To be honest (and this is on a personal note) the reaction of the fanbase to Project Needlemouse worries me. I’ll try and keep this as short as possible.

Be ye warned, this is a rant, if ye don’t like reading, or simply reading people’s venting, pass on!

This is the game that SEGA are aiming at the fans, to a certain degree anyway, but the fanbase are so conflicted in the first place that, even with what little info we know, there are people flaming SEGA for being… to put it politely selfish gits although I’ll be damned if I’ll ever see those words used rather than the usual slur of slang, others blaming the fanbase (other factions other than themselves) due to their ability to “influence” SEGA to bad choices and other parts of the fanbase blaming again the fanbase and SEGA for not doing enough for them.

No-where at all have I seen people being considerate to either SEGA (for whatever role they play in what you want) or the Fanbase for actually going along with what I can only put as a dead goose chase to what is essentially obvious information just to please those who are constantly making idiotic demands.

I suppose tis asking too much since by nature the human race is selfish, but for pete’s sakes, I really wish people would get a grip. Tis a game, nothing more, if it means that much to you, you would go out and either make your own (which many people do) or go find a job in the industry and make your way there to a point where you can make a difference. If you can’t be arsed to do either then why complain, you are being offered a service, you don’t have to take it.

I still hold on to two things:
1) if you make your perfect game, your the only one going to be buying it, that includes you perfect Sonic game. While yes you are usually taught to treat the average consumer like a blithering idiot behind their back (you are taught this in almost any business or marketing course) they still all have different tastes and you somehow have to pander to them all.

2) Project Needlemouse is probably the worst idea to have come out of Sonic Team for a long time. From where I sit, their pandering to the fans is what has not only restricted sales to a certain extent, but also made games less enjoyable in the series. The best example I can think of is Sonic and the Black Knight; the core gameplay was aimed at the majority Wii audience, making the game fairly easy to complete with rather wishy washy controls for the folks who simply buy it as a party/drinking favour, but then there was so much focus on fan referencing, pleasing and homages it alienated and punshied non fans, but the gameplay itself was too simple, easy and obviously not the type of game that specific fan-bases wanted that they couldn’t play it either.

I’m not saying I can fix the Sonic series, far from. However I do think the franchise is suffering and both SEGA/Sonic Team and the Fanbase itself are to blame. Developers are to blame for both trying to pander to an audience they can not please (ever!) and tbh just not having enough direction for the series as a whole. On the other hand the fanbase is just as much to blame by demanding (and it is demanding) that SEGA pander to their will and do things that they don’t actually understand themselves and also for not taking into consideration that they aren’t the centre of the world (although I guess majority think they are).

Anyway rant over… comics and stuff’ll come when I can get back into a groove, in an art funk atm.