Sonic X Shadow Generations announced, releases Autumn 2024

Okay, so if I recognize there's a problem someone might try to point out in what I'm saying, I should just not address it? Even though the prediction was completely right?

My point is that an unreliable form of preservation is worse than a reliable one, obviously? Like under your framing, the possibility that someone, somewhere, might have a copy of a thing that they might upload, means the preservation problem is already gone forever. Whether they actually do, and whatever consequences that results in for that person, apparently just isn't important.

So then it's basically impossible for anything to NOT be preserved! If you can rely on the expectation that fans will just replace large core pieces of what a game needs to function and say that counts as "already safe", you may as well just expect that they'll eventually remake the entire game in another format. Not only has this already been done to some extent for Runners, but there's several active projects doing it for Unleashed just because it doesn't have a PC port.

I didn't say that. I fully support pirating games. My position has always been that the game being harder to buy decreases visibility for modders. I believed that because I saw several prominent modders saying the modding community for the game would be dead and they would quit if the game were delisted. I trust their words more than yours, when your take seems to be that absolutely nothing is wrong with delisting any Sonic game ever for any reason.

As for why we got on the preservation topic, I just thought "piracy exists so shut the fuck up" was kind of a bad argument, for reasons we've been over at this point.

My point is that you're acting like there are less options than what actually exists, and overestimating the reliability of pirate sites. I don't know why you had to get so weird about all this, especially after saying everyone else was "outraged".

 

Not that I want to perpetuate this rather bizarre discussion, but I'm pretty much in agreement with Aerosol. This is probably the best outcome and compromise we the consumers can make with Sega the corporation.

As has been stated, it is not feasible, nor practical for Sega to sell concurrent versions of the same game even if one of them is newer and has content the other lacks. From a marketing perspective, you confuse the general consumer as to which game is the new one and which is the old one. Yes the new version is called "Sonic X Shadow Generations", but even within the title it's delineated between Sonic Generations & Shadow Generations. For the target demographic, which is children (and honestly I think a lot of us fans do tend to forget this often) and their parents who buy the games for them, this makes it harder to drive sales towards a new title that your company is pushing. That same demographic will not care for unofficial and unlicensed modifications to said software the same way dedicated fans will, period. Given all of this, Sega as a company, which is responsible to its shareholders, must take action to maximize their profits and see returns on their investment into the development of a (in theory) less expensive project than a whole new game. Further, even if the situation was clarified to the wider public somehow, how would you retain sales on a 10+ year-old game that will eventually lose compatibility with progressing hardware and OS?

On the other side of the coin are us, the fans, who do indeed care about the decade-long modding efforts and community poured into the original release. We do indeed make a decent portion of sales and help drive brand recognition and publicity. If we are not happy, bystanders will indeed know and it will sour the reputation of both the game and the franchise as a whole. For a series like Sonic which has had a shakey reputation for about 16 years (half it's lifetime) following a period of immense popularity, Sega does not want to alienate its biggest supporters either, otherwise, they will lose sales in the long-term. This is largely why Sega may take some action protecting its other IPs (I can't think of specific examples at the moment as it's nearly midnight for me, but someone please feel free to chime in on that), but does not act as strictly with the Sonic Franchise. We kept the candle burning for the franchise even if the greater public didn't care about it anymore, and if they lost our goodwill then it really hurts future sales.

So with both sides in mind, how does one preserve the original mods and keep goodwill with the fanbase while also maximizing profits so shareholders are happy? You delist the old release so as not to confuse your consumer base, while also bundling it with other titles so you are guaranteed profit. This means that the game is still accessible and Sega can still guarantee future sales even as that version theoretically becomes less relevant over time (because it is possible that the modding community could or could not spring up from this new release, it remains to be seen).

I didn't think this needed spelling out, but that's why people feel this is a fair compromise. A business needs to make money, it cannot survive on charity to its fans alone. While I have immense respect for Katie and the Sonic Social team for caring about their fans and being our advocate with corporate, corporate has to think about budget and can't always be our friends. Expecting them to be is frankly naive.

 

I disagree, I happen to think it's a good organizational tool to have discreet sections of a post with their own focus, and make sure each statement is an adequate follow-up to what its responding to. Helps keep things consistent. Let me know if you feel that my doing this inadvertently changes the meaning of what you're saying, however. I've tried to be diligent about not doing that.

I really don't think I have misinterpreted your posts. I fully understand that you think any game that is conceivably hosted by someone counts as fully preserved, but I think it's more nuanced than that and there are degrees of preservation that rely on accessibility. Locking a physical copy of the game in an unbreakable safe buried underground would also technically count as preservation. You could tell everyone where it is, maybe even let them come see it! But I think you'd agree that that's not viable for the majority of people. It shouldn't really be a shock that most people who want art preserved also want it accessible, and I guess there's some worth to splitting hairs over the use of one word when a broader one would do better, but contextually it should be clear that the thing being discussed is the stochastic effect of delisting on the game's accessibility, rather than the hard line nuts-and-bolts objectivity of whether someone, at some point can get at it.

Okay, well that sucks? I really have no idea what you want from me at this point. Sorry you don't like me I guess? I'm trying my best here.

Well that's not been the position I've been arguing against, since you've stayed almost entirely within the realm of "it would be completely fine to delist it whether the game was still buyable or not".

With all due respect, saying things like "it's either preserved or it isn't" in a conversation where everyone is 100% aware that the game can and has been pirated should probably have been a tip-off that the discussion is about something more than the barest bones, technically-not-lying definition of "preservation". Especially when, again, that definition includes dead live service games that a whole bunch of programmers and maybe a cryptography expert would need to put countless man-hours into to see running normally again. If that's what preservation means, then preservation will never be enough.

Typically if I don't care about something I don't try to speak authoritatively on it, especially when the discussion surrounding its death necessarily includes the fact that it is not a natural death. SEGA could've pulled the plug. It's good that they didn't, but that doesn't mean they don't still very-conspicuously have their hands on the windpipe. But I guess since you don't care, I should probably be having this discussion with someone who actually does.

 

With all due respect to you guys... Jesus Christ, you took things way too far this time. I took a brief break from Retro for a bit unaware of all of this going down, so reading all of this in one go actually gave me a migraine in ways I haven't felt since my friends argued about goddamn Net Neutrality when I was thirteen years old.



Briefly ignoring the fact that it's apparent that what's used here is blatantly loaded language stolen ammo-included from Twitter (finally, someone had to say it), I have to respectfully disagree that this is even about preservation. By all means, Sega saw that people were reasonably bugged that their older version of Generations wasn't going to be sold anymore, so they decided to provide an admittedly loosey avenue for people to buy the older version; probably because the people who clamour for the older version probably already owned the game? It's obvious they want to prioritize SxSG, so they moved the old version to a bundle full of games where as previously mentioned they were individually way the heck cheaper than what they're normally priced. Plus, doesn't Steam have like a gorillion sales? I'm sure in the future the old Generations will probably go as low as four dollars if that ever gets discounted.

But also, there's so much logic being lost in this sea of anger that I have to reiterate this... Guys, guys. Turn your "debate" brain off and actually read this sentence:

Sonic Generations is 13 years old.

Thirteen.

In that time, we went from the PS3 to the PS5. Xbox 360 to the Series X. There are people in this forum right now who were only three when SG came out. Hell, it was probably their first Sonic game. We've went through numerous periods of Sonic history since that game came out.

In that time, even when I still had my disc (I don't anymore, blame the COVID recession ) I got that game for FREE from Xbox Gold and was able to freely buy it in other places because it was so damn ACCESSIBLE. I played that game when I was seven. I'm twenty now. Sega has earned a GORILLION in those thirteen years. From a business standpoint, they wouldn't really lose money if they just replaced SG with SxSG, but they also recognized that the modding scene would have brief complications so they still provided an avenue for people to still buy the game. You've got to admit that that is surprisingly observant.

And... like, guys. Guuuuuys. Generations isn't going anywhere. It's been said time and time again, but it isn't going anywhere. You can... what, get it second hand for pretty cheap physically? I've seen it time and time again appear at Walmart. It's. Not. Going. Anywhere! I hate to sound like world's worst Arle impressionist over here but it bares repeating that Generations has had one hell of a lifespan. Getting this worked up over a thirteen year old game that has sold a ton over the years getting delisted in favor of The Same Game, But With Lovable Edge reeks of pearl clutching, soapboxing, and trying to steer a conversation into an unpleasant turn that's not really related.

Some of you guys are working yourself up over something that's clearly bothering you elsewhere. Don't take it out on other people like this, it's not pretty! I say this calls for action and now! Nip it in the bud!

I wouldn't normally be this disappointed, but I saw some ugly stuff in this thread. Points of valid conversation were mutated and twisted into these gotchas, these big attack points that at some point it became this meta roleplay session where people think they HAVE to win the argument, even though there was never anything like that. You keep using the word preservation... I do not think it means what you think it means. There was SO MUCH appeal to emotion here that it's safe to say it devolved into sloganeering. There's no game here to win... it's just a game being discontinued, holy shit!

I'm not even mad, I'm just disappointed. A little upset, sure, but disappointed. Reading this hurt me once I realized what was going on.

...Anyways, that Black Doom render looked pretty cool. I liked that one. It's been nineteen years since Shadow, yeah? I love how he looks with the new CGI look.

 

Yeah he's physically the same outside of the colours, but when looking back at the old render you can see how much lighting technology improved in that time. Shadow-era Black Doom still looks good but the new render visually looks Gooder.

 

Jesus christ

The game is still accessible and i think the banter is becoming annoying if not completely off topic, personally.

Also, pc version sucks. Ive got a prebuilt from 2016, and its decent specs, but unmodded gens is prone to random freezing, lagspikes, controller mess, configuration breaking every time i launch it, it is NOT optimized at all, and I actually do remember in 2011 when it came out, it being even worse. Modern hardware seems better equipped to handle it but i distinctly remember it being very poorly optimized even for decent 2011 rigs

 

Steam doesn't charge for storage at all. That's a cost eaten by valve upfront, nobody pays it but valve.

EDIT: RE: two versions of Sonic Generations

Personally I'm pretty happy about it, because now I can just leave the Unleashed modding project installed over the original generations in steam. It's like i'm getting a dedicated Sonic Project Unleashed entry haha. I can even change the box art in steam to that of Sonic Unleashed.

My AMD Phenom X4 and HD 7970 absolutely devoured the game at launch. Day 1 I was running Generations at 1080p. Only levels like Chemical Plant Zone gave me any stuttering. That 7970 was replaced by a 980ti and that made the CPZ stutters go away. Today, on my RTX 3080 with a Ryzen 5900X I can max the game out at 4k 120hz in linux without any stutter or drops.

Game runs well enough on the Steam Deck, too, if you use the built-in performance scaling features. Obviously at a lower resolution and then cap the framerate at 40 hz. At those settings it doesn't hitch during gameplay.

 

Oh god no aaaaaah I can never unsee it now
Additionally I always thought black doom sounded like some old cartoon character (e.g.)
Interesting to see how the game will go with this, what I'm seeing so far's got me intrigued

 

Black doom looking like the judge from The Wall.

 

The only pieces of your previous post that were not quoted were the two instances of you saying I should move past Generations and take this to another thread. But since I have no interest in that, I took them out. If you honestly think that's radically changing the meaning of what you were saying, I'd love to see how. I did ask for that in the very same post.

Before, you said that modders wouldn't be effected even if people had to pirate the game they're modding. I said that wasn't what I heard from modders, which is when the pivot to "I don't care" happened.

I didn't interpret it that way. I wasn't even responding to your original post, since I don't think outrage is really the right word for what's been going on here. I'm basically annoyed that they didn't just pack-in the old release as an option with the remaster, that's it. I think it decreases visibility to modders by its very nature, but the new cheaper bundle helps. I just thought your take on piracy as a reliable form of preservation was kind of dumb, that was the whole reason I responded in the first place.

That would be an argument against "If it's available, it's available" then, which is what you said before.

 

Devin, buddy, take this to a different thread. Stop taking it out on the thread here, you're not "winning" anything here it's making everyone feel weird
I don't wanna make another hyperspecific thread again

 

Well said ..Some people here would want SEGA to keep on manufacturing Master System Sonic Carts . There comes a time in all games and systems life when you need to pull the plug .

I would get the outcry if SEGA looked to have Sonic Generations use a game launcher that needed you to log in, that wasn't the case with Sonic Gen on the consoles and I doubt it be the case for the new update .

So if you want to play the old game just play it on the 360 or PS3 or better yet the Xbox Series X and just look forward to the new game