Ken Balough is leaving SEGA. This sucks, but he's getting a sweet job at Sony so I'm happy for him. RIP Ben Kalough
This is sad. I really liked his work at Sega, he did great job with the community I hope his new job at Sony is good
I was always a bit torn on him really. He said some pretty annoying things sometimes regardless of the crap SEGA gave him to deal with, and he'd even lashed out at the fans a couple of times. Most of the time he was a pretty cool guy but eh... not really upset to see him leave. Not pleased, mind. Just indifferent.
Ken Balough leaving like I truly imagined it. I'm kind of with Blue Blood on this. Happy he's leaving? No. Do I care? Also no. I do hope the next Sonic brand manager is just as passionate though, although maybe a little more knowledgable on the blue hedgehog front, so we don't get anymore Sonic 4 as you truly imagined it lines.
If anything, this is more incentive for Ben Kalough to step up in the ranks and get into SOA. Sad to see Ken go though, maybe he lashed out a few times but let's face it, we're a pretty frustrating community. Perhaps not us, specifically, but definitely portions of our fanbase. I'd say he came out pretty well considering everything. Just me though.
I never really liked him. He always got pissed at me when I called his house. (And his parents house)
Deep down, he's probably very glad he found a better job and doesn't have to deal with the Sonic fanbase anymore. While I sympathize with the guy because his job was to defend Sonic 4 of all games, he did a shitty job and had some unbelievably bad PR moments so I think it's great he's leaving. If his replacement does a much better job, fantastic. Compared to SEGA employees like Aaron Webber, it's like night and day when it comes to quality PR work. There's a reason why very few people bitch about Aaron because he does a good job.
I've heard from reliable sources that Ben Kalough will be joining Sony of Afghanistan. However, let's remember the good old days from Sega of Antarctica. [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbqw0zTe7nw[/youtube]
The best of luck to Ken - he's a decent enough guy, hope he does well at Sony. (Will Ben Kalough give us a goodbye video? =P)
Olny thing I EVER heard from this guy is that he said that Casino Street Zone was NOT based off of Casino Night Zone at all... now, I'm sure he is not stupid and is only telling us what Sega told him to say, and make no mistake... his replacement will do the exact same shit... BUT he kinda struck me as being full of shit anyhow, so I'm in the camp of indifferent, don't care one way or the other.
The problem with Ken Balough is that he was dealt a REALLY bad hand and tried to play it with the best poker face he could come up with. Sonic 4 was utter shit, you think Sega didn't know this? I'm sure if we had a little insight as to what went on behind the scenes we'd know why it was shit, and honestly I wouldn't be surprised if only five people worked on the damn thing and it cost $50,000. Ken still tried, as any good PR guy would, to get people excited about it. You'd be surprised how many shitty ideas can become good ideas with a little imagination. Pier Solar for instance. I haven't played it, but I really fucking want it because they marketed it as this limited edition RPG that's actually on a Genesis cartridge, with a case and labels and everything! Holy shit that sounds AWESOME. The game could suck a monkey's awful dick, but the marketing got me excited about it. OH BUT WAIT if you get the SPECIAL edition it comes with a Sega CD disc that upgrades the soundtrack! Now THAT sounds cool! BUT HURRY there's only a very limited amount of copies!! In reality with the right equipment and the proper eprom chips, as well as a ton of doner carts and cases, you could make copies of the game yourself that'd look no different from their copies. In fact this is probably what they're doing. I'm not bashing the Pier Solar team, it could be an amazing game and I reiterate that I want it, but in the event the game was shit you could still get people excited for it with the right marketing. Ken Balough couldn't come up with the entire marketing scheme himself for it, SEGA probably had other boneheads work on that, so his hands were tied and he had to do what he could to get people excited for it. I wish him all the best on his future endeavors though.
