The Sonic modding community is extremely committed and has done some fantastic work on a variety of levels. So much so that Sonic Frontiers producer has said in a recent interview that the Sonic Team sees the modding community as competition simply because they have been so successful in bringing additional content to the Sonic the Hedgehog games. Here’s what was roughly said:
We wanted to show that if Sonic Team had updated “Sonic Frontier” for less than a year, it would be this great.
The “MOD” culture that is flourishing overseas was also a rival. There are some very skilled users overseas, and what we were planning to make as fan service turned out to be “It’s already working. ……” (laughs).
(laughs) — What kind of mods did you see?
Kishimoto: Characters other than Sonic were playable, and the new actions we were going to do in the update were already in action. I thought it was going to be great (laughs).
(Laughs) Then, the Sonic team couldn’t release that content as an update, could they? If the customers come that far, we’re going to go even further beyond their expectations and betray their expectations. As a result, we said, “Isn’t the full version our competitor?” That’s what we decided to do.
And as always other people than sonic team do a better job.
Sad but true unfortunately.
They should hire them, but SoJ can’t stand to be upstaged by what they deemed to be “outsiders”. They sabotaged SoA because they were performing better than their home base, and they allegedly did the same thing with Sonic Origins so that Christian Whitehead wouldn’t be assigned another project.
Oh this is just too good. Imagine being so insecure of your property that you think unofficial fan mods count as competition. Why don’t you give people what they actually want like Sally Acorn instead of the same cookie cutter game over and over again and maybe then people will be less likely to resort to mods?
It didn’t sound like they viewed the mods as competition in a bad way, more like as motivation to try and do something bigger and better because you know, they’re competing with them. Your take is just so bad 😑
As right as you are about their BS towards “competition”, what makes you think Sally will improve the franchise? She’s usually there to counter Sonic’s whole personality (which is dependent on the plot of the week and script nowadays) and lead a organized freedom fighter group, which the Sonic and co. aren’t (Forces was very situational, and should’ve been about them BECOMING the resistance).
The franchise and recent games have their flaws and there are answers out there to correct them, but Sally isn’t one of them.
If the Sonic Team truly thinks the content being produced by moders are equal to their own content to the point of being “competition” then they clearly need to put more time and effort into their games.
That’s not a stab at the modders by any means, the dev’s content should always be better. They have more time and a higher budget. Mods should never be on par or better than the core experience…
I don’t know, some modders are just that good. You’re really underestimating the realm of mods if you think this is true, though it depends on the game since some games get better mods than others, and sometimes it’s just because that’s how long the base game has been out.
I guess he knew about the mods that did some work for other Sonic games. I wish Sonic Team or SEGA hired them even so mods only works on PC.
I really don’t see this as a bad thing. He specifically points out playable characters being added before they did it. That’s hardly “making a better game than the devs” he’s just saying they beat them to it. I read this as him appreciating the Modding community, but wanting to go beyond expectations. Who doesn’t want that? Cause that’s definitely not what sonic team has done in the past. Frontiers is the first Sonic game I have actually cared about in like 15 years.
SEGA,
NO ONE IS COMPETING AGAINST YOU! People just want to create the best Sonic content possible.
Someone has to put out good Sonic games. Heck, there are plenty of things I’d like to see in Sonic games that some mods provide.
He doesn’t see it as “competition” in the negative sense. More like a “Damn, this is impressive. We’ve got to up our game,” sort of way.
It could be much worse. Could be a Nintendo or Capcom taking umbrage at the fact that the end user is altering their work without their express prior permission and looking to punish anyone who tries doing so, regardless of content or quality.
I wish sonic heroes was a digital download for Nintendo switch.