A Nice Writeup, Right? Maybe Not
Just as the Mushroom Hill demonstration video did, Pelikan13′s Sonic Fan Remix, a planned playable product, is making the rounds among gaming’s mainstream. Yesterday, GamesRadar picked up Saturday’s details on the SFG. But how they framed the story–directly comparing and praising it as a superior product over Sonic the Hedgehog 4–may not have been wise.
“…[The] first impression is that it looks better than Sonic 4,” wrote GamesRadar content editor Justin Towell under the headline Another spectacular fan game that looks better than Sonic 4. “It saddens me to see that a team of two men can make a game that’s arguably more like the Sonic we know and love(d) than all of Sonic Team and DIMPS.”
Later in the article, Towell suggests Sega should hire Sonic Fan Remix‘s developers–inferring Sega’s own teams have underperformed.
“I would recommend that Sega hires the people responsible, rather than sending them a ‘cease and desist’ order in the mail,” Towell explained.
The danger with Towell’s words and Sonic Fan Remix’s exposure through him is that the latter is exactly what can happen. The Sonic fan game community has always been careful not to compare fan works to official ones. There is even a long standing rule at Sonic Fan Games HQ forbidding the practice. For a third party to do it doesn’t help extend that relationship.
“This won’t end well,” said Brad Flick on Sonic Retro upon hearing of the article. Flick, by the way, was the one who publicly enacted the aforementioned SFGHQ rule.
“I don’t like the idea that they’re making these comparisons,” said another Sonic Retro forumer, MarkeyJester, who criticized the idea behind Towell’s writeup. “It’s almost as if they’re teasing SEGA entirely, and this cannot go down well, why hell, SEGA could initially take down the production of this here said fan game, and I sure as hell would be disappointed.”
The truth is, the Sonic IP ultimately rests with Sega, and barring fair use challenges, the company has free reign on how Sonic is used and who uses it. Other gaming companies do not allow nearly the level of fan use with their respective characters as Sega has now and in the past. Sega can pull the plug on SFGs at any time. That they haven’t, given the increasing quality of titles like Remix, as well as Sonic MegaMix, Sonic Nexus and the like, is testament to Sega’s commitment toward its fans.
“Sega is too supportive of fangames to take this down,” noted Retro forumer W.A.C. in the Sonic Fan Remix thread.
But all it takes is one misfire on an official game, one fan work, and one prominent story placing the latter over the former, for all of that to change.
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Definitely agreed. Hell, I started having interest in programming by learning how to make Sonic fangames. It also increased my scores on the Physics tests. I’m sure everyone would dislike if SGA starts to stop the fanbase’s “job”.
Guess they should hack Games Radar now
a sonic retro parece estar fora do ar! pelo menos aqui no brasil, tento acessar e a página simplismente não carrega!
será que puxaram o plugue deles?
estranho
sorry =) language fail =) on english now
the sonic retro seems to be down! at least here in Brazil, and I try to access page simply not load!
pulled the plug does them?
strange
I wouldn’t worry. It’s been off and on intermittently for a few days now. Karma’s a bitch.
-T
@victor0982
I’m brazilian too, and your engrish is bad even for me
it’s because of stuff like that people believe that we live in forests and harvest bananas
get a better translator…
Now about the topic…
well… I got a new fangame under my sleeves, and this kind of thing worries me. I’ve always perceived fangemes as our community’s ‘dark side’, and this kind of exposition threatens our freedom to create and share our visions of what sonic could be.
Nice approach to the news, Tristan. As always…
Great.
Just what we needed. Some oldie fanboy writing up a article on a FANGAME and making the dreaded comparison between the games and the official game, most likely having another flame war between the oldie whiners and the Sega worshipers.
(While the rest have to wait on the sidelines and get their hopes crushed)
If I were Sega, I would -pretend- to cancel Sonic 4 and watch and laugh as the fannies pee their pants.
@Micheche Exactly. These retro fags are even lucky Sega is making Sonic 4, regardless of whether or not Sonic has black eyes. To those who say “it’s not about being thankful”, you’re just being selfish. I bet if Sega dropped Sonic 4 in its entirety, you’d be throwing a fit. Sonic 4 looks good, Sonic Colors looks great, end of story.
@Amuro Yeah we should be happy to receive Sega’s latest unpolished cynically designed and marketed Sonic title simply because of it’s name!
The eye bullshit is such a strawman, that’s not the problem we have with it stop avoiding the obvious glaring gameplay problems. No end of story here, cliche lines like that don’t work in the real world and Internet warriors need to stop acting like they can end constructive criticism once and for all.
The community is going to do Sega’s job better in the coming weeks as they tear this game apart and try their damnedest to fix
hy lucas
sorry but i use the google tradutor .. I have difficulty to learn english !
but I can dismantle and re-assemble an airplane in one day =)
(Useless courses I have done throughout life, and worse and I am approved and in the end I do not I exercise the profession rss)
sonic retro is back online =) maybe is one temporary dns problem =)
Oh wow. My comment got mentioned in this article. I didn’t expect that. >_> It would be a very odd move if Sega did a complete reversal on their stance of Sonic fangames. When Sega’s Sonic City Blognik talked that popular Mushroom Hill video, they said “Sadly for some of you the video is indeed that, a rendered fan video animated over the top of the original game footage, no not even a fangame I’m afraid.” http://blogs.sega.com/sonic/2010/08/25/that-mushroom-hill-video/ Then later in the article, the promoted SAGE. Unless sites as significant as IGN start making a big deal about the fact this fangame looks better than Sonic 4 and Sega views it as a major threat to Sonic 4′s success, there’s no way in hell Sega will shut down this fangame project. Doing so would be horrible PR, especially considering how hard they have tried to involve themselves in the Sonic community this year.
The problem is far more likely to be that Sonic 4 is also on Wiiware, theres no way they can get all the detail into a 40MB imposed limit, though, it is also granted that had a developer other than Dimps made the game, it would of looked better. Dimps’ Street Fighter 4 still looks like a poor cousin of most 360 and PS3 titles.
@Doctor
Actually… It’s because of the iPhone. If the game’s gonna be accessible on the iPhone, there’s no way Sonic 4 can look like those full 3D fan games because it wouldn’t be able to support it.
Also, is anyone else sick of the comparisons? Because I sure am.
I really don’t think Sega would be so harsh and go so far as to make it curtain call for Sonic Fan Remix; it would only serve to prove everyone who has compared this game to sonic 4 (including myself) and made it look bad. I mean, I shake my head at Sega many times, but I don’t think they’re that dumb–at least not dumb enough to pull the plug without knowing the ramifications–what they’ll look like.
I think Sega will just adopt a silent confidence about all of this–ie ignore the fan game (or a blind confidence, whatever boat you’re in)–and release Sonic 4 as the great long awaited sequel, as they planned.
@Dr.Eggfang I’m not saying the game should be a piece of shit, buttmunch. Obviously Sega’s going to work out the problems in EPISODE 1, and if there are major flaws in EPISODE 1, then they’ll try to correct it in EPISODE FUCKING 2. It’s episodic, fuckface.