Sonic’s Birthday Contest Winners Announced
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Sonic’s Birthday Contest Winners Announced

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Author Shadzter
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SEGA has announced the UK and U.S. winners of Sonic’s Birthday Contest along with a full statement regarding the course of action taken in regards to selecting a winner after the contest’s voting was stopped due some irregularities found in the voting system.

The full statement from the contest’s official website is below:

Today we are very pleased to announce the winners of Sonic’s Birthday Contest! The contest challenged the community in coming up with a video that showed the passion and excitement of being a Sonic fan and we were completely blown away by the 300+ videos submitted by everyone! Having enjoyed watching each and every one we finally picked our top 10 videos. And today, at long last, we are very proud to announce the winners of our first, second and third place prizes…

But before we announce these, and to keep you in suspense, we would like to address the concerns with the user participation portion of the contest. As you know we discovered voting irregularities on July 16th and ceased user participation a few days later. It was our original goal to create an opportunity for a winner to be picked by the community but due to these voting irregularities we have had to come up with a different solution. It’s important to all of us at SEGA that this process is made as transparent as possible because we respect and admire all the hardworking fans that created videos in the Birthday Contest.

In looking at the voting data we learned we could not discern the difference between legit and non-legit votes with any accuracy we were comfortable with. We felt it would be unfair to scrub the votes down to the first day or two of voting and award based on that. We also briefly discussed creating a new voting system – but the delay in crafting this new tool would take some time and be extremely limiting; quite the opposite of what we wanted initially.

The goal of this promotion was to do something big, something new and something that would reward the ceaseless efforts of the Sonic community that we are so regularly impressed with. Therefore we decided the fairest option would be for the Sonic Team themselves, along with a team of SEGA employees from our Japanese, American and European offices who worked on the Sonic Birthday Contest, to choose the winners.

Each person within this group has voted on their top videos from the 10 that were pre-selected. And so, after much deliberation, we are very proud and hugely excited to announce the US & UK winners:

Here are the winners (which include TSS and SSMB founder Svend ‘ Dreadknux’ Joscelyne, congrats dude!) :

UK –
Grand Prize Winner
“Blue Sky Dreams”
Joe M. from Glasgow, Lanarkshire
A trip for two to Japan to meet Sonic Team and be of the first to play Sonic the Hedgehog 4
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58sTptVl3Mc&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

1st Place Prize Winner
“Mobiuscard”
Kristian F. from Warrington, Cheshire
A 32 gigabyte iPod Touch with Sonic the Hedgehog 2
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSWNAQ0Qv28&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

2nd Place Prize Winner
“Sonic & Me”
Svend J. from Southend-on-Sea, Essex
A 32 gigabyte iPod Touch with Sonic the Hedgehog 2
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EKHkAfWe0c&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

U.S. –

Grand Prize Winner
“Needlemouse the Musical”
Nathan M. from Los Angeles, CA
A trip for two to Japan to meet Sonic Team and be of the first to play Sonic the Hedgehog 4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48zUHUNFWr4&feature=player_embedded

1st Place Prize Winner
“Past Cool Birthday”
Tabitha W. from Galveston, Indiana
A 32 gigabyte iPod Touch with Sonic the Hedgehog 2
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94YRdocD8Dc&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

2nd Place Prize Winner
“A Day in the Life”
Andrew S. from Walnut Creek, California
A 32 gigabyte iPod Touch with Sonic the Hedgehog 2
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWgtfaY-2do&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

Congratulations to all of the winners from everyone here at The Sonic Stadium!
Did your favourite get picked? Do you agree with SEGA’s decision for selecting the winners after what happened with the voting? Discuss in the comments.

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45 Comments

  1. I didn’t get to see the vids or was able to vote, the vids here are awesome.

  3. Yay one of my Indiana girls got the first place prize! I’m so happy for her! Now waiting for the honorable mentions on the Sega America blogs to try to find my entry! Not to be tooting on my own horn or anything but come on! I put a lot of work and heart into that video, I got some comments on there saying that the production was high quality and the story was really sweet, I worked and put that video up until the very last minute of the contest for pete’s sake (don’t ask me for the details because that’s a long story in itself), so I, at least, deserve something from all of this!

  4. I feel sorry for some of the people in this, I mean some people deserved to win purely for effort. Like that girl who painted a massive murial of Sonic Splash Hill Zone. That was amazing and must’ve taken ages. And that guy who got a whole swim class to drown! Mostly good decisions (especially Needlemouse!) but some weird ones tbh.

    Well done to the winners anyway.

  5. Crap, i even’t try entry, only for not be USANIAN or UKanian.
    Screw sega, i star follow my own franchises.

  6. @Wordy i totally agree with ya that splash hill/sega logo combo mural was awesome that girl was really talented at art man

  7. Needlemouse: The Musical was a sure winner. I have the video on my PSP lol Well done to all the winners.

  8. I’m really glad to see the Needlemouse Musical won, and “A Day in the Life”, too. But I really didn’t think the “Past Cool Birthday Entry” deserved to win. IMO, there were much better entries that probably took tons of time like the Splash Hill Mural.

    I didn’t get to see many of the UK entries, so I can’t really say the same thing.

    Also, congrats, Dreadknux!

  9. Congrats, Dreadknux! I haven’t seen your video yet, but I’ll have to watch it now. LOL
    Glad to see Past Cool Birthday and Mobiuscard placed, as well.

  10. @Wordy that girl that did the mural should have at least been 1st runner up. I totally agree that’s huge talent right there. Well, since I couldn’t vote for the UK part of the contest, I’m excited that the Needlemouse Musical won Grand though. Lolworthy greatness right there!

  11. WHAT THE HELL? The grand prize winner acts like he’s bored! Like he doesn’t even care! I like sonic so much more than he does. But I didn’t get a chance to prove it. This contest was at the worst possible time for me. The economy is so bad right now, I had to shell out all of my video games for dirt cheap, including my Sonic games!

  12. Well done the winners and especially DreadKnux for making it there! Though what ever happened to the randomized draw of swag?

  14. Awe, I really wanted T-Bird to win, he deserved it the most, plus he probably would have filled us in on every detail of the Japan trip. At least Dreadknux got something, congrarts.

  18. Wow thats dumb.. I thought the contest was showing your the most passionate sonic fan and hitting the main points SEGA talked about.. Musical was good but I feel like past cool birthday deserved to win, She hit all the main points and shown shes a hardcore sonic fan and how much passion she has.. needle mouse was mostly for entertainment not.. showing how they are the most passionate sonic fan.. this is a disappointment to me Past cool birthday should of won for the U.S.

  20. @Daniel Butler i say you should of won not that stupid scotish guy who did nothing but mumble how he didnt have a genesis,saturn or a game gear i mean comeee oooon

  22. @Bluetudedude Well I always thought it was to make an entertaining video SHOWING your passion for Sonic. I find that all the entries going “I HEART SONIC” to be incredible boring to be honest. That’s why needlemouse is amazing. It shows that this guy is in love with Sonic enough to make a musical about him. That’s creative and interesting to watch, even if you don’t know Sonic it’s still funny to watch. And I know the site said to show your passion for Sonic but you can do it in an interesting way! Not just do what the site said! And I dunno what that Scottish guy is doing on there, it’s one of the better I LOVE SONIC ones but still, it’s boring lol.
    Ok, I have a feeling I may have gone overboard =P Rant over.

  23. The Grandprize winners SOOOO didn’t deserve it, the ones who put their heart and soul into their videos were the true winners. =D

  24. @Shoryuken
    thanks man, i really appreciate you saying is should of won lol.

    I agree with allot of people on here, I did my best to follow the guidelines best i could and many of the winners didnt do what they said was worth points and they won, its kind of lame.

    @sonicchic1
    can you put a link to your video on here?
    I want to watch it!

  25. I think the reason why the U.K. grand prize winner won, is because of the massive editing and effects he used.

  26. I agree with Wordy. The entries that were “I love Sonic THIIIIIIIIIIS much!” were really dull. Sure it shows that you love Sonic but I’m pretty sure anyone entering this contest can say the exact same thing. I’m glad that Needlemouse the musical won. It showed a ton of passion while being both entertaining and original and in the end I think that’s what they were looking for. So cheers to the guy who made it and won.

  28. Congrats to the winners. Needlemouse: The musical was entertaining and i liked it, but i liked the “Past Cool Birthday” entry a lil better myself. It reminded me of where I was in the past when Sonic was on top of the chart. And she got more people involved which was cool. I really think that the girl who painted the Splash Hill mural should have won something. That’s what u call hard work and talent.

  29. @wordy If that was the case then sega would of said make an entertaining videos and not have mention those key points, if that was the case then people wouldn’t of went out in public and made fools of themselves in front of people and done what they were told in the video, allot of people would of made there videos differently.. I feel like Sega mislead people on this one.

  35. @sonicchic1
    Great video!

    Where do you go to see if you got an honorable mention or anything?

  38. Some of these videos are very great, the Blue sky dreams made me shed a tear at some parts. The needlemouse musical was funnny (Loved how knuckles didn’t care ♫)

  40. Cool! I never got to see the U.K. entries.. The link on the site kept sending me back to the U.S. ones.
    I like them all!
    When I first went to the voting page, Tabitha’s was at the top.. Though I feel she deserved it for her devotion, the Sonic musical was just too funny, and I gave it my vote for that day (turns out, it was the only vote I gave at all). I thought the musical was very clever. Only problem was it didn’t really incorporate the outside world. I mean, it was one guy dressed as all the characters. I must say that the costuming in the U.K. live action skit at First Place was much better than the costuming for 2nd Place in the U.S.

    Funny how two of the entries for the U.K talked about how they distanced themselves from Sonic at one some point in their lives. Not that we all haven’t… Hell, since the first SEGA console I actually owned was a Dreamcast, it wasn’t until ’99 that I even cared much about Sonic since ’94. Then I began downloading old SatAM eps (at a WHOLE 7 mb apiece), and remembered how attached I was to the little blue guy when I was younger.

  43. In “Sonic and Me” what is that song at the beginning. Its beautiful T_T. I must know what it is.

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