Sega quickly became one of my favorite developers in 2008. My love for the aged development house and publisher only increased as the year went on. Rez HD, The Club, and Condemned 2: Bloodshot kicked of ‘08 with a pretty big bang, and didn’t slow down. Scattered throughout the year, Sega spat out great games like Viking: Battle for Asgard, Yakuza 2, Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood, and one of my new all-time favorite games, Valkyria Chronicles.
You’ll note that very few of these games, if any, broke the top ten sales list in their respective month.
Ironically, garbage like Iron Man did make the list (with its PlayStation 2 release, no less); the long-legged 2007 release of Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games continues to break ridiculous records; and Sega Superstars Tennis managed to break the million mark in sales. When you compare this to the pitiful sales of Valkyria Chronicles, something that innovated on a genre to change it wholesale, it’s nothing short of heartbreaking. Knowing that we’ll be seeing a winter Olympics game featuring the Mario Mash-Up and Sega Squad actually kind of makes me sick when I know that Sega can develop and publish incredible games like Condemned, or something clever like The Club, while successfully resurrecting a classic like Rez HD. Worse, because of Valkyria’s sad sales, which failed to break 40,000 as of its last report at the end of 2008, the chances of a follow-up are practically nil. It’s always easy to complain that you won’t get more of what you like, but Valkyria is a testament to how great Sega really is.
Yet they continue to suffer…
Sega recently laid off 30 employees. While 30 isn’t a huge number for a relatively large company, it’s hard to deny the fact that it’s going to affect them in a big, bad way. One has to wonder if the low sales of specific titles (Dinosaur King and Shiren the Wanderer come to mind, as well as Valkyria Chronicles) is a direct cause of the effect. If it is, then one must wonder what the hell Sega is doing. Capping off 2008 with Sonic Unleashed and Golden Axe Beast Rider didn’t seem like the smartest move to me, especially considering that both of them were poorly executed reboots of classic games that were terrible games in their own right. Their fourth quarter numbers couldn’t have been pretty, and the layoffs are an easy conclusion to jump to in that regard.
So what does Sega have to do? Their 2009 lineup is looking decent: House of the Dead: Overkill, The Conduit and Madworld look to do something great with Nintendo’s Wii, and Alpha Protocol, Aliens: Colonial Marines and Bayonetta already seem like impressive console titles. Slap a bit of Infinite Space on the DS and Phantasy Star Portable on the PSP, and the portable offerings are looking pretty attractive, too. But one thing still bugs me. I keep getting press releases about Sonic’s Ultimate Genesis Collection. Forty classic Sega games, including Sonic, Ecco, Golden Axe and Phantasy Star, sounds like a wicked deal for anyone looking to kick it with the 80s and 90s. But I’m confused as to why Sega continues to try to tickle our nostalgia when they’re perfectly capable of impressing the market with great, original games.
The quick answer to my bedazzlement is that they’re making more money on rehashes and re-releases, but you can only sell the same game for so long. Starting 2009 off with what is essentially an Xbox Live Arcade collection seems like a shallow way to bank on a poor tail to 2008. And hey, with any luck, it will sell. I want Sega to make money, because it benefits everyone. We get great games. They get some coin. And people might get their job’s back.
If Sega needs to scrape the bottom of a broken barrel for quick cash, they’re going to lose the interest of the “hardcore” crowd. People who dug Condemned or Viking or Valkyria aren’t going to bat an eye at Bayonetta if Sega continues to pump out rip-off garbage like a Sonic collection. The next Sonic game, Sonic & the Black Knight, seems to be another adventure game in the fashion of The Secret Rings, and it feels like nothing more than a Zelda clone with the hedgehog shoehorned in to fit the main character-mould. What pleases me, though, is that these are the only games in the 2009 list of upcoming Sega games that make me feel sick. The rest of Sega’s 09 offerings are pretty damn sexy, and I just hope that they’re able to deliver on them… without slipping in unplayable trash throughout the year.
So I’m stuck at an ironic ending. I want Sega to succeed, but I don’t want them to make terrible games. But Sega’s good seems to come only from their bad. Why does the developer refuse to craft something of a Mario Galaxy-calibre game with Sonic? Evolving on what made the original so great is where you’ll strike gold, dudes. These hamfisted iterations on the classic character are staining the Sega name, while Nintendo’s lengthy period between releases is a clear sign of care and quality. And it leads to brilliant sales.
Sega does what Nintendon’t, alright. They put out great new IPs, while obliterating their old ones. And it doesn’t seem to be working for them — I could drum up 30 folks who would probably agree.
January 23, 2009 at 8:33 pm |
The problem for Sega is simply that they have lots of creative people, and really, REALLY bad management. They don’t know how to leverage their IPs, they don’t really know what to do with the people they have, they can’t market for crap, and their business model doesn’t seem to be designed to make much money. If they’re going to fail, then many of those talented people will move on to other companies and other projects, and their work will continue.
The ticket for Sega isn’t to strike gold, but to get back to good business fundamentals. They need a core income they can rely on, rather than this piecemeal crap from their better titles. Which means either mass-marketed sequels, or casual games, unfortunately.
January 23, 2009 at 8:55 pm |
And that’s exactly why I think they’re dwindling. They can make enough cash to sustain life, but is it enough to keep people happy? If you aren’t satisfying a certain audience with great games, they won’t take you seriously when you eventually do. With so many awful Sonic titles, will the Sega name be beneficial to The Conduit? It’s a new IP, and likely won’t sell, if Sega’s run of luck with cool new series’ is any indication. Will Sega lose potential fans because they’re diluting their older franchises? I think the answer couldn’t be anything but yes.