Sonic Retro Bans Sonic 4 Discussion

By
Tristan Oliver
– April 3, 2010

Admin: “You fuckers fucked up bad”

It was only after the video release of Sonic 4′s E.G.G Station Zone and ending that the administrators of Sonic Retro, which to this point had been the central focus of new leaks on the next Sonic, felt enough was enough.

“The thread’s been hidden until we can clean up the leaks, but the damage is done,” wrote Retro forumer Xkeeper in an announcement to users that any further discussion on the game will result in a permanent ban.  “You’ve gone and ruined a game three months early, and with it some of the stuff we had planned.”

That decision was affirmed in a stern follow-up from Retro administrator Scarred Sun.

“You fuckers fucked up BAD,” she said, in part.

No public elaboration was given on plans Sonic Retro had in relation to Sonic 4.

To this point, posts there–some directly from forumer infinity, widely believed to be the source of the leak, and some indirectly–had been the first place to see the information.  Administrators generally didn’t immediately act on links to the video once published for discussion.  That above all else may be why the sudden shift to a complete lockout took a few by surprise.

“The leaks are certainly urging lots of discussion, why bother to stop it?” asked Hero of Legend on NeoGAF.  “I personally see nothing wrong with talking about it at all, hence why we’re doing so right now.”

“This is strange, the mods were even discussing the leaked videos, and they even posted the leaks on the front page,” added another NeoGAFer, Teknoman.

And he’s right.  In fact, as of the time of this article’s publication, stories about a few of the leaked materials now part of the overall Sonic 4 ban from Sonic Retro’s forums remain online and, in one case, quite prominently on the main page of Sonic Retro.  Of note, however, is how the stories, in their current form, do not reference infinity’s series of leaks, other than a note that one such link to a video was removed after a brief period of existence “out of respect,” according to writer Overlord.

We asked Sonic Retro forum administrator Tweaker for public comment on the matter.  He gave us this statement.

Company-fanbase relations are far more important than people give them credit for; every single time they say something abrasive and uneducated or scramble to leak this game material before it’s supposed to come out, they are hurting the very kind of thing we all strive for–the willingness of the company that keeps our interest alive cooperating with us and helping us achieve our own goals with their absolute plethora of funded resources. The disrespect that people have shown SEGA as a company is astounding, and the fact that they continue to provide support and interaction with the fanbase is, frankly, unbelievable.
I don’t know what’s going to happen when it comes to Sonic 4 now, frankly. But some really cool shit we could have hooked people up with is now going to be completely fucking dashed because a bunch of spoiled little brats couldn’t wait 3 more months to learn about their precious little Sonic sequel. This is like the people who leak prototypes or ruin relations with the people who have them; you may hate that they hoard the carts and decide to do what they want with property they’ve obtained, but at the end of the day they say whether you get it or not. You’re an asshole to that guy and he’ll laugh you out the door when you ask to see his cool toy. That’s all there is to it.

When asked to respond to the theory that Retro administrators may have acted as enablers by not removing links to the leaks sooner, this is what he said:

You could say that if you didn’t know how we were trying to approach the issue.  As SEGA has shown through their attempts to suppress leaks, they’re generally very short-lived and highly ineffective.  The only effective way to try and prevent leaks is to get legal on their asses and threaten them not to leak any more lest they want to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. I will say right now that I will absolutely cooperate in stopping these people in whatever way I can without outright revoking their forum privileges, though as it seems that courtesy may now be thrown to the wind in favor of a hard crackdown on anyone that even tries to spread more leaked info.

The fundamental problem with this, however, is that if you ban someone from talking about the leaks, they’ll just take them elsewhere–somewhere where that information is welcome.  So it doesn’t really stop the leak as much as it just damages our notoriety.  That’s the strong irony in it all.

Finally, we pointed out one of the stories cited above on the main pages of Sonic Retro concerning the Lost Labyrinth leak, and Tweaker offered this response:

Once something leaks, I don’t particularly see the point in trying to suppress.  Then all it becomes is a race to see who gets it up first.  One person will save that picture knowing its worth, and that person will spread it around.  This is evidenced by how that boss screenshot spread all around before it was even posted in any public medium.  One person.  That’s all it took.  One person and a news tip.  That’s why it seems like no matter what you try and do, it’s all fucked, which is what makes this so difficult.

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