What can SEGA learn from other gaming companies to become more successful?

[Rabbitearsblog]

So, with the announcement of a new Sonic the Hedgehog game coming out next year, what are some things that SEGA can learn from other gaming companies to become more successful (like, should they do similar gameplay to Nintendo, try to focus on spreading out their other games more often)?

[King Conne]

SEGA should publish more interesting trailers (I don't mean games because I love SONIC games), that is trailers that don't show Sonic running for 27 seconds and the four emaining seconds dedicated to the Sonic Team logo!!...
We all know Sonic will be running in the next game (well, that's not SONIC LABYRINTH), so watching such a trailer is very frustrating because it is as if we saw nothing!!...
Fortunately, the title of the game has leaked and many rumours are spreading which are far more interesting than the official trailer even if they are just rumours for the moment...

[herbhen]

Well considering Metacritic commended them recently as "Publisher of the Year" I guess they must be doing a lot right! 

I think frankly the only thing I would say right now especially based on recent, is tighter control on media leaks. But other publishers are getting this wrong also. Leaks are fun for speculative purposes, but they can really take the hype out of product reveals and can really alter fans expectations, I think the reception to Colours Ultimate has been very mixed, but its somewhat cause we knew about it months ago. Sonic Rangers is also facing a similar fate, of course leaks can be disproven, but all the leaks around it seem pretty concrete, the information we potentially know is alot more than it seems SEGA want's us to know. It can effectively ruin their entire media and PR plans for the future, how are we meant to be excited for information we already know?

[Roger_van_der_weide]

More succesful? They're the 7th richest game company.
https://airentertainment.biz/top-10-richest-video-game-companies/

So despite our gripes, they're doing pretty well. Sadly being a succesful company isn't directly connected to "making the best content and making your customers as happy as possible."
Case in point, EA and Konami are comfortably in the top 10 as well.

And Sega is spreading to other IP's, Yakuza's going strong, they got Persona now. Puyo Puyo's doing well. They got Hatsune Miku, Football manager, Total War...
Difference with Nintendo is that Sega creates less of an institution around their IP's. Either buying other people's properties or having more general IP's that don't have a Mario esque mascotte representing it.
On that level, I agree with you, I do wish they showed more respect to their more iconic IP's like Jet Set Radio and NiGHTS and all.
Altough it seems Sega is slowly doing that more and more nowadays, so hooray. Too bad when they finally dust off one of their classic IP's, it's for an Arcade-only game, mobile phone thing or at best a low budget indy game.

So yeah, plenty of room for improvement for me to like them more.
But I doubt Sega cares, they're doing just fine without my approval.

[Rabbitearsblog]

3 hours ago, Roger_van_der_weide said:

More succesful? They're the 7th richest game company.
https://airentertainment.biz/top-10-richest-video-game-companies/

So despite our gripes, they're doing pretty well. Sadly being a succesful company isn't directly connected to "making the best content and making your customers as happy as possible."
Case in point, EA and Konami are comfortably in the top 10 as well.

And Sega is spreading to other IP's, Yakuza's going strong, they got Persona now. Puyo Puyo's doing well. They got Hatsune Miku, Football manager, Total War...
Difference with Nintendo is that Sega creates less of an institution around their IP's. Either buying other people's properties or having more general IP's that don't have a Mario esque mascotte representing it.
On that level, I agree with you, I do wish they showed more respect to their more iconic IP's like Jet Set Radio and NiGHTS and all.
Altough it seems Sega is slowly doing that more and more nowadays, so hooray. Too bad when they finally dust off one of their classic IP's, it's for an Arcade-only game, mobile phone thing or at best a low budget indy game.

So yeah, plenty of room for improvement for me to like them more.
But I doubt Sega cares, they're doing just fine without my approval.

I guess that's why SEGA isn't really listening to the fans at the moment, because according to news articles, their company is doing just fine.  I think the only way that they would actually listen to the fans is if their company is starting to tank.

Also, regarding the leaks and how they announce their upcoming projects, I think that SEGA really needs to start announcing the dates on when they are going to announce their upcoming projects because the fact that they didn't announce anything about any upcoming projects until just recently may have caused the fans to try to seek out other means of finding out some information regarding the games, even if some of those leaks aren't even confirmed or are true.  This could mess up SEGA's business or PR standing if they don't find a way to tone down the leaks or at least start announcing the dates of when they will announce the information of their upcoming projects, instead of keeping it quiet for so long.

[Scritch the Cat]

I don't know how many companies do this, but I think an "early access" approach would be a good one for SEGA to take right now.  If anyone doesn't know, this is when companies release games that aren't finished; except unlike Sonic 06 the company is honest about that and is supposed to keep working on them, reinvesting the profits and noting the feedback to improve the game and get those improvements into the game via downloadable patches. 

Now, early access has its skeptics, and since so does SEGA, it might seem like overkill to combine them, but I counter that skepticism is not inherently bad.  It can create a nearly incoherent storm in cases where people are blindly whinging while they don't know much about the upcoming game, and also if it turns out the game doesn't meet with their approval.  But if people get little tastes of the game at more stages of its development, and they know to expect it to be rough, that means SEGA gets more well-rationed, focused doses of player responses. 

Also a big issue with early access games is that they're often slow to go anywhere, with many of them being unclear when they'll get an update.  That issue is real but it's to be expected when they're indie games.  Such games are released that way because their creators might not have a lot of money, so in order to make it and continue investing in getting their game finished they must start selling it before it is, but if it turns out they don't make enough money doing this then they can get stuck.  Of course, you might also get unethical fly-by-night developers who take the money and run, with no intention of actually finishing the game once they've made it.  However, those risks are lessened when it's a AAA company.  SEGA's development of a Sonic game won't bog down just because not enough people bought it in early access, because they have myriad other ways to fund it.  Likewise, taking money and running isn't a likely move for a company that can't just vanish after people hate them for screwing them over; SEGA has a lot else on the line so the suspicion such a move would earn their other venture outweighs the potential profits from swindling people in one.

[Mr. Ion]

A lot of people have been criticizing Sonic Rangers for being too similar to BOTW, but I feel like Sonic has always been taking inspiration from other stuff, and as long as it maintains that sense of Sonic style or has its own elements, it's fine and can become something all its own. Heck, look at Super Sonic, he was drawn from DBZ but he's become iconic and something unique, even being iconic enough to have his own google Easter egg. 
In terms of other industry practices, more than anything I think Sega should practice more quality control, maybe outsourcing things like spinoffs more often. Sega does actually outsource a lot of its work, like giving out Sonic 1 and 2 ports to M2 and stuff like that, but I think fans want to see things like Dimps developing handheld games. After handhelds kind of died of with the rise of the Nintendo Switch there wasn't as much of a need for Dimps because that market for handhelds wasn't there, but I'm sure a lot of fans want things like mobile handhelds. 
Also, in general, Sega should also use Sonic with its other IP. I mean, Sonic is Sega's mascots. I think we should have more things like Sega and All-Stars Racing, where we have Sonic but also NiGHTS and Yakuza and Ristar, Ecco, etc. But that's just my two cents.

[Scritch the Cat]

3 minutes ago, Mr. Ion said:

A lot of people have been criticizing Sonic Rangers for being too similar to BOTW, but I feel like Sonic has always been taking inspiration from other stuff, and as long as it maintains that sense of Sonic style or has its own elements, it's fine and can become something all its own.

The odd thing to me is that every game nowadays that goes open-world is called a Breath of the Wild-ripoff, despite that this mold of game design is much older.  Before that these games were Grand Theft Auto ripoffs, then after some time they got called Skyrim ripoffs.  Breath of the Wild itself is so widely inspired by Bethesda's take on Fallout that it almost feels more like those games than it does most other Zelda titles.  Look; sometimes people keep making a game in a certain format because that format works.  Usually that goes so far that the genre falls out of style, but some brands really do fit well into that niche.  Zelda was an easy choice because it's an adventure series set in an iconic, big world, and has always had a lot of exploration.  Likewise, Sonic moves fast, he pulls stunts off of terrain features and his games also often feature exploration, so what can go right by putting him in an open world warrants an attempt, accusations of unoriginality be damned.

[Mr. Ion]

Yeah I agree; you can't really accuse it of copying when it's only the concept of an open world more than anything, which in itself takes inspiration from other elements and genres. Sonic could really fit in well with an open-world if Sonic Team were able to populate it well. It's not really unoriginality to simply take inspiration, though it's something I've seen thrown around a lot.

[Rabbitearsblog]

On 5/29/2021 at 7:48 PM, Mr. Ion said:

Yeah I agree; you can't really accuse it of copying when it's only the concept of an open world more than anything, which in itself takes inspiration from other elements and genres. Sonic could really fit in well with an open-world if Sonic Team were able to populate it well. It's not really unoriginality to simply take inspiration, though it's something I've seen thrown around a lot.

I agree that the open world concept actually sounds like a unique idea for Sonic the Hedgehog and if executed well, could be a really good thing for the franchise.

[Rabbitearsblog]

Just a question, but if the Sonic Team, who are making the Sonic the Hedgehog games made another terrible game (say Sonic Rangers), would this mean that the current team would be out of the job and would this make room for new people who are a bit more competent with handling a video game franchise such as Sonic the Hedgehog?

[Shade Vortex]

I mean, the Sonic Team that has developed the last few games has been almost an entirely different team each game anyways, so that's definitely not how Sonic Team works. More likely, from what seems to be the case from all the talent I've noticed leaving for other companies over the years: Sonic Team probably isn't worth working for long-term (whether that being due to them not wanting to work on the same thing forever, or better pay/benefits, who knows), and people go to places like Nintendo, Square Enix, etc instead. Also different people obviously does not always mean more competent, as Forces proved. If you actually look at the franchise's history, they've basically lost all the original talent they had.

[Rabbitearsblog]

12 minutes ago, Shade Vortex said:

I mean, the Sonic Team that has developed the last few games has been almost an entirely different team each game anyways, so that's definitely not how Sonic Team works. More likely, from what seems to be the case from all the talent I've noticed leaving for other companies over the years: Sonic Team probably isn't worth working for long-term (whether that being due to them not wanting to work on the same thing forever, or better pay/benefits, who knows), and people go to places like Nintendo, Square Enix, etc instead. Also different people obviously does not always mean more competent, as Forces proved. If you actually look at the franchise's history, they've basically lost all the original talent they had.

So, is it possible that they could hire people who are experienced with making good games, even if Sonic Team is constantly changing each decade?

[Shade Vortex]

Of course that's possible. But the crux of the matter: Can they afford to hire people who are experienced enough to be able to do the work, who are more likely to be wary of Sonic Team's reputation? I feel like no dev worth their salt wants to work for Sonic Team anymore, at least, not long term. People seem to use working there as a gateway to better venues.