Sonic Retro expands fangame support

Now in separate subforum, and that’s not all

For a considerable length of time, Sonic Retro‘s forums were divided up in to four categories: Official Sonic Discussion for official Sega products, Engineering and Reverse Engineering for ROM hacks, Community Projects housing subforums for Sonic 2 HD and Gens/GS, and the Archives, where the most important threads from the other three forums go when they no longer support active discussion. Late last week that changed, when Sonic Retro quietly split fangaming discussion off in to its own category just below Engineering and Reverse Engineering. Despite the relative lack of fanfare on their part, this marks a significantly larger move t o broaden Sonic Retro’s horizons, as explained by a front page post on Sonic Fangames HQ from admin Smidge204:

Retro decided they wanted to expand into fangaming. Since it’s pretty obvious that doing so would effectively be the death knell of SFGHQ as a community, and since Retro is not run by a bunch of assholes, they decided to talk to SFGHQ staff about it first.

Retro will open up their own fangaming subforum(s). It’s not like I could stop them even if I wanted to – which I don’t, because ultimately they have the active user base necessary to maintain such a thing. I wish them well. In fact for the sake of keeping the fangaming scene moving, I actively encourage others to go there.

Both SFGHQ and SAGE remain under my care, administratively. I will continue my loose and carefree style of stewardship over the domains and the SAGE event.

tl:dr; Nothing will change except the forum might get even less busy and SAGE will have a “Sonic Retro” logo added to it.

Despite any implications on Smidge’s part that this decision was forced upon him, speaking with Sonic Fangames HQ figurehead PerfectChaosZero, he re-assures users:

[PerfectChaosZero] Retro, has a demand amongst their community for a fan gaming division
[PerfectChaosZero] They have FOR SOME TIME

[PerfectChaosZero] Now because of this demand, retro has been under pressure to make their own fan game sorta division
[PerfectChaosZero] but they were hella cool and like, “yo, isn’t this going to kind of hurt SFGHQ”
[PerfectChaosZero] So they came and talked to us

[PerfectChaosZero] Once me and Smidge learned of what’s really going on
[PerfectChaosZero] We took charge of the situation and talked to the officials at Retro
[PerfectChaosZero] We heard out their proprosal and quite frankly, we’re going over the details still but here’s how it is
[PerfectChaosZero] SFGHQ is still it’s own like thing
[PerfectChaosZero] SFGHQ is still SFGHQ, SAGE is still SFGHQ’s, etc
[PerfectChaosZero] As far as the Retro’s Fan Gaming bit
[PerfectChaosZero] That’s IN PARTNERSHIP
[PerfectChaosZero] With SFGHQ
[PerfectChaosZero] We’re helping them do their own thing and in exchange, their helping us do ours
[PerfectChaosZero] SFGHQ is branching out to other communities, which HAPPEN TO INCLUDE retro and what other communities we might be branching out/cooperating with in the future is merely speculative at the moment but expect other shit in the future
[PerfectChaosZero] Retro is not TAKING OVER SFGHQ
[PerfectChaosZero] or any CRAZY shit like that

[PerfectChaosZero] To make a point
[PerfectChaosZero] SFGHQ’s community was slowing down
[PerfectChaosZero] it was kinda getting stagnant over there
[PerfectChaosZero] the intention of partnering with Retro was a GREAT opporunity for both of us
[PerfectChaosZero] SFGHQ activity has picked up as a result of Retro input

It does, in a way, make sense. Engineering & Reverse Engineering was created as a place for Retro members to discuss not just the creation of new Sonic ROM hacks, but new techniques related to hacking. Fangaming, though technically a type of reverse engineering, does not exactly fit with the concept of hacking, and with Retro-born fangames like Sonic 2 HD, Sonic Classic, and Sonic Fan Remix gaining considerable notoriety, it makes sense to give them more room to grow and blossom without worrying about suffocating one of Sonic Retro’s core community interests. How this will effect SFGHQ in the long term remains to be seen, though it is worth mentioning that SFGHQ has outlasted more than one competing Sonic fangaming resource (including the once-important SonicHQ.com).

Should anything significant happen to SFGHQ or Sonic Retro, we’ll be sure to let you know.