Unrelated to Sonic 3, but any idea how that will affect people who already bought the song? Me and my friend have amassed over 600 songs on Rock Band 3 and if they're going to start disappearing because of things like that, then... All I'd say is Overlord was right all along. :v:
Like all XBL/PSN content, if you already bought the DLC, you keep it forever, and can redownload it to any other 360/PS3 you own. A few of my 450+ tracks have left the Rock Band Store too, but I can still play them and redownload them. Still sucks, though.
It'll probably be the same as every other thing on PSN or Xbox Live that's been removed: you'll still be able to play it and re-download it, you just will no longer be able to buy it.
I know I'm one week late, but I'd like to quote this because this is so important to know for any fanbase that wants to create these kinds of fan crusades. I've participated in two fan campaigns (Starman.Net's PK Siege and 100K Strong for MML3) and I've seen far too many people with no business sense that fall under that naive, fanboy mentality that Japanese game companies look especially down on. Thanks Stealth.
A little update from my side - I've ended to construct my e-mail (have hope that it'll be good :P) and sent the information to Gamezilla.pl, Polygamia.pl (two biggest websites in Poland about video games), cdaction.pl (the website of the biggest magazine about games in Poland) and to Arhn.eu (polish website about "oldschool, newschool & allschool" - the last one doesn't have so big audience like three previous, but it's still very popular, and what is more, as far as I know, it has higher percentage of potentially active visitors (so there is a bit smaller audience, but a bit "more active"), what is valuable in case of initiative, which needs more "support voices". It's the first time I'm doing such thing, but I would be very happy if even in two cases it could be a success. Of course I'll inform you about the answer(s) from mentioned recipients. Thanks 360 for help! Victory for Sonic 3 & Knuckles Remastered!
Great work MartiusR! If the articles get published, let me know and I can add them to the site. I've got some journalists who are interested in covering the story (and also interviewing Taxman and Stealth). Although some have put their articles on hold as they are away on location covering Mobile World Congress. I'm hoping they'll be interested when they return.
Awesome to hear Big Smile! Keep up the fantastic work. So I haven't posted an update in a while because there's not much to report. We were covered recently by One Angry Gamer here. Also one of the Staff Writers of Just Push Start PMed me on NeoGAF saying he's going to post an article later this week. Outside of that there isn't much news. It feels like the campaign has slowed down somewhat from our peak a week or so ago when IGN posted that article. Obviously Big Smile has some strong and promising prospects coming up. Basically I ran out of editors and writers on NeoGAF to PM and in tandem with that ran out of sites to email. We might be reaching the point of news coverage saturation whereby everyone who wants to cover us has covered us and the larger sites that decided against it will choose not to for the foreseeable future. We have the stream coming up that I'm excited about. That'll probably inject some energy in to the campaign in the middle of this month. Ultimately though I feel like I'm out of options and ideas. Where do we go from here? If anyone has any new ideas I'd be happy to hear them. It feels like the campaign is losing speed and momentum with little in regards to mechanisms in which we can revive it. Anyone have any ideas? Potentially if we put our minds together perhaps we can generate some new angles of attack.
Great work as usual 360 with those two extra sites! The only other idea I had was contacting Youtube channels that have covered Sonic in the past. I've kind of run out of journalists to contact. It's too bad it's mobile congress this week, as a lot of the press are on leave to cover that.
I think we've covered all angles, it's up to the journalists and public to make the effort now. The only thing that I can think of that might give this petition a good shake up is for Stealth and Taxman to do a Hydrocity trailer, but that's up to them if they have the time and resources to do it. If that becomes a reality we could do another round of this promoting. If that doesn't make a difference then it's fair to say that we will have to be put this to rest.
I think a second trailer would be a great way to re-energize the movement, but it sounds like both Taxman and Stealth are pretty busy on their solo projects, so I doubt they'd have the time. It would be nice if Sony/Microsoft/Valve showed interest in porting Sonic 1 and 2 to their platforms, then maybe it would pressure Sega into completing the saga. A distributor backing would probably work wonders (not that I'm endorsing pestering GabeN or anything like that).
Do that and we'll never get Sonic 3. Name anything Gabe has had involvement in that ever managed to get to 3.
I think one of the bigger problems outside the campaign is how little everyone beyond the fanbase talks about Sonic 3 compared to 2. Sonic 2 was marketed cleverly, (Sonic 2'sday) it eventually came bundled with later systems, and pretty much everyone has either had, or at least played, Sonic 2 on real hardware. It was one of the most obvious and plentiful staples of the library, I'm sure you can still find complete cases of Sonic 2 for $5 because of that. Fans and non-fans alike love the game, flaws and all. And it was Sonic 2 that fans wanted remade in HD as well. While there's an HD project for Sonic 3 too, nobody cares about it, (And I myself especially hate that they had poor enough standards to nag me three times to join the art team, almost three years ago. :specialed: ) nor does it remotely hold a candle to the hype Sonic 2 HD had. So maybe the general public isn't as excited about it as Sonic fans would be? Even with all the emulated versions released of the game, I don't think a lot of casual people have played it, or beat it at the least. Left 4 Dead 3. *bricked*
I don't think we should by any means consider giving up soon, but if 100k signatures is what Stealth believes it will take to make this happen, that may be difficult. 1. I still believe not enough people have seen the campaign yet. It's that simple, we need to ensure we've tapped out any other major news resources before we give in, social media, ect. ect. The video has only been viewed about 13,000 times. That's a decent number, but it could still be higher. Even the IGN article only had limited reach. So if there are any miracles left that can be pulled to get seen on a more major publication (Kotaku level, ect. ect.) that's what we're going to need. 2. The stream does give us a good chance, but that too may need to be picked up by a few news articles to catch some interest. Not sure how yet, but it should be considered. 3. Many people were apprehensive about signing due to the idea that this remake only says "Sonic 3 remastered". It really should be "Sonic 3 & Knuckles" remastered, but it's probably too late for that. People want the whole package, not arguably the weaker half. 4. Many people need to realize that they can indeed play the mobile version on their PC, or on a non-mobile platform with ease. I've never played the games on a mobile device (don't care for mobile/tablet style games), and yet I've bought them at least twice each. I know there is a section for this on the site, but ensure that this option is communicated to people. It also doesn't hurt that the success of this remake could make a classic collection for other platforms possible again. 5. Reiterate to people that this is much more than yet another emulation platform. These releases are definitive versions of the games, with far more features than their original console versions. 6. The second trailer idea is a great one, and could result in a whole second wave of support. I know that is a lot to ask of Stealth (it requires building a second zone, maybe more), but could it be done? Could we get a tease of a 1 player version of the two player levels? 7. Is it possible to get any sort of response from Sega even if we can't reach 100,000? I know that notably lowers our chances, but is the campaign really so hopeless without it? I do still believe sales are there, but a petition itself doesn't always accurately represent the numbers... as it's hard to get the word out to every potential customer. That's about all I've got on this. The #1 goal is to communicate the message that, for 3$, you're getting a better version of the best Sonic game ever made (arguably), with new features on numerous devices. I still think there are very few Sonic players who wouldn't be down for that, but the message doesn't always come across that way to everyone.
The campaign has plenty of avenues to publicize its existence, such as IGN picking it up as you stated. But attention does not necessarily equal retention. There have been plenty of views, but for some reason it just doesn't spur readers to action. In the end, it may just boil down to apathy on the part of most non-Sonic-fan gamers. They're not aware enough of the brand to know how well the remakes were done, and all they know about the Sonic franchise in the last 10 years was probably gleaned from Game Grumps playing Sonic '06 and Sonic Boom. They comment on that in the articles we score, and sow the seeds of disinterest of potential backers; IGN and most game comment sections are either poisonous or barren. Neither of which does much to incite action. It's not enough to get editorial coverage. We need spokespeople. Someone who A. Vouches for the quality of the product and B. has enough sheep-like fans that naysayers are brow-beat into shutting up in the comment sections. That second one is very important. None of this is new. But unless we get that push, I don't think we'll get much further past this wall. And if we can't, then it's likely doomed to fizzle anyway. I think these are good places to start. I'm sorry if they've already been tried. •MegaGWolf: he's familiar with our community, and thoroughly covered Freedom Planet in the past. He's not the biggest youtuber of all time, but he's on Polaris now, and has solidified a decent fanbase of about 50,000 subscribers. •TotalBiscuit: At this point, it doesn't matter what the controversy or your personal feelings are on the guy, that's irrelevant; we need to be in marketing mode now. We need to bend his ear. •Jim Sterling: Not much else to say. He's got an opinion on Sonic, and he's got good reach. •Brutalmoose seems to have been a Sonic fan at one time or another. •If anyone else in the community has a Youtube presence, it would probably be good to boost the signal if you can. Does anyone have any ideas in terms of incentive for the bigger youtubers/Let's Players? Usually that means something playable. I don't know if that can happen in this case, but it would be nice to be able to have something that will get the bigger fish to get attracted.
Right, I should probably get on that now, huh? My idea is to go for brevity. People are WAY more likely to watch a video if it's short. SO, I'm going to write up a snappy script that communicates these things: -Sonic 3 & Knuckles was a great game. -The existing mobile ports of Sonic 1 and 2 might be the best retro remakes ever. (Widescreen support, two-player online, Hidden Palace, etc.) -The developers have made a trailer for 3, and fans have taken the initiative to campaign SEGA to make it happen. -Sign it here, and hopefully get one of the best games ever remastered. I'm going to try to keep it under a minute, because I do think the inherent reasons why this is awesome should be easily-communicated. The only incentive I need is the hope that this thing happens. Well, that, and I'll probably link to my own video on Sonic 3 at the end, haha. I won't be able to work on it 'til later this week, but it shouldn't take more than a few hours at most. And I'll be back here if I have any questions or need clarification on anything.
Sounds perfect! Geek Critique will be a great avenue to get the word out. Also, it probably wouldn't hurt for us to throw the hashtag out there again on Twitter. Either @ someone or just post it with a link to the website. Big Smile and the others have done a good job at getting sites to pick up the story, we just need to fill up the vacant space by not letting it die out.
Need to address this one right off the bat - I'm sorry, but that's just not happening. The only reason we were really able to do the original demo was that we had just come out of the Sonic 1 & 2 deal, and we gambled the time that bought us on pitching Sonic 3. Now that it's gone, we can't really afford to take a bigger risk after the initial pitch was rejected. I'd love to do it if we were actually given a real opportunity, but since we're freelancers, it requires us to be very picky about what we put any time into. Since we've already put about four months into creating a sufficient pitch demo for it with it being turned down and receiving absolutely no return, it just wouldn't make sense for us to trouble ourselves with a new zone at this point when we can't be guaranteed that it won't just be more time wasted. Just one more zone would still take up a significant amount of time, especially if it were down to just one of us doing the work. That's not to mention how it would look professionally if we did do the work at this point without being funded. Desperation isn't appealing, nor does it get you what you're worth Also, just to be absolutely clear, there is nothing more to see in the current prototype than just alternate playthroughs of the same content shown in the anniversary video. The video shows all major bits from Angel Island Zone, the Special Stage, and all three Bonus Stages, and aside from the one crappy test level I created for Blue Spheres 2, which was also shown off in a secondary video and is included as part of the campaign video, there are no other significant parts of the game that exist. No other original zones, No altered 2P zones, no extra spheres stages, nothing. Just to state as a matter of fact, it took us a good while just to do what we did, and the non-linear anniversary video still already shows off every completed bit that matters Since we can't guarantee that the final game will contain any of the extra features I mentioned on my personal blog as something that we personally would like to consider, I'd have to say that, no, this can't happen at any level, either. It would give the wrong impression, because not only do we not know how well these things would actually work out in the end, but we can't very well dictate to SEGA what will and won't go in what's ultimately going to be their game. That's just not how you do business The problem here is the number of people who are actually aware that this isn't emulation, and what that really means. You can find plenty of comments to the effect of "Whats the point its already out on steam/ps3/360/etc". Most of the world doesn't do what we do or know what we know; Sonic Retro, for example, is only an extremely small and arguably insignificant portion of the overall world population. We can't expect them to already be able to differentiate between a game slapped wholesale into an emulator and the same game rebuilt from the ground up with touch-ups when both things are commonly-referred-to as "ports". They won't even really care to know what "Remastered" means if it's not extremely-readily-apparent, as demonstrated by the people who made it very clear that they do, in fact, feel this way. If you want to reach these people, you have to have that information up-front, and in as simple a form as possible, otherwise even relatively reasonable people might blow it off thinking they already know everything they need to It's accessibility of information - all of the information needs to be there, but it also has to be easy to read and handed over on a silver platter, or you won't really get anyone's attention. It's unfortunate, but that's how the world works apparently Personally I think that it's strange for anyone to really look at this project and think that "Sonic 3" doesn't mean "Sonic 3 & Knuckles" considering the "& Knuckles" content that's already been integrated and presented in both videos, up to and including the fact that the title screen we used actually says "Sonic 3 & Knuckles", but then again, there's also what I said in response to the last quote To be clear on another point, yes, we intended to do both games. Sonic & Knuckles was originally "Sonic 3 Part 2", just as Sonic 3 was originally "Sonic 3 Part 1", though the games ultimately weren't heavily marketed this way despite the fact that they made a big deal out of the fact that you could combine them into a single game (or more appropriately, "the complete 'Sonic 3' game"). Our build was based on the idea that there were four possible modes of play to be considered - "Sonic 3" (Part 1), Sonic & Knuckles, Sonic 3 & Knuckles (the merged game as presented when combining the two cartridges), or Sonic 3 (the complete game as originally designed, including all zones, in original order, presented by name as "Sonic 3" and in form as the Special Edition "Sonic 3" that was to be released as a complete game after parts 1 and 2 were released separately, but which never surfaced.) This is also something that I mentioned in my blog post Even if the games were to be split up, there's no way Sonic & Knuckles is happening without Sonic 3 in the first place. If you don't support Sonic 3, you don't support Sonic & Knuckles. Also, regarding the instances in which I'm aware that Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles were released separately but without the ability to play "Sonic 3 & Knuckles", it's only because the people responsible for the emulation didn't know how to actually combine the games less connecting the two physical cartridges to each other, and that was let to pass. We do know how even though it's not even a concern for us since we aren't using emulation Furthermore, the potential rights issue presumably applies only to Part 1 / "Sonic 3", but not Part 2 / "Sonic & Knuckles". It's not clear whether or not SEGA actually makes that distinction or how it would affect their actions, but it's worth noting This is a very important point. It's also worth noting that the Android versions can be side-loaded onto other Android devices like Ouya and other set-top boxes and the like. They also already have native Amazon Fire TV versions I commented on this above, but it's worth saying again. Make it impossible to miss, and condense as much as reasonably possible. If you know that have to convince people of something, you can't expect they will already know what you do or take the initiative to find it on their own, much less that they'll read anything even remotely complicated. If that were the case, your involvement would be unnecessary There are no shortcuts. The project was overtly rejected once, and we know that there is a legal issue regarding something having to do with the game. If it were enough for you to believe that the sales are there, then we wouldn't even need a petition in the first place. Again, this is business - SEGA aren't looking to befriend anyone by keeping an eye out on what looks even remotely popular and doing stuff just because it's fun and nice and friendly; they have to be outright told how well this will work, with the numbers to back it up. Given the legal issue, they're not going to be looking for a way around it because people want Sonic 3; they're going to keep doing what they're doing because it's absolutely unthinkable for there to be a workable alternative (such as replacing disputed music). They have to be outright told that it will work out, with the numbers to back it up The only reason for a campaign like this is to truly show demand. When you're dealing with the figures that SEGA is, a four-digit petition signature count is nothing. You might as well send a single person into their office saying "pretty please". Overwhelm them. Force them to act This isn't something that can happen, either. Distribution on any level is not the way to get on SEGA's good side My suggestion in this case would be to ask them to let's-play the 1&2 remasters and highlight the benefits of remakes vs emulation in addition to the fact that it doesn't seem that Sonic 3 is going anywhere either way. They could follow-up by let's-playing the original Sonic 3 just to remind people how awesome it is, and musing about what it could get out of a remastering (while making it clear that nothing they say in that respect is at all guaranteed to be implemented in any actual remaster in any way whatsoever) Also get them to highlight Android emulation on PC, and side-loading the apps on things like set-top boxes, and the fact that it would make the most sense for SEGA to use mobile as a starting point for Sonic 3, and that with renewed interest, it might then be possible to see any of these games on any other platform. Otherwise, this is probably the end I've been kicking around the idea of creating a flier/card for everyone to print up and post out in the wild, such as on (already-abused) electricity/telephone poles, public bulletin boards/displays such as in grocery stores/gas stations/etc, and if you're friendly with anyone in a store like GameStop, see if they'll let you leave some there, as well as asking some mobile phone stores, since it would be relatively relevant to their business given the current platform situation. It may not end up doing much, but people who don't regularly use the internet and/or view video gaming and computer sites are still an untapped resource These would take one or more of the following forms, each of which should include as much information as possible, along with the site URL in clear view and at least one QR code containing the URL and/or some other condensed text: A small card meant for taking from a stack A one-page sized flier meant for taking from a stack A one-page sized flier meant for posting on displays, possibly with tearable strips containing the campaign sites URL lined across the bottom I haven't designed anything yet, so if other people want to give it a go, I can chime in on what looks good and make any adjustments that seem appropriate. If this is to be done, please do not do it until the design has been finalized
