Sympathy for the PR man

I'm a fan of many things on Facebook.
Things such as toast, the tv show Daria, clunge, not being on fire and Mr T. And adding Sega to that list made sense at the time.. But [insert dramatic music here] little did I know that it would inflict a realm of gibbering fandom upon me that I've done my best to ignore for the better part of a decade...

The Sega fan.


I adored Sega during my youth and most of my fondest gaming memories are from my time with my Saturn and Dreamcast. But those days are long past. Today I generally view Sega in much the same way an aging 80s rock superstar regards groupies and drugs; they're nowhere near as fun or as attractive as they used to be and any attempt to immerse oneself in that world again will only end in pain, awkwardness and a crippling sense of embarrassment.

Unfortunately, instead of grieving and moving on, a surprising number of people on this Facebook group are still deeply in denial about the death of the Sega of old and the express their necrophiliac love by spamming the hell out of every press release some poor PR goon pastes into their fanpage.


And this would be as easy to ignore as the average IQ-sapping youtube comment if it wasn't for the fact that someone at Sega responds to far more of these keyboard dribblings than any sane person should.

Here are a few choice examples...

In response to a post about (the fun looking) Bayonetta winning an E3 award from 1up:

• Chris at 13:36 on 11 June:

People don't expect mass produced, low depth games from Sega.
They expect art from Sega. Leave all that shallow garbage to Sony and Nintendo.
There are a myriad of games you could be renewing, such as the Ecco series. A new gen Ecco the dolphin would be a visual feast.

Wow.
What do people expect from sega these days? Many more Sonic Tie-ins? The occasional surprise gem like Yakuza or Virtua fighter 5? A fuck-ton of heart-breakingly disappointing sequels to classic games (NiGHTS, PSO, Shining Force, Sega Rally, Golden Axe and so on and so forth) perhaps...

But I think "art" is pretty low down on the list for most.
If you want art in your games I fully endorse LittleBigPlanet, Noby Noby Boy or the upcoming The Last Guardian.... All brought to you by those purveyors of "shallow garbage", Sony.
(Hoho, I'm the lord of irony.)

Unlike my bitchy and confused ramblings, Sega's response was clear, calm, warns against looking only into the past and even points out that Sony and Nintendo happen to make some damn fine games occasionally. *Wipes away a tear* Beautiful. Next comment:

• A different Chris at 14:27 on 11 June

needs moar streets if rage

Okay, even the nice man at Sega chose to ignore this one.
But I felt it had to be immortalised here because "Streets if rage" sounds like the title of a gritty avaunt garde french movie rather than a mindless brawler with an awesome soundtrack .


The champions at sega HQ even take on the most difficult job in gaming; defending the recent sonic games from cutting attacks such as this:

• Not a Chris at all at 14:14 on 11 June

WHy can't you just, y'no, invest moar resources into making a Sonic game that is not so muc based on gimmicks, and side things like asofrecent, but more on a long level, that is primarily based on speed and finnese in how you go about things in a 3 dimensional environment. that would bring up Sonic again, not sporty spinoffs like this and the racing game.


It's hard to tell if I agree with this guy or not. He could be dyslexic (in which case I'll feel rather guilty) or he could just be that passionate about the future of Sonic the hedgehog that he has no goddamn time for spell checking.

Whatever he may've said, Sega understands and responds:

• Sega at 14:35 on 11 June

Well clearly, there's a large fanbase who wants new Sonic games to be like the old, but we're also looking for ways to innovate the character with new platforms so it satisfies established fans and new audiences alike. It's not always easy to keep both happy!


Someone get this PR/community person to the middle east stat,
with this sort of diplomatic flair, the conflict will be over in hours.


My recommendation for people wanting a fresh take on the classic Sonic games is to play through the GBA and DS games, they're pretty much all great (although I must warn you that the newest one, Sonic Rush: adventure strays dangerously close to the talky talky world map bullshit that's cursed all other sonic games in the 21st century)

and to those of you wondering why (what's left of) Sonic Team can't just take the classic gameplay style from the DS games and give it a HD sheen?

It's obvious.
It's the same reason we haven't seen new, high definition, side-scrolling versions of Megaman or Castlevania... Japanese developers clearly hate you and your filthy western money.


But Sega's PR don't hate you, they love you and understand you and will look after you for ever and ever and ever and ever and ever.

I'm not mocking the current campaigns to bring Virtua Fight 5:R and yakuza 3 to western homes because I really want those games too, Yes I'm a hypocrite fuck you.