Sooo..I've been working on my own little YouTube campaign as well, mainly playthroughs of the 3 games already released (alongside Extra video's detailing better all the differences and goodies within) and supplemental material between each game, however, since checking here again, it seems the campaign is basically on hiatus, so, would it be frowned upon if I still uploaded said video's as a part of the campaign, or should I just hold off until further notice?
Your Youtube videos sound interesting! However, it's probably best to hold off until Stealth gives the go ahead, as we wouldn't want to interfere with anything.
Alrighty, I'll hold off on releasing everything then until everything's gravy, should allow me enough time to ensure the utmost quality (and censoring, in the event I curse, lol).
Well, might as well, since someone already brought it up (elsewhere) in relation to some of my recent posts The situation that I mentioned a while ago has, for all practical purpose, found resolution. Ultimately, to my knowledge, nothing has changed that concerns moving this campaign forward. I'm still not able to discuss it but I wish it had turned out differently. I apologize for this waste of time To clarify, nothing that occurred was in regard to Sonic 3's legal status or the approval of this project. To my knowledge, both are the same as when we started That said, I've made a few comments on this in my most recent blog post Again, I'm all for getting the project approved; as it stands, I would do it if I weren't already otherwise occupied when the opportunity finally arose. I'm also not opposed to joining more awareness events and such Good luck with whatever you decide to do. Just, please, from now on, try very hard not to leave people with the impression that Taxman and I created the petition or the campaign in general. I've had to clean a lot of that up and I haven't always been successful. People have accused us of "begging SEGA for a job", whereas Taxman prefers to remain silent, and as for myself, I'm just joining the ruckus because "why not?". I've got other stuff to do if they don't want me; I just also wanted to continue with Sonic in an official capacity At least there's still Megamix at some point in the future. One day, the totality of the time I'm allowed to dedicate to it will add up to completion, presumably
Welp, that's pretty heartbreaking. There goes the last visage of hope this franchise had fostered between 2011 and 2014. There is literally nothing Sonic related to be excited about coming from Sega at this point. Wish you luck in your pursuits, Stealth.
Thanks for the update Stealth. It was good of you to return here and let us know. Your efforts are appreciated. As for the campaign we tried and united as a community to do so. We did everything we possibly could. Failure was always a possibility and we should be glad that we at least did something to try and make this happen. Yes the outcome wasn't the one we wanted but it was better than doing nothing at all. If anything we did indicate to Sega that there is demand for this so that may end up influencing their decisions in the future. We didn't get an immediate response from them but that doesn't mean we ultimately had zero impact. If Sonic 3 Remastered is ever announced it's highly likely our efforts would have contributed to that decision. To echo TheKazeblade I do agree. There is nothing at the moment as a Sonic fan to get excited about. Sega is due to make some announcements at TGS so hopefully something Sonic related is among them. Also Stealth one thing that came to mind last night; have you thought about a dedicated thread on Sonic Retro to boost your campaign? It's kind of buried here in the Sonic 3 Anniversary thread and I don't think it has enough visibility for members to see it. If you could somehow connect this funding drive to a concentrated and concerted effort to for example increase your efforts on Sonic Megamix due to the new found freedom financial independence will provide I can see many members here being interested in donating to your cause. Personally I'd be interested in donating somewhere in the region of $25 a month if it meant that you'd have more time to work on Megamix. Just something to think about. There are many members on here who have far more financial capability than myself. It might be worth letting them know about your campaign particularly if it means you'd have more time to work on Megamix. If I'm interested as a fan of Megamix then that means others would be too. Maybe post a dedicated thread or even bump the Megamix thread? Good luck either way. Hope your campaign is successful.
Definitely second making your own thread for the Patreon. It's sad to hear this concerning Sonic 3, but I think the most troubling thing is that despite our efforts it seems you were relayed no acknowledgement of the campaign from SEGA. I believe everyone involved with the petition did their best and truly had their heart behind it, but that "mobile-only" shackle fully was a sticking point for a lot of would-be supporters. That baffles me as a minute of reading would have let them know that A: successful mobile versions could pave the way for home releases and more importantly B: with programs such as BlueStacks these titles can be played with a controller. Sadly that message goes beyond the headline of "Sonic 3 Remaster petition" and lost so many people who couldn't spare a click or a few paragraphs of reading. If nothing else, we still have wonderful renditions of Sonic 1, 2, and CD, alongside great results like Sonic 3 Remastered.
Yeah, I think THE primary thing that kept the petition from being more successful was simply SEGA's failure to release 1 and 2 on consoles and PC. The long-time, old-school gamers we needed to make this thing huge tend to be the same people who despise mobile games much more than your average person, and as long as that was the focus, plenty of them just wouldn't care. Add to that the fact that Sega has re-released ports of the Genesis titles over and over and over for years, and it's all the less appealing for the uninformed observer. If you're a casual Sonic fan, why should you care if Sega releases yet another version of Sonic 3 on hardware you'd never play a video game on? I mean, we could try something to at least get 1 and 2 released on Steam, but I think we'd run into some of the same problems. Finally, as Stealth said in his blog post (which you all really should read if you haven't), online petitions are rightly treated without a modicum of respect. The $2.99 letter-writing campaign might have made an impact, or at least gotten a response, if we'd managed it on a similar scale, but it's much, much harder to get people to take action like that.
We knew from the start that the online petition wouldn't be taken seriously, which is why the letter writing campaign was the original method. The online petition was added later and I was hoping it would given the letter writing aspect a boost, but the responses stayed virtually the same. Some of the people signing the petition are weird. I frequently get email asking for a free download link to the game. When I explain the situation and provide a direct link to the petition, they email back complaining that the game won't install. I won't take the campaign down (at least until the domain expires). However, unless there's a credible way of boosting responses to the letter campaign, I probably wont be doing anything more for it, at least in the immediate future. We knew it was a long shot and at least now we can say we tried our hardest. If time allows, I might have another crack at a YouTube video just to give it one last go, but I've got a bit busy with other things, so I don't want to make any promises I can''t keep. If anyone still wants to contribute, feel free to get in touch, and I'll be happy to offer any logos, graphics or anything else you require.
*sigh* Does nobody realise that outside of the hardcore Sonic fanbase, people are barely even aware there is a Sonic 3? The vast majority of people buying these are people with nostalgic memories of the games they played when they were younger. The original Sonic was a big sensation. Sonic 2 was bundled with the system. Everyone with a Mega Drive played these. "Oh, I remember this, I played it as a kid. Yeah, it was alright. Sonic 3? There's a Sonic 3?" The reason a petition for Sonic 3 was always going to fail is the same reason SEGA haven't already released Sonic 3 in some form on mobile, and it's got fuck all to do with the music (that apparently only applies on Thursdays when the moon is waning). People don't give a shit about Sonic 3.
[citation needed] I mean, sure, Sonic 3 & Knuckles sold less than Sonic 1 and 2. Which was likely at least partially because it wasn't bundled with the Mega Drive/Genesis. But that doesn't mean not enough people care for a remaster made by two people to be financially viable.
I see. 50k isn't a lot, in most cases. The reason it's enough for Shenmue III is because a staggering eleven people have backed $10k each, and more than 180 have backed >$1k each. Indeed, as an ordinary product, Shenmue III would almost certainly fail. With 50k, hell, even with 500k people purchasing the game I very much doubt it'd make a profit. And this is the reason it hasn't already been made - businesses aren't going to invest in a product that will lose money. If you like, we can try to find ten people willing to throw $10k at Stealth and Taxman for a remade Sonic 3. Too ambitious? How about $50k in total? An insulting figure for two people, but we can manage $50k, right? We're looking at a $3 mobile game, so minus store fees that's around 20k people. Yeah, I'm not holding my breath. It's a tragedy that S3K, the greatest game ever made, isn't more popular. But that doesn't mean I'm going to bury my head in the sand and pretend that it is.
I have a similar opinion on the matter, even if it kept getting brushed to the side of the rest of the discussion. Of course, I was still in diapers when Sonic 3 released, magazine subscriptions were out of the budget to my parents when I was old enough to read, and I never knew of the game until I was probably nine years old browsing around in Toys 'R Us anyway, so what do I know?
Going to say it now, given that Sonic's 25th is next year, I'm expecting another collection of the old games and because of this, Sonic 3 Remaster never stood a chance. This also is a reason why 1 and 2 ain't coming to consoles and such. No excited chatter. This is just speculation on my part given how Sega's operated the brand so far and it would be extremely unsurprising.
A sad but not entirely unexpected end. I still think the campaign had good potential, but people did put some pretty decent effort into it and I trust Stealth enough to at least believe he stopped giving his active support for a reason. And without that, I'm not sure if we ever really do have a chance. Shame too. Yet another reason why I just can't financially support this franchise right now. Lost Worlds was a disappointment, but Boom has downright pushed me away altogether. Maybe the 25th anniversary title will bring back excitement like Generations did? But even then, what can they do? Generations 2? The fact that the titles were regulated to mobile ones will also leave me sore for awhile. I'm glad we got them at all, but I was hoping to see them released elsewhere.
At least the race was a good experience. And it seems a lot of people enjoyed it. Too bad the campaign just didn't go the way as planned. Oh well.
Taxman posted this on NeoGAF: So he lacks the time to commit to the project due to pressing and immediate obligations that hold more importance to him. So even if we'd succeeded it doesn't look like Taxman would have been able to agree to the project in the immediate future. Obviously we didn't know this back in January when the campaign started but at least now we do.
Something just occurred to me - What's the likelihood of doing just Sonic & Knuckles remastered? If we can't get the full game, I would like having at least one part of it.
To put it in context, I was responding to a thread about Aaron talking about projects being in the works for Sonic's 25th Anniversary - Sonic 3k largely being a hot assumption. So when I say "no 3mastered", I don't mean EVER per se. I think it's difficult for you guys to try and read into the time frame of things, when so much goes on for me behind the scenes. Given I run my studio as a solo gunslinger (contracting other people if necessary like Stealth), I can only develop one full new game at a time (working smaller jobs like code maintenance/tech/demos etc in between). So the community running their campaign as if success meant immediate continued development (or me dropping other work) would definitely be misguided. I can't promise anything, but believe me, I know the vocal demand for this game, and Sega Networks does too. If the right circumstances come up to work on Sonic 3k in future, I'd love to finish it off and complete the series.
