took me a bit to find

 

 

While I don't think it's an issue for fans to criticize Sega's decisions or anything I just don't expect anything out of any movements or anything of that nature. They're nice to see, like the Sally one, and it's nice if the social media team acknowledges it, but they also don't have any actual say or pull. All fans can do is just not be dicks and not spend money on things they don't like. It won't send a message to Sega, but it'll be better for their own peace of mind.

I agree.  If there's something I don't like, then I just don't mess with it.  It makes me feel better about myself and not get so stressed out about a direction of a franchise.

[Badnik Mechanic]

Maybe if half of these people who start petitions and boycott claims actually had some qualifications and actual work experience and evidence driven results in the areas they were protesting then maybe they might be worth any attention. 

 

And that's if indeed these petitions and campaigns actually have an endgame.

"Look I got all these people to write their name on this website!"

Ok.... Now what do you plan to do...?

[Rabbitearsblog]

5 minutes ago, Badnik Mechanic said:

Maybe if half of these people who start petitions and boycott claims actually had some qualifications and actual work experience and evidence driven results in the areas they were protesting then maybe they might be worth any attention. 

 

And that's if indeed these petitions and campaigns actually have an endgame.

"Look I got all these people to write their name on this website!"

Ok.... Now what do you plan to do...?

It's sort of like the Rally for Sally petition that's going on Twitter.  As much as I would like to see the Freedom Fighters come back to the comics, is there really a reason for them to come back at this point?  If the person making the petitions had a strategy where they contacted SEGA or IDW and made a deal with them that if they get enough signatures for the petition to bring the Freedom Fighters back  to the comics and they succeeded in obtaining the number of signatures that either SEGA or IDW demanded, then yeah, I can see that petition working since the person actually contacted SEGA themselves about the situation.  Also as you mentioned, there's the matter of obtaining proof that bringing back this character or characterizing this character in a different way is something that most of the fanbase wanted and that can be difficult to obtained, unless you have a way of making polls that takes in opinions from the fanbase and since this franchise has a HUGE fanbase, that's going to be difficult to do.

[Kazhnuz]

Even if all the vocal fans started boycotting together, it wouldn't change anything : it's nearly nothing in size compared to the global population of people that buy the games. We are big in noise, but not a big proportion of the buyers.

And nearly most boycotts about a video-game haven't been effective at all.

 

About the petition, I don't think that a petition about changing something in a videogame will be met that seriously.

[Red Hot Jack]

They already have? Plenty of them, and somehow they worked, they changed the course of the franchise. Because SEGA is very afraid of fans reaction.

[jungle_penguins]

Petitions are so worthless in changing opinions of.......most things that if you were to remove every Sonic petition in history, nothing would change. They listen to feedback discreetly, they collect their own numbers (at least they better have), and figure it out themselves in terms of what to change. Boycotts are almost as worthless, needs to be a large collective effort and well, I doubt it's ever worked for Sonic.

 

Though at least Jason Griffith occasionally laughed at some of the hate mail he got.

[JezMM]

I pull this out a lot but it keeps being relevant to topics regarding SEGA listening to fans here lol...

The people who are passionate enough about a game to go online and talk about it account for about 5% of the total people who play the game.

It's good to cater to that 5% when you can of course, since I imagine we do a big part to keep a product floating around in the public consciousness by discussing it, doing video essays and streams of it, making memes about it etc.  And of course, many game developers are in it for the art as much as they're in it for their livelihood and will do stuff for us hardcore fans literally just to make people happy.

But we are unlikely to get "our way" with major decisions like gameplay directions etc if they aren't deemed to be important to the majority beyond our little 5% bubble as well.

 

To answer the topic's question directly - yeah there already are.  But as folks have said already, they won't change anything.  To put the numbers into perspective, most fan petitions tend to get a few hundred to a few thousand signatures. Even if you got a million people to sign a petition saying "Sonic Forces was 100% rubbish - never make a game with any of the elements of Sonic Forces ever again"... That still wouldn't be compellingly conclusive evidence to SEGA that every player feels that way, considering the game sold over 14 million copies.

[Kuzu]

3 hours ago, JezMM said:

I pull this out a lot but it keeps being relevant to topics regarding SEGA listening to fans here lol...

The people who are passionate enough about a game to go online and talk about it account for about 5% of the total people who play the game.

It's good to cater to that 5% when you can of course, since I imagine we do a big part to keep a product floating around in the public consciousness by discussing it, doing video essays and streams of it, making memes about it etc.  And of course, many game developers are in it for the art as much as they're in it for their livelihood and will do stuff for us hardcore fans literally just to make people happy.

But we are unlikely to get "our way" with major decisions like gameplay directions etc if they aren't deemed to be important to the majority beyond our little 5% bubble as well.

 

To answer the topic's question directly - yeah there already are.  But as folks have said already, they won't change anything.  To put the numbers into perspective, most fan petitions tend to get a few hundred to a few thousand signatures. Even if you got a million people to sign a petition saying "Sonic Forces was 100% rubbish - never make a game with any of the elements of Sonic Forces ever again"... That still wouldn't be compellingly conclusive evidence to SEGA that every player feels that way, considering the game sold over 14 million copies.

 

I feel like the only reason this gets as much traction as it did is because Sega have acquiesced and listened to that 5% in the past as far as the games from the mid 2000's are concerned. So the logic is "Well if they pandered to classic fans after they complained a lot, surely that means if WE complain a lot, they'll listen to us" 

But I can't even begin to get into all of the problems with that line of logic.  

[batson]

Nah, if it would have happened at all it would have happened already. We've lived through Sonic 06 and Rise of Lyric. We can live through anything.

Also, it seems to me that nowadays when fans decide to boycott a franchise or products it usually has to do with real or imagined political issues relating to that franchise. Like how a lot of right-wing oriented Star Wars fans decided to boycott the franchise on the grounds of a percieved progressive agenda.

That's one thing I like about the Sonic fanbase; we have a ton of issues with each other, but those issues are rarely political. I guess there were a few right-wingers who didn't like when the Boom subfranchise decided to make Amy less stereotypically feminine, and there might be a few left-wingers who have a problem with Rouge's boobs, but those are very marginal and individual examples.

[SBR2]

12 hours ago, Zaysho said:

More specifically it was over 4kids' involvement because people were not happy about the changes at the time. Griffith just usually happened to be the one that got the most shit slung at him. It took me a bit to find

Oh, my God I remember seeing this. This shit honestly makes me embarrassed to be a Sonic fan. I know not every member of the fandom is like this but enough are to this day that this is all people think of when they hear someone say they're a Sonic fan. 

[Simasuu]

5 hours ago, SBR2 said:

Oh, my God I remember seeing this. This shit honestly makes me embarrassed to be a Sonic fan. I know not every member of the fandom is like this but enough are to this day that this is all people think of when they hear someone say they're a Sonic fan. 

Holy shit wasn't this the Spax3 thing? Man that's just legendary.

[Rabbitearsblog]

6 hours ago, batson said:

Nah, if it would have happened at all it would have happened already. We've lived through Sonic 06 and Rise of Lyric. We can live through anything.

Also, it seems to me that nowadays when fans decide to boycott a franchise or products it usually has to do with real or imagined political issues relating to that franchise. Like how a lot of right-wing oriented Star Wars fans decided to boycott the franchise on the grounds of a percieved progressive agenda.

That's one thing I like about the Sonic fanbase; we have a ton of issues with each other, but those issues are rarely political. I guess there were a few right-wingers who didn't like when the Boom subfranchise decided to make Amy less stereotypically feminine, and there might be a few left-wingers who have a problem with Rouge's boobs, but those are very marginal and individual examples.

Yeah, I'm so glad that the Sonic fanbase doesn't have too many political discussions (although it's unavoidable at some points depending on the situation).  It would have made things even more complicated if fans decided to do petitions or boycotts against the franchise.

[Badnik Mechanic]

On 5/18/2021 at 9:06 AM, Jack-al said:

They already have? Plenty of them, and somehow they worked, they changed the course of the franchise. Because SEGA is very afraid of fans reaction.

*citation needed.

[Rabbitearsblog]

On 5/20/2021 at 5:09 AM, Badnik Mechanic said:

*citation needed.

I also wonder what petitions actually did work...

[Dr. Mechano]

I haven't boycotted the series in any sort of attempt to change Sega's mind, but I definitely went from "Buy every Sonic game" to "Skip most Sonic games and only get them occasionally if they seem really good."

Shadow the Hedgehog is the game that broke my devotion to the series, all the way back in 2005. After buying, playing, and hating that game, I learned that it was silly to make myself buy Sonic games, like they were some kind of fandom obligation. After that, I skipped Sonic '06, Unleashed, and a bunch of other high-profile releases.

And I slept on those games not because I felt I was "boycotting" the series or pressuring Sonic Team in some way; but because a good chunk of Sonic games just didn't interest me, so why should I buy them when I can spend my money on something I'd like better?