Kickstart a fan game ?

Sega demand like $10,000 just to listen to your idea. Any funding that doesn't go to the pitch sale money is a definite no.

 

So how did Taxman go about pitching his idea for porting SCD to mobile devices? Or does an idea involving an already existing game have different conditions.

 

I think SEGA kind of just...heard about the Taxman's efforts and went to him. Also, there's something about the way Sonic looks in your signature that I just don't like... (Just saying)

 

Why did you jump to this stupidly uneducated conclusion? No offence, but this is not how it works.
Development teams usually get their ideas for games during brainstorming sessions as they figure out if said idea is worth putting millions of dollars for development and marketing.
Picking up an idea from a fangame of some sorts depends on the company itself. But it's usually the publishers finding a well received or a popular tech demo of an engine that they'd like the developers to use in one of their games, usually to cut costs and to make the already existing fanbase spend their hard earned money on that product.

 

The long-standing tradition is never to charge anyone for fangames (and that would include development costs). Not just for the obvious legal reasons, but the ethics of saying to the public "give me money for copying someone else's idea".

And I can guarantee Sega doesn't need game ideas.

 

Even if it's the black sheep of the series, that doesn't mean hordes of fans out there wouldn't want to play it. I know I do! It always bothered me how the original Xtreme was so easily smothered by company politics and impossible deadlines that it never happened; the whole situation was so complex it's hard to pin the blame on any one person for dooming Xtreme to exist as nothing more than scattered asset files on the Internet for years.

I think it's the right step to contact SEGA themselves about it. Something of this magnitude wouldn't stay under unofficial radar for very long, because I'm sure that once the project picked up more steam, the whole Internet would explode with the news, and almost everyone clammering to a play demo of it, if not at least for curiosity's sake. But something this on this scale is overwhelming for one person, so I can see why you want to reach out for more support.

It would be a real shame to see one of many attempts to revive Xtreme fall silent, and this one shows more promise than anything else before it. I really wish I was competent in Unity and modeling in general right now, I'd love to contribute to a project like this. Xtreme really deserves a chance to shine, so I wish you the best in getting all the information you need on contacting SEGA about the whole thing.

 

It's definitely been a while since I kept up with your project's development, I assumed it was Unity, or was at least under the impression that at one point you were using it? And yeah, it would be amazing if the cooperation led to more resources being unveiled, even if SEGA themselves have or haven't held onto relevant documents; it would make Xtreme's recreation much more faithful to the original plans.

 

AXSX project is visually horrible for such a demanding modern game engine, it doesn't have potential to attract customers that don't play old Sonic games (in my humble opinion).

When money is involved in fan games... I think that's a really dangerous matter.
Unless Sega receives ALL the money earned from a crowdfunding campaign, I don't think they'll agree to support you.
Oh, and don't forget about Epic, UDK isn't free at all (check the license terms).

Sega will probably ignore your email, so the matter will be up to you.

 

Visually horrible? That never stopped Super Mario 64 from scoring a couple million downloads on the Virtual Console, and Sonic's Genesis titles have been resold and ported for almost every console generation after their release. On top of that, Sonic Xtreme has that mysterious, canned, never-seen-the-light-of-day stigma to it, why wouldn't it sell on that note alone? Who wouldn't want to play a recreation of a game that never got released, especially if the quality of the game play is amazing and still hasn't been done before?

I mean, yes, not everybody would be tossing their money at the screen, knowing how divided this fanbase is over things like this, but I think there would be enough interest in the game to justify the effort. I think Sonic Xtreme is common knowledge in the whole Sonic fanbase, so this would get noticed very quickly, even if it doesn't attract much interest from non-Sonic fans, but they most likely wouldn't be buying a Sonic game anyway.

Also, that is true about UDK, but you can get a license for commercial use in games, and that's pretty cheap. ($99, and a 25% royalty fee after grossing enough sales.) However, the situation is a bit sticky no thanks to the nature of this project, being fan-made, and I'm not sure if professional game devs are treated any differently in terms of the UDK license, if this project were to be picked up by a big-name publisher like SEGA. This is full of unknowns for me, honestly. I hope this doesn't complicate AXSX's development.

 

This just sounds all bad.

 

The way I see it, the moment you start needing money for a fangame is the moment you should start to consider converting it into an original project. Unless you are officially sanctioned by the company you're mimicking, pouring money into a fangame seems like an incredibly risky venture. What if you get C&D'd in the middle of it? All of that money will have been wasted, and in the case of Kickstarter, people will start demanding refunds.

For your project specifically... based on the assets that you need to finish up, it may be worthwhile to simply save up for it yourself, especially if you can re-use those assets in the future for other projects. Most of the stuff I've been buying for Freedom Planet can be used for future games as well, such as the exporters and sound effects and whatnot.

 

This... isn't really the same thing at all. Taxman offered a cost-effective solution to a problem Sega of America wanted solving. Your project is not that. And it's certainly not a cue to open the floodgates so that every single Sonic-related idea ever can be somehow "legitimised" by this company.

Yeah uh... don't do that? I mean really - investing in a fangame is all kinds of dumb.

Sonic X-treme was garbage, and there is no money to be made by targeting a select group of hardcore fans. Fans so hardcore in fact, that they're willing to look past the fact this isn't actually Sonic X-treme at all - it's a (perhaps honourable) attempt at emulating the past, but is ultimately no different than something like this.



This is a silly plan. If a fangame costs too much to make, stop making it. Any talk of working for free or not aiming to make a profit or whatever isn't going to slide either. If you want to make a game and distribute things through the proper channels, you'll have to drop the "Sonic" stuff - it's pretty simple. A magic ticket letting you make Sonic games for Sega just isn't going to happen unless you can prove the company desperately needs you, and no versions of Sonic X-treme will ever do that. This is a game they cancelled because it didn't meet the standards of 1996 - it's now 2013