![Silence Broken UPDATE: the highlight list from Sonic Stadium has been removed due to concern of lack of context. For four months there has been no official word on anything […]](http://www.tssznews.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/sonic_boom_game_tv_header-620x250.jpg "Stephen Frost Speaks Up On State Of Sonic Boom (UPDATE)")
Silence Broken
UPDATE: the highlight list from Sonic Stadium has been removed due to concern of lack of context.
For four months there has been no official word on anything related to the Sonic Boom games from SEGA. That has now changed. Not only has it changed but the silence has been broken by Stephen Frost, the producer of those games, via an interview with SEGA Nerds. Along with Sonic Boom other subjects were mentioned such as Stephen’s new YouTube channel, his career at SEGA, his thoughts on Sonic Boom, the SEGA layoffs and more.
The interview can also be seen on YouTube. You can skip to 1:41:30 if you wish to hear just the portion on Boom:
Whatever the intent was one thing is for sure. It came out and is now embedded into the history books of the Sonic franchise. Now it is up to Sonic Team and SEGA to flip the page.
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i lik sonic boom and i always will..but this guy is clearly a idiot..sonic is about speed..
there are issues with sonic boom and there are ways it could eb done better (one way i would do have all the charicter play differently to. have sonic do low damage but he moves and attacks fast. knuckles is the slowest but can do more damage to other enemys)
“there are issues with sonic boom”
There are issues with your grammar and spelling as well, sir.
Oh, there are maaaany ways Sonic Boom could be better, mah boi.
Hmm… the comments here are milder than I expected…
Disclaimer: I’ve not watched/listened to the interview yet
This is delightful. Wonderfully so. Every bad thing I thought about Sega and their treatment of the Sonic franchise has been confirmed by this interview.
To sum it up nicely: Sega doesn’t give a shit about Sonic. Neither does Stephen Frost or anyone who was working on Sonic Boom. He’s just a name to be prostituted however Sega sees fit.
Ugh… I’m sorry, has this guy seen the reception this game got online? At all? He just sounds so out of touch. Eugh.
Reading the transcript… it’s odd.
Debatable, based on the evidence of the last five years or so.
Er, no; with the correct support from Sonic Team, a basic speed-based title would have been very achievable.
Conveniently forgetting the whole ‘removing the speed’ thing…
Really? Who on Avalice was he talking to‽
This is the problem so often; the people making the games are just so out of touch with the people playing the games…
Amen to that!
Well given the previous 18 years, I’d say they are credible and probably know better than anyone else, regardless of what happened the past yea–WAIT A MINUTE! Last 5 years? Aside from Lost World being a creative risk that people weren’t ready for and Boom’s boom, the last 5 years have been pretty good for Sonic. Sonic 4 did will and it only got complaints later cuz of physics and supposedly rehashing stuff. Sonic 4 ep 2 got lower reviews but fans liked it a lot more. Sonic Generations was pretty badass. Colors was seen as practically flawless when it was out. While Unleashed is like Lost World, up for debate due to being so different and preference heavy, it WAS a massive step up from 06’s disaster, which were mostly technical. Before that we had Shadow The Hedgehog which was the first time I’d heard anyone really start complaining about Sonic. Of course the game is now also praised alongside Heroes. And the Adventure series is up on the same pillar as the classics by now. So the only times Sonic really SUCKED was around 10 years ago for roughly 3 or so years. It was slightly mediocre or decent around the edges of those time but Sonic’s mostly been seen positively. The weak points are that 06 mini-era and the mini-era between classic and Adventure and the mini-era that I guess would be now? It seems that Sonic dips when leaving eras but shines when starting a new one. xD That’s the pattern I’ve seen.
Also, are you a game developer? I think I get what he means.
He didn’t conveniently forget the speed thing. He already said it. Heck, he just said a version of that, referring to an alternative version of what Sonic is. This includes the speed. (That and a game can be good without being fast. That’s how all other non-Sonic games do it.)
To be fair, I think it was a misinterpretation revolving around the arguments that Sonic isn’t just about speed and all the fans pushing for less speed, less boosts and more platform heavy Sonic games. Hence Sonic Colors and Lost World. Sorta like how fans asked to get rid of all of Sonic’s stupid friends and so they interpreted it as the friends only being able to shine if they stayed on the sidelines. But this is just gonna make Sonic games repetitive. xP
As much as I dislike agreeing with 100rings and predaking on stuff. I have to admit, Stephen frost knows jack squat about sonic games. Online multiplayer co-op is not a good avenue for sonic whatsoever.
I really now think sonic is in better hands with fans than sega.
Actually, online co-op is a great way to increase replayabiltiy. Just look at the current app-scape where tens if not hundreds of millions of people play online daily and many of them play in multiplayer settings. Co-op has huge potential IF done right.
depending on the fan, classic fanboys only care about their own needs above anyone elses. and they can’t really make a better game at all.
Way to single out one section with zero basis. You can easily say the same about any other section of Sonic fans.
^^^@dj.g./thefr0zenanus
Wow, they really thought speed was the last thing people wanted in a Sonic game?
I’m just gonna throw in a SomecallmeJohnny quote from his Sonic Boom review.
“…if I’m playing what’s being sold to me as a Sonic game, spinoff or otherwise, without the ability to go fast when I desire, then what’s the fucking point of playing a Sonic game?! Like it or not, speed was always a selling factor for Sonic. Not necessarily the main focus, but an element that separated Sonic from the rest of the crowd. Without that, you have effectively turned Sonic into the very thing he mocked in his inception: a run-of-the-mill platforming game.”
Amen to that.
I will say this. I bet a Sanic game would sell more than a Sonic Boom game at this point, considering how many retweets this got. Yes, in only a day:
https://twitter.com/SSF1991/status/577859786127081472
Seriously, though, there were some things in the conversation that I have to beg to differ on. Yes, I disagreed with what Stephen Frost had to say. I just did not like the twisted, rude approach people have been taking here.
1. Speed was a turn-off to individuals in their test groups.
I know people who fit into this category, about 10 or so, but you know what? They make up a very, very, very small factor of the gaming world where a most of these select individuals have problems with video games in general and cannot even hold their own in a simple Mario game. Suffice it to say, they hardly play games ever and aren’t likely to buy a new system until it is near end-of-life, the very last kind of people you would imagine going out to buy an unpopular console like the Wii U.
Common sense would tell us who are active and aware of the gaming community at large that for most people who are actually into gaming, ultra high speeds in Sonic games are not a problem at all and, in fact, are actually the thrill and feels they are after. If the speeds are too much, people can play as Big or Amy or something. It makes no sense to take away the major selling point of the game when years of well-established statistics and trends say otherwise.
I would wager dollars to donuts that these focus groups were people who do walk-ins at marketing locations to get quick survey cash and who got a couple bucks for trialing the game, viewing gameplay videos, filling out surveys or something to that effect. On the contrary, SEGA should have done surveying within the Sonic online community itself or, if they wanted to get a focus group made up of real gamers, surveying through IGN’s online community where people who actually play games linger.
2. “In Sonic’s case, you have to build, from a square one situation, you have to build so much content and then you have to worry that every inch of that is super high quality. It’s impossible do; I think it’s an insurmountable task to do that.”
As much as I like Stephen Frost for its enthusiasm and drive in relation to the franchise, I was completely taken back by the sentiment in this statement. It is essentially passing the buck and giving the company a free pass for making bad games. In other words, “oh, but it’s too hard.” I understand it is hard to make a good game but look at Sonic Generations or Sonic and All-Stars Racing Transformed. In those games, practically every bit of the pixel-and-poly-scape is fashioned neatly and weaved together such that it is a smooth, logically flowing progression from start to finish while having a fresh blend of dimension and difficulty throughout. You have done it before, so do it again or else expect no one to pay up for your games, plain and simple.
Besides, what about all the flight simulators, racing games, MMORPG’s and hunting games on the market that have literally hundreds of square miles of virtual space to roam and explore that have essentially no errors or bugs to speak of? Those kind of games feature 3D worlds just as large as Sonic’s levels and in some cases you have a much larger window of opportunity to see the errors in those games’ levels since the characters might move magnitudes slower than Sonic does. The problem is focused, regular effort and attention to detail needs to be front and center at all times–one finely crafted level is much better than a hundred levels of Sonic Boom.
Personally, I still think the problem was SEGA was not keeping a close eye on Big Red Button, who, in my opinion, decided to let things slide and do a last-minute, half-baked job since the “cat” was away and they, the mice, could play. Either way, this sort of mentality of “well, Sonic is harder to build for and so we can throw in the towel if things go south” is a brickwall that needs to be cleared from the minds of everyone from top to bottom in the company if there is going to be any chance at all of the franchise succeeding in the future. When something like Freedom Planet is the best “Sonic” game I have seen in years, I know SEGA has lost its touch.
Not gonna lie, I’d buy a Sanic game. Gotta go Fast, son.
Agreed on the other stuff you said, btw. Sega just needs to rethink their approach to well… everything, really. They’re bad at making Sonic games, they’re worse at marketing them, they’re too scared to localize most of their non-Sonic titles because they don’t put enough effort into marketing them, and it wouldn’t surprise me if their employees were treated like animals in a cage at this point. They have no real focus or direction for the Sonic franchise and are just set to keep revamping it to what they think people think is “hip” today, only to not understand their audiences at all and end up failing miserably; all just to make a quick buck, rather than properly thinking things out for the long term. Naka, Oshima, Balough, and Webber were smart, and jumped ship before things got worse.
The last time SEGA actually marketed a Sonic game well was Sonic Heroes. Since then, they have let things just happen since they could ride on hype and it would sell 3 to 5 million copies easily. Gone are the days of Sonic Adventure, Sonic Adventure 2, Sonic Heroes, Sonic ’06 (which sold actually very well), Sonic Unleashed and Sonic Generations when this sort of lackadaisical marketing approach would have actually worked. Instead, SEGA’s home base console of Nintendo is not doing too hot and they decided to paint themselves into a corner with the exclusivity deal to boot–fortunately over, but it was three years wasted. Now that SEGA has a chance to make a good game outside of the Big N, I am not sure a console game would even sell one million copies as a multiplatformer title since Sonic has become the laughing stock of many and the synonym of “disappointment after disappointment” for many fans.
Granted, we have seen SEGA pull off great things. There is the Sonic Unleashed opening CGI sequence that gives me hope for the upcoming movie. There is Sonic Unleashed and Sonic Generations which shows me SEGA can make good console game. There is, on a much smaller scale, Sonic Runners which shows me SEGA can make a fun game for mobile. Even then, that is such a small and simple game that it takes only a small fraction of the effort it would take to make a decent console title. Yet also, striking out twice in a row, from Sonic Lost World to Sonic Boom, doesn’t give me a whole lot of warm fuzzies or over-abiding confidence in them. If they screw up with this, I will be a fan just for the fandom and for their past efforts until further notice.
Sadly, IIRC, the guy who created the Hedgehog Engine, and was running the show at Sonic Team during Unleashed’s development, left to go work for Square Enix a few years back, then Iizuka took over… and well, FWOOSH, BOING, FWOOSH, BOING WISPSWISPSWISPSTERRIBLEJOKESHURR is what mostly happened since. I haven’t been too attached to the fandom from the beginning, so if they screw up the next big one, I’ll just straight up leave and go play better games; like what I’m doing now. It pains me to see a franchise I’ve loved from when I was a kid just keep on declining and not ever really hit its stride and stay on track.
I want to apologize to anyone I may have offended. I understand that this series is filled with childhood memories for each of you but I would hope that other people wouldn’t get hurt in your emotional fallout is all. I think, for now, after all the continual disappointments we have had, it would be best to actively support fan ventures and the cartoon and, in the meantime, let SEGA get a grip on reality and finally come to their senses that they are dreadfully mistaken in their approach. Honestly, I want to be excited for the potential Sonic movie and likely accompanying game next year, but SEGA has shown that when either they themselves are making a Sonic game or they are supervising a third-party Sonic game, it goes terribly wrong. The live action aspect especially scares me, especially with the Eddie Lebron monstrosity–no offense to the maker, but that CGI makes me nauseous–that we got only a year or so ago. Sonic Runners is great, but I want much more than apps for my lifetime. Heck, even a Sonic 3 & Knuckles re-release would be better than nothing, but what I am really itching for is good quality new content.
A team of Sonic fan developers, no less, brought us Freedom Planet and gave us a Sonic-SatAM-video-game-by-any-other-name, a game just as sweet as Sonic’s heyday, to say the least. Could it be because of the cancer of corruption that most corporations suffer from when they get so big that they trade in their passion in their product and their artistic fervor in exchange for selling by brand image alone and over-inflated hype to fill their pockets? I honestly don’t know if SEGA is in it for the game anymore and if they are just interested in cashing in on things as quickly and conveniently as they can. It makes me really sad to think that Sonic Lost World and Sonic Boom is what many young kids have to think of Sonic right now and that is practically it. Sonic used to be a game first and I would like to see a return to that mentality where gameplay truly gives the player an experience that he or she can pleasingly look back on and want to relive in his or her dreams and imagination. I do not know if that is possible or if SEGA is in an ethical or emotional state to give people a game like that again, but if someone is SEGA can reach deep down and start getting the company moving again in the right direction, by all means, give it all you got. Right now, all we are doing is either going nowhere or taking huge steps backwards so your efforts would be greatly appreciated.
Basically, this is what my Sonic-style gaming has amounted to lately, and it is incredible:
…pretty much.
@Sonaco
They have Sonic Boom shirts at Jc penny. I see the comics widely up for grabs at my local comic shop and barnes and noble. I disagree with your statement about how well known it is. Sonic will always sell merch even when his games bomb.
Jcpenny is alright but Macy’s, Bloomingdale, Nordstrom is better,