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Sonic Boom review copies not being sent out; SEGA forcing journos to buy their own

I'm just gonna leave this here...

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10/10 amirite?
 
Sounds about right given what we've seen of the final game so far.

Having said that, do the Sonic games still make Sega decent money? They must, even though they've been almost entirely utter shit for years.

As far as the people buying them, 'fool me once,' I guess. I'm surprised that well hasn't run dry yet.
 
Gross mismanagement and inability to do a rote cash-grab project on SEGA's part. So of course they would try a cover-up, rather than own up to the game's unfinished state. I bet people are going to blame SEGA of America for this rather than SEGA of Japan.
 
SwiftDeath said:
I have to assume this move by Sega is to try and limit the visibility of the game amongst media outlets so as to lessen any potential tarnishing of the brand for future games because I can't seriously believe Sega expects it to sell strongly on the Wii U and thus that some significant portion of sales would be at risk from notably lower reviews.
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Maybe they just need every sale they can get.
 
Dammit Sega, if the game's shit, the game's shit. Don't pull shady stuff to stop kids from finding out.

Did anything like this happen with '06?
 
Goodness, this industry.

Spaghetti said:
even from earlier previews it was made clear that sega cared more about the show and the merch than the game, so this is incredibly unsurprising
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The game isn't even made by Sonic Team, right? Clearly it wasn't important.

Still, if you're doing this big relaunch of your comany's biggest IP, it stands to reason that you'd want the first batch of product to be as good as possible. Then, Sega isn't all that good at reason.
 
Ubisoft and their crap. Now this?

Makes me regret supporting this industry. Duplicity, dishonesty, and talking out of both sides of the mouth runs rampant and I am getting sick of it.
 
SwiftDeath said:
I have to assume this move by Sega is to try and limit the visibility of the game amongst media outlets so as to lessen any potential tarnishing of the brand for future games because I can't seriously believe Sega expects it to sell strongly on the Wii U and thus that some significant portion of sales would be at risk from notably lower reviews.
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The brand has been tarnished for the better part of 8 years. Colors and Generations aren't even particularly great, they just aren't complete shit like Sonic 06 was, and that's why they were received fairly well. Lost World also becomes a worse game the more you play it.
 
Meanwhile, perfectly good games like Yakuza Ishin & Phantasy Star Portable 2 remain unavailable in NA. Even though Sonic is obviously much more marketable, it's certainly frustrating as a Sega fan.
 
We all though the mobile games would take out the "core" video game industry, but if these publishers and developers keep it up with their non-functional games at launch (Halo MCC, Driveclub, Sim City, BF4, etc) and their obsture anti-consumer embargoes (Sonic, AC:Unity) they're gonna take it out themselves.
 
Averon said:
Ubisoft and their crap. Now this?

Makes me regret supporting this industry. Duplicity, dishonesty, and talking out of both sides of the mouth runs rampant and I am getting sick of it.
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"This industry" is a wee bit bigger than a few major publishers and console games.
 
Does it really matter, though? I'd personally rather a reviewer buy the copy with no embargoes, restrictions or NDAs and all that bullshit and review the game for what it is. No strings attached, as it were.

If a publisher doesn't want to send a review copy, sure it doesn't really fill anyone with confidence, but it's their choice to make.

I'd rather live in a world were publishers stop sending out copies for review than a world were publishers attach a bunch of strings for the promise of early review copies.
 
This tells you everything you need to know about the game. The worst thing is though once the cartoon begins to air this game will probably start selling decently.
 
Makes sense to me.

If you know your game is shit and you don't want Joe Consumer to know your game is shit, then cut off the supply pipeline from the people who will tell Joe Consumer that your game is shit. It's not like those review copies would result in a positive gain for SEGA. They would just result in further negative impact.
 
Wasn't there another thread about how metacritic and reviews are basically irrelevant? Seems like Sega and Ubisoft got the memo lol
 
SwiftDeath said:
I have to assume this move by Sega is to try and limit the visibility of the game amongst media outlets so as to lessen any potential tarnishing of the brand for future games because I can't seriously believe Sega expects it to sell strongly on the Wii U and thus that some significant portion of sales would be at risk from notably lower reviews.
Click to expand...

They would do this even if it wasnt on Wii U, its not like they didnt tried with Lost World, the problem is that Generations and Colors are the only two somewhat decent games in awhile, Sonic Team/SEGA are a mess.

The show is going to die too, its at 7:00 AM.
 
Well I was trying to remain positive and wait until the game launched to judge by myself. But that looks like weird move...
 
Timeaisis said:
Does it really matter, though? I'd personally rather a reviewer buy the copy with no embargoes, restrictions or NDAs and all that bullshit and review the game for what it is. No strings attached, as it were.

If a publisher doesn't want to send a review copy, sure it doesn't really fill anyone with confidence, but it's their choice to make.

I'd rather live in a world were publishers stop sending out copies for review than a world were publishers attach a bunch of strings for the promise of early review copies.
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This is what I was trying to say. Review copies are nice, but they come with a lot of baggage. Not offering them just puts the press on the same level as normal consumers in some instances, which isn't exactly an atrocity; some people think that reviews would change for the better if the people writing them had to think about a game's value proposition the same way anyone else would.

To draw a parallel to another medium, some films aren't screened for critics. This tips a lot of people off to the fact that those films are probably junk that critics would hate, but it doesn't need to inspire the kinds of reactions we see in this thread; the same Universal Pictures that distributed the never-screened R.I.P.D also distributed Zero Dark Thirty. Doesn't make Universal a bunch of evil scumbags, just a big company that deals in a variety of different movies.
 
As expected, the game is most likely shit. Just like Ass Creed Unity, try to eek out as many sales as possible before the reviews pan it.

Shameful shit going on this week by publishers.
ViewtifulJC said:
Guess we're all gonna have to wait for GAF Impressions
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I mean, SOMEONE at GAF will surely take the plunge, right? Take one for the team someone.
 
Assassins Creed games have always had noon launch day embargos, Unity just got good scores instead of great ones. Doesn't make it any less silly of course, but it is not a new thing
 
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