Constructive criticism on the internet is a wonderful thing for video games.
It allows hard working SEGA staff such as Ken Balough to browse forums and social networking sites, forwarding the feedback notes of countless gamers to Sonic Team.
Voicing your opinion on the SEGA forums for example, almost guarantees that your feedback will be heard. The important keyword being ”heard”…
Sonic Team are not obligated to act on your feedback. It’s their game, their vision…
… And yes… assuming that time and budget is available, it’s likely that majority-voiced feedback will be acted upon. Afterall, Sonic Team wants fans to enjoy their games and come back for more.
But that doesn’t mean they are going to cater to your every whim!
It seems a handful of SEGA forum members have taken upon themselves a new level of self-inflated importance suggesting that they are somehow the voice of every ”classic” fan of the Mega Drive games.
Dare anyone say they like a modern game more as that would mean they have ”low standards” or are hurting the ”classic agenda” to restore Sonic to his former glory.
As I said… constructive criticism is good but not when it’s the same group of people literally battering it into every single thread with attempts to guilt trip others into boycotting the game… urgh. It’s scaring people off!
Wanna know what my message to those people is?
Stop acting like you are self-entitled to Sonic 4 because you determined 15+ years ago that the sequel to Sonic 3 & Knuckles should be a certain way. Some of us ”classic” fans are looking forward to Episode 2 and don’t appreciate being roped in with you.
You will get to try the game out like everyone else when the time comes… before you decide on a purchase! If you don’t like it, don’t buy it, if you like it, buy it, either way… forward your feedback to Ken.
I honestly don’t see what the problem is… just wait to play the bloody game. Does anyone else feel this way? Feel I’m being too hard on those criticising? Should they be allowed to turn every thread into a negativity fest? Let me know in the comments below…
Posted by MrFranklin on Mar 18, 2012
Tags: criticism, feedback, Ken Balough, SEGA, sonic 4 episode 2, Sonic Team
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Haven’t kept up with SEGA Forums much lately, so I’ve never seen any of this, but if it’s as bad as you say this seems appropriate. Good wording, Franklin.
And yes, people. Sonic Team is not your game-making pet team who does however you please. If it was always following the fans every whim do you know what would happen to this series?
Bad, bad things.
I can say that I do, I always think that criticism is too much when it just comes off as extremely arrogant or pure hatred. You can agree with a person to an extent but when you just get that feeling that it’s nothing but hatred that won’t help another person sometimes you can help but to feel annoyed.
What really bad, as you mentioned about people who feel they know everything just because of what they feel a Sonic 4 would be over 15 years ago are what I’ve come to learn as people with “superiority complex”. People that think they know everything and in their own defense in their mind block out everything that they know is wrong in order to remain right.
I’ll quote one person on this because of how the statement is and how I feel is completely true:
“There’s a fine line between criticism and bashing; don’t cross it.”
that they think is wrong*
I’m glad you agree lads. Yeah there seems to be something of an unofficial Team Classic forming on the SEGA forums who go around beating threads into the ground with excessive negativity.
I’d like to support and understand their views but they are taking it too far. It seems whenever the PR team are away on business, it really gets bad, then they return, Ken posts in a few threads and it settles down somewhat.
I agree with everything you said, I’m so tired of this crap happening on the SEGA Forums lately. -______-
This is not a very constructive article.
Much like your reply then.
That is not my task sir, it is yours. I may have agreed with you if it were more constructive, but it sounds more like whining about complainers instead of giving solid and legitimate reasons why one should stop complaining. In other words, the article is redundant because there is no reason to stop. I’d say it’s good to either ask SEGA to stop using Sonic 4 as a marketing scheme and they move away from it completely. What is done is done, no need to make the damage any greater like episode 2 has done thus far (worse reviews and even more flack IE). That is in my opinion not a great achievement from episode 1. Think about it though, as a fan you should want the best for your franchise, what I see instead here is just blind fanboyism defending.
I’d say critisism is never enough in the case of sonic 4. If episode 2 really redeemed everything, i’d stand behind you. That is not the case however, and you know it.
Stand on your principles instead of selling your soul Frank. Don’t ever fool or lie to yourself. Stand strong and eventually your principles will win. You should experience this in everydays life.
I feel that you missed the point of my article. I am all for criticism. But I’ve seen people coming into threads and outright accusing others of being part of the problem because they bought the game or insulting people who participated in the True Blue event. It has become less about criticism and more about moaning at the PR, moaning at people for buying the game. I take issue with this and this alone. People that have long since said their peace feel the need to jump on every thread and beat others over the head with the opinion that they should dislike the game until it actually scares people away from the forum. And that is where I feel criticism goes from criticism to passive bullying of members of the forum.
Those are my principles and I am standing on them.
In other words, I’m not defending the game I enjoyed. I’m defending the people who enjoyed it.
I liken it to this. I dislike smoking but I would not walk up to a smoker and get in his face and start lecturing him for 2 hours straight about why he should stop smoking. It is his choice whether he smokes or not. Just like it is each individuals choice whether they buy the game or not. Whether they like it or not.
If someone tries to discuss anything positive that they enjoyed about the game, you get 2 hour long lectures from the same ring of people until the thread is exhausted.
The reality is, all feedback, negative and positive should be organised into a proper forum section where it will actually get read but unfortunately that doesn’t happen. People just rip each other apart for hours on end in every thread.