Sonic Social Media Shenanigans (This totally just happened...)

Eggman is a hacker.
https://t.co/IBaVEbPs9S

 

So my ticket to Eggmanland is worthless.

Damn.

 

This is fucking beautiful.

 

This just keeps getting better and better! I hope this wild ride never ends!

This is even better than when Bowser or Toad took over Nintendo's twitter account!

 

So why hasn't the account changed back yet? Eggman's been booted for hours now.

.....Sonic forgot to untie Aaron didn't he?

 

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Also this interaction between "Sonic" and "Eggman":

Sonic: https://xcancel.com/RogerCraigSmith/status/665261859688177664
Eggman: https://xcancel.com/sonic_hedgehog/status/665309361602867202

Also this audio response to Polygon: https://xcancel.com/sonic_hedgehog/status/665293498002763776

This is glorious! Even notable Sonic fans like Madeon are jumping in. This is the most successful marketing idea they've had in years. Obviously they saw the traction and popularity of Aaron's work and tried to capitalise on it with this Eggman takeover to take this to the next level and it's working wonders. I'm glad because this is something positive and bright for the Sonic franchise that will work towards restoring the popularity of the brand. Especially if they keep it going. That and it's entertaining and hilarious.

Amazing work Aaron - and to whomever is helping you now at Sega of America with this.

 

Let's be frank: quality wise, the Sonic brand has been in the dumps. This should shock no one since even internally this has been known. SoA can only do so much when they're told, "Market this game and you get no kevlar to protect yourself." Rough job.

The best thing to do is honestly embrace the notoriety the series accumulated and run with it, putting a positive spin on it.

-Big the Cat is almost universally hated, but has gained followers (ironic turned unironic) and has a certain charm to the character being a simple-minded fool.

-Sonic 2006 is bad. No sugar coating it. But the level of suck it has and the rise of Twitch and YouTube has given the game life as the streamer side arm of, "OH MAN, SONIC'S BAD, LOOK HOW BAD THIS GAME IS HE KISSES GIRLS! NECROFURRY LOL!"
-Sonic X's English theme song persists

-Existing long-time Sonic fanbase jokes, like Eggman voice clips ("NO WAY, I CAN'T BELIEVE THIS!", "GET A LOAD OF THIS!", "YOU KNOW WHAT THEY SAY, THE MORE THE MERRIER!"), that damn CNZ barrel, etc.

-And of course, the darker side of the fandom that somehow gets the most attention (Deviantart, Fur Affinity, tumblr) even though it's a strange subsect that deserves no attention because holy crap they're weird.

Embrace all of them, add some natural charisma and an equally charismatic cast behind the characters and you have a very successful campaign. SoA has the Sonic social media game on point, and it shows since it hasn't gotten tiring yet (the Denny's one, another bizarre social marketing account, was getting to that point but has since reeled it in some.) It comes down to the company coming through on slowing down development to make the games good and try to, you know, make Sega a quality brand again.

 

Does it worry anyone else that every image used in that stunt was Boom related? As much as you can worry about stupid stuff like this, I suppose.

I don't know. I don't like it being all over everything. Boom is soured to me. The show is a farce, which is fine, but they keep wanting to sell it really hard as something of substance. Dash 2's presentation and marketing especially is really bizarre to me. It makes Sega look disconnected from reality. Honestly, I really don't want Boom to takeover.

The thing is, Sonic is in a pit right now. Even if you think Lost World was good, it's still really weird, experimental, polarizing, and Mario-ish to the point of looking like a knock-off. And Boom was just a disastrous tragedy, and I can't see it as anything else. They've fucked up, and they need to own up. I just don't think teh dank sanic memes and the self-depreciation are what Sonic needs right now. That feels like more of an extension of crap the Madworld writers have been phoning in. They need to relate, to level with us. Maybe even apologise in a way that doesn't sound like a corporate statement. It just feels like Sega and Sonic Team are in some far off untouchable crazy-land with only a basic and skewed understanding of what's going down on earth where their fans are. And it kind of always has, hasn't it?

I mean... right? :v:
I probably shouldn't waste my trial posts on ridiculous sweeping statements like this. :specialed:

 

Sonic Boom is SoA's baby. I'm not surprised they're pushing it a little more. The cartoon is giving it the footing it needs to at least try to get back up after the disaster that was the Wii U version (more than it just being a bad game. The dev history is... something) and how flat the 3DS version is.

It's clear they want it to take off and want to get some good faith back. Cartoon is for sure getting a season 2 and the second game actually got delayed for quality reasons rather than rushing it out for this month. I'll give the brand a second chance. I wouldn't mind Sonic Boom running as a side brand that fills gaps in between main series games. That said, I do wonder how it's doing with its intended demographic instead of the jaded early-to-mid-20s Sonic fans. :v: We already know we're mindless drones.

 

The other thing about Boom is that it's all that's happening right now. The main series is on hold until the next main game gets announced, while the Boom TV show and merchandise are kind of omnipresent along with Fire & Ice being in the pipeline too. I'd rather see the main brand getting shown off too, but it makes sense for Boom to be taking the spotlight. Especially when, as Gene says, it's SoA's baby and it's actually rather successful. They need to capitalise on that.

 

Not to mention the direction the main series is even taking is up in the air. All we had since Lost World was a few Dash updates and Runners, + an inclusion of Windy Hill in SmashBros. Iizuka said once he wanted the series to, after Lost World, take a photorealistic approach (???) even though before now we've had Pixar/Dreamworks The Hedgehog, followed by Sonic in Space, then a timeline mashup. Yet Sonic Lost World seems to be some kind of general redesign of the series aesthetic since its style has bled into a new mobile game, and the mobile game before that was Heroes themed for some reason, which is interesting because the last handheld game had Heroes' theme for the invincibility track.

tldr the current series looks like and is a mess, to the point where its maybe trying to stick with one direction, maybe not. Boom on the other hand knows what it wants to be, for 2/3rds of its representation anyway (cartoon and comics), so its easier to make jokes and sillyness in-character with a reference point that's stable. If the core series is going for a shift in tone or style, any kind of hint at that on the social media page would be a spoiler of sorts. At the moment Boom is all they can work with on a content and identity level.

 

Would you say Sonic's IRL trajectory needs more guided dash pads to push him in the right direction?

 

That analogy hurts. It's great, but it huuurrrttts.

I think that SEGA are going to push forward with the pseudo-Classic stylings of Lost World and Runners for the main series now. Gameplay I'm not so sure about, but in every other way, this almost-Classic-but-missing-the-point seems to be what they're most content with.

 

I suppose we are aware of this..

https://xcancel.com/sonic_hedgehog/status/667054824857300992

Spoiler

And so this...