What would need to happen to get new people working in Sonic Team?

[Rabbitearsblog]

So, there's been a lot of complaints about how Sonic Team has been handling the games for the last 10 years (and with good reason).  So, I was wondering, what would need to change completely to make Sonic Team get better with making the games?

For me personally, I think the problem here is there's been a bit of mismanagement in regards to handling the franchise for the last few years.  For one thing, they need to have writers who can craft good stories instead of doing stories halfway or make cringe dialogue.  Another thing they need is to have people who can actually do the game mechanics well and be experienced with it; not someone who is completely new to the game mechanics.  They also need someone who can communicate with the fans better.  I felt like there's been a lack of communication between Sonic Team / SEGA and the fans and if they could get someone who can do fan polls or anything to connect better with the fans, then they would be able to do some fan demands right.

[Wraith]

Something more catastrophic would need to happen than Forces. The Sonic brand overall has been doing well enough these past 10 years so there's not too much of an incentive to change anything. Maybe long time fans aren't satisfied, but they really don't need to be for Sonic to keep functioning. All SEGA cares about is that he's in the public conversation enough to keep the merch selling and they don't need great games for that. Okay ones will do fine.

[Rabbitearsblog]

37 minutes ago, Wraith said:

Something more catastrophic would need to happen than Forces. The Sonic brand overall has been doing well enough these past 10 years so there's not too much of an incentive to change anything. Maybe log time fans aren't satisfied, but they really don't need to be for Sonic to keep functioning. All SEGA cares about is that he's in the public conversation enough to keep the merch selling and they don't need great games for that. Okay ones will do fine.

Yeah, I'm thinking that the Sonic games would have to really have to tank hard in order for some changes to happen with the team.  The brand is still selling, even if the stories and the gameplay is suffering as a result.

[SupahBerry]

Despite promising it's from the team that brought us Colors and Generations, Forces mostly had new people on board- so evidently getting new people is not the answer. At least not as long as the primary people in control stay the same, so I speculate that replacing them is what you refer to as well. Anyone who knows what makes a good game, a good Sonic game even, can still be weighed down so long as the incompetent superiors run the show.

 

 

Good employees under a poor employer is not the recipe for a healthy business I had in mind.

[Rabbitearsblog]

18 minutes ago, Supah Berry said:

Despite promising it's from the team that brought us Colors and Generations, Forces mostly had new people on board- so evidently getting new people is not the answer. At least not as long as the primary people in control stay the same, so I speculate that replacing them is what you refer to as well. Anyone who knows what makes a good game, a good Sonic game even, can still be weighed down so long as the incompetent superiors run the show.

 

 

Good employees under a poor employer is not the recipe for a healthy business I had in mind.

Yeah, I definitely think there needs to be a change in the upper management if they continue to go this route with the series.

[Milo]

On 6/11/2021 at 8:59 PM, Wraith said:

Something more catastrophic would need to happen than Forces. The Sonic brand overall has been doing well enough these past 10 years so there's not too much of an incentive to change anything. Maybe long time fans aren't satisfied, but they really don't need to be for Sonic to keep functioning. All SEGA cares about is that he's in the public conversation enough to keep the merch selling and they don't need great games for that. Okay ones will do fine.

To be honest, I don't don't see a management/staff shakeup happening even if Sonic Team did put out a catastrophe. Sega's M.O. for Sonic over the past decade in regards to financial underperformers has been cutting the budget/resources allocated for making Sonic titles. I wouldn't be surprised if by this point, actually changing the people building the games would be more costly than just giving them less to work with.

[Rabbitearsblog]

9 hours ago, Milo said:

To be honest, I don't don't see a management/staff shakeup happening even if Sonic Team did put out a catastrophe. Sega's M.O. for Sonic over the past decade in regards to financial underperformers has been cutting the budget/resources allocated for making Sonic titles. I wouldn't be surprised if by this point, actually changing the people building the games would be more costly than just giving them less to work with.

That just seems to make things worse.  Although, I wonder if SEGA is doing this because they don't have the finances to hire more experienced people to handle the Sonic games.

[Styx_Linoone]

Now that makes us wish for more of sub-team of Sonic Team for each region, like Sonic Team Europe or Sonic Team Australia like what happened with the US branch.

 

[Rabbitearsblog]

5 hours ago, Styx_Linoone said:

Now that makes us wish for more of sub-team of Sonic Team for each region, like Sonic Team Europe or Sonic Team Australia like what happened with the US branch.

 

I agree.

[Kazhnuz]

Having too much subteams would simply make bigger the issues of "too many cook in the kitchen" that Sonic sometimes tend to have (Nakamura explained that they had to take into accounts what said international teams when making their game in an interview).

And for "hiring experienced devs" or "replacing Sonic Team", most of it wouldn't really solve the deeper problems (which is mostly time and resources), and I agree that even a catastrophe wouldn't just make SEGA fire a complete team and replace them on the brim, it's simpler to just reorganize them. What often change in the Sonic Team is their organisation, with Iizuka going and coming back from America.

SEGA CS2 (the studio Sonic Team is part of) also became bigger when SEGA CS3 merged with CS1 and CS2, so maybe they'll get some more resources.

[Rabbitearsblog]

27 minutes ago, Kazhnuz said:

Having too much subteams would simply make bigger the issues of "too many cook in the kitchen" that Sonic sometimes tend to have (Nakamura explained that they had to take into accounts what said international teams when making their game in an interview).

And for "hiring experienced devs" or "replacing Sonic Team", most of it wouldn't really solve the deeper problems (which is mostly time and resources), and I agree that even a catastrophe wouldn't just make SEGA fire a complete team and replace them on the brim, it's simpler to just reorganize them. What often change in the Sonic Team is their organisation, with Iizuka going and coming back from America.

SEGA CS2 (the studio Sonic Team is part of) also became bigger when SEGA CS3 merged with CS1 and CS2, so maybe they'll get some more resources.

I wonder if SEGA will ever give Sonic Team more resources to work with in regards to making better quality games in the near future?

[Kazhnuz]

I suppose it depends of what we call "better quality games". I don't think we'll see AAA Sonic for a while, but they might decide to give them enough resources to make a nice high-but-not-quite-AAA/mid-budget Sonic games : the IP sell well, the transmedia strategy can give them more resources from other medias, and how much the software division gain money compared to the rest of SEGASammy could be an incentive to invest more in their big IP.

But it could also be for them a sign of "our global strategy works" (at least at SEGA's level, as Sonic Team seems to think that Sonics gameplay needs something news, according to the interviews).

[Rabbitearsblog]

7 hours ago, Kazhnuz said:

I suppose it depends of what we call "better quality games". I don't think we'll see AAA Sonic for a while, but they might decide to give them enough resources to make a nice high-but-not-quite-AAA/mid-budget Sonic games : the IP sell well, the transmedia strategy can give them more resources from other medias, and how much the software division gain money compared to the rest of SEGASammy could be an incentive to invest more in their big IP.

But it could also be for them a sign of "our global strategy works" (at least at SEGA's level, as Sonic Team seems to think that Sonics gameplay needs something news, according to the interviews).

So, they're saying that they want to add something new to Sonic's gameplay?

[Meta77]

There would need to be a major flop. Thing is Sonic in game form or not prints sega money. Till the day that stops happening i do not see a BIG shakeup anytime soon unless someone just wants to leave like yuji did.

[Rabbitearsblog]

56 minutes ago, Meta77 said:

There would need to be a major flop. Thing is Sonic in game form or not prints sega money. Till the day that stops happening i do not see a BIG shakeup anytime soon unless someone just wants to leave like yuji did.

Yeah, I think the only way at this point for the team to change completely is if someone in the upper management decides to leave themselves, because from where this stands, this franchise will continue to make money no matter what.

[Rabbitearsblog]

So, I started to notice something recently.  SEGA seems to be doing pretty well when it comes to their business, such as establishing partnerships with other companies like Microsoft and NGS and with the movie being a huge success, are expanding the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise to other mediums besides the video games.  But, there seems to be a major friction between the fanbase and SEGA themselves despite all of this.  So it makes me wonder, if everything is going well for SEGA, then shouldn't they spend some time on developing a better relationship with the fanbase so that way they could establish the brand even further? I mean, negative comments from the fans could possibly ruin the brand if they aren't careful.  However, that all depends on whether or not people outside of the Sonic fanbase would even give the fanbase any attention regarding the state of the games.