Unexpected turn from a company known for supporting fan projects
Regardless of Sega’s more recent involvements with the community, the company seems to be generally favorable towards fan projects. Sites like Sonic Fan Games HQ have existed for over a decade without any problems from the parent company, and even if the website somehow managed to fly under their radar, it became clear that Sega was aware of what was going on after Community Manager Aaron Webber was featured as a special guest at the 2010 Sonic Amateur Games Expo. It would seem that Sega is on amicable terms with fan projects based on their properties.
That relationship is being cast in to doubt today as word slowly spreads across the internet that Sega has ordered Bombergames to remove the download for “Streets of Rage Remake“, which saw its fifth and final release earlier this week. Streets of Rage Remake represents a massive undertaking for Bombergames, who first began working on the project in 2003. The goal of the project was to create a seamless narrative between all three Streets of Rage games, and SORR V5 contained over 100 total levels based on every known version of Streets of Rage. The game also featured a number of enhancements, including 83 remixed and remastered music tracks, 19 playable characters, and 64 different types of enemies.
According to the official Streets of Rage Remake FAQ, Sega had been made aware of the project’s intended goal and apparently found no problem with it. Why they’re forcing the game to be taken offline at this point in time is currently unknown – though it could have serious ramifications towards the status of fan projects within the Sega community. One point of contention may be that the vast majority of Streets of Rage Remake is, in fact, content ported from existing Streets of Rage games. Generally, the majority of fan projects attempt to create their own unique content within the boundaries of the game they’re trying to replicate, and while Streets of Rage Remake does contain some new content, a considerable percentage of it was ported from the original Genesis games. In turn, offering that sort of content up for free in Remake would have a detrimental impact on future sales for any re-releases of Streets of Rage.
In short, this may mean that projects like Retro Sonic Nexus are safe for the time being – but puts something like Sonic 2 HD in a very precarious position. The fact of the matter is, Sega is within their legal rights to terminate any and all unofficial uses of their characters – everything from fan art to fan fiction and fan games are all technically copyright infringement by the letter of the law. What matters is whether or not a company like Sega chooses to prosecute, and most fan projects are allowed to exist solely because the copyright owners turn a blind eye. It’s difficult to know for sure if (and where) the line in the sand is drawn regarding “acceptable fan project” versus “unacceptable fan project”. So far, only Microsoft has addressed the issue by publicly authorizing non-commercial distribution of Halo fan projects back in 2007.
Should Streets of Rage Remake find its way back online in an official capacity, we’ll let you know.
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I for one don’t think Sonic 2 HD is going to get the axe next. Aaron is a member over on the Sonic Retro forums and he knew about Sonic 2 HD since the very beginning of the site. Knowing Sega, they wouldn’t take it down based on the fact that Sega knows about the game and that it’s just a remake of the original Sega Genesis game made into 1080p HD instead of an entirely new game like with the Streets of Rage fangame that got taken down.
I’m glad I already grabbed my copy and sunk some time into it. Streets of Rage Remake is very fun, very good, and very retro. Its a shame Sega would pull this, especially since they’ve shown NO interest in making a new Streets of Rage game in almost 20 years.
Imma go look for this now. Not because they took it down & I wanna defy ‘the man’, but because it sounds awesome. It was on the ‘net at one point, I’m sure I can find it.
Since sonic colors, Sega is a right company.
Serious shit needs to be raised about this now, whoever ordered this thinks that the community for SoR Is small enough that they won’t be able to launch a vocal outcry against this, if they tried this with say Sonic 2 HD it would be like poking a vicous sleeping dog.
Really bad move on Sega´s side. Specially when they are the ones that aren´t going to make another Streets of Rage game anytime soon.
There´s already plenty of fangames that include original levels from the original games. The only reason they have taken this down is because it´s better than anything from the saga that Sega has released, it has more content than Sega could make in with the times they use to new games, etc.
I´m sure that if there was a fangame with all Sonic, Sonic 2, Sonic 3, Sonic & Knuckles and Sonic CD levels, plus new levels, plus many characters, plus even more content, Sega would take it down too. Let´s be honest, there´s many good Sonic fangames out there, but there aren´t fangames that have all Sonic games into it AND have a lot of new content that looks official too.
Well, Tristen, you probably shouldn’t neglect Valve, which not only allows hacks of their games, but sometimes provides aid to the hackers, and posts their various hacks on Steam for free download. (Sometimes they even pay the hacker for the hack, and then make it official).
In light of this, it does perplex me why a project like Streets of Rage gets suppressed, while projects Sonic Fan Remix, which also re-creates classic Sonic levels and has tons more attention on it, get a free pass. Even for Sonic 2 HD to stand, which will directly copy that game’s format to my knowledge, is surprising given how often the original Sonic 2 is re-released.
I think either one of those need to be watched if they are ever fully completed. Part of me wonders if Sega will be going the Nintendo route forward with fan works. Another part of me wonders if Sega is too afraid of community backlash to touch Sonic fan projects.
-T
Fan Remix is only a few levels and from what it sounds like this Streets of Rage Fan Game had been going on for years. Maybe Sega’s strategy is to not take action unless a project gets to a reasonably complete stage and is of high quality. It makes sense, in that fan games are rarely finished and Sega doesn’t need the bad press of shutting us all down. They can instead just wait to see if anything becomes of the fan game.
Overbound: Then what do we make of fairly completed projects like Sonic Classic, then?
-T
Wait, wait, wait.
This is all 3 Streets of Rage games available to download for free?
Gee. I. Wonder. Why. Sega. Took. It. Down.
SEGA have not made a new Streets Of Rage In twenty Years 2 bloody 0 there is a way to satisfy both sides it involves two steps 1. sega buy’s the project 2. sega puts it onto the xblx,psn and wiiware et voila instant happiness no one misses out
@SpeedingHedgehog
A mod for Half-Life isn’t a hack. Valve provides specific developer tools to the community to create their own maps, stories, and gameplay from their games, because they’re designed to be modular like that. Think of what Valve does as being like a really, really, really advanced level editor.
While Sonic Classic was is an awesome fan game it is made in Multimedia Fusion and suffers from some bugs so perhaps Sega doesn’t see that as a threat. This SOR game looks to be at a professional level almost.
Sega just mad cause they hating.lol The game is awesome. Good thing i got it.
I didnt like Sega much cause cancel SoR4…hmph.
Just beat the game for the third time LoL. Pandora’s box is open, and this game is great. Grab a copy if you can!
When this sort of thing happens it usually means SEGA have probably got a similar idea up its sleeve. I shall now expect a really cruddy version of STREETS OF RAGE enhance ports for something in the near future.
Its a shame. Hopefully its download will be floating about so I can nab it before it turns to du…. actually nothing turns to dust on the web.
(EDIT / Sensitivity Rule – We can’t have Sega suing us too! -T)
Sega, you can suck my fucking penis!
D**k move, SEGA, d**k move.
Glad I found it before this idiocy occurred.
It’s on The Pirate Bay, if Torrents float your boat…
If they took down S2HD I’d never buy off them again, I’m sure there are a lot of other people like this too, maybe that’s why they’re not.
It’s a shame sega have taken this down now, as has been said, it’s not like they are going to be making another SOR game anytime soon. However the game is out there now and if people want to find it they will. I am sure Sonic2HD will be fine.
Sonic 2 HD, like Earthworm Jim HD are PRIME EXAMPLES of how our old favourites should be re-released. Same great game, same gameplay mechanics, same controls, etc. just gratuitously upgrade visuals and sound. I’m sick of these “Mega Drive Classics” releases which just feature a handful of ROM’s on a disk to run on a given system. The PS3 one boasts HD graphics but it’s just an interpolation smoothing effect which is anything but HD. It’s cheap to do though and they make money off it. Earthworm HD on the PS Store kicked me in the face, I thought “FINALLY, somebody is onto a winner!” but I’ve not seen any other remastered games. If Sega are to do anything about Sonic 2 HD, they need to support it and find a way to port it faithfully to PS3 and/or XBOX as well it’s native PC version. I WOULD BUY IT. I would most definitely buy S3&K in HD. No question!