It’s time for three old people to tell you how it was better back in their day.
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How old are you? Let me just explain that I am 28 and when I was a teenager, the community looked very different. Fansites out the wazoo, “figure heads” of the community. It was a lovely time, forward over a decade later and what do we have? Fansites other than the top tier have died out, forums are barely existent like they use to be. Is it that the community has died, due to things like the “glory” years of Sonic going and kids now growing up with games like Rise of Lyric, or is just the community doesn’t need to exist in the form it use to? Why have a close knit group of people when you have social media and things like twitter. Has sites like Youtube replaced the need for forums and fansites? Things that didn’t exist back then? It’s with great pleasure we get to discuss this with Sonic Yoda and Roareye Black. Sonic Yoda ran one of original Sonic fansites while Roareye was part of the orginal Sonic Stadium team, owner of the original Sonic Spriters Network and co-host on of the communities first online radio shows, “The Sonic Hour”
We play Defeat Donnie which has a result you will NOT be expecting. And we call the Uncle Poxxy hotline and find out if it’s ok to ship Dragon Ball Z with Sonic and which Sonic character we would like under the covers (for adult time)!
If you have a question for Uncle Poxxy or want to appear on Defeat Donnie (skype required), message us at thesonicshow (at) gmail.com or message us on Facebook.
WARNING: (Explicit Tag)
Well, I’m 24, I’ve been a Sonic fan since I was 5 and I find the series has a lot more haters and nay sayers from within the fanbase now than it used to. It used to only be ignorant people from outside the fanbase who had never touched anything Sonic-related that did it, now it seems to be everyone, both inside and outside the fanbase. It’s left me and others like myself feeling like we just don’t fit in anywhere where Sonic’s concerned now because no matter where we choose to say something positive about Sonic or show off our love for the franchise, we’re met with overwhelming negativity, even causing a lot of us to completely disown the fanbase altogether.
I can’t agree with this more…
I love Sonic, I really do… But this fanbase makes me lose my faith, not just in gaming communities, but in humanity in general…
I think Sonic fanculture has changed quite a bit as well. Now its considered acceptable and admirable to insult and attack people who hold viewpoints deemed “unacceptable”, which can serve to make people feel alienated and so abandon discussions. Compounding the issue is the fractured state of the Sonic fanbase, meaning that what qualifies as an acceptable viewpoint can vary between and even within websites. For example, its acceptable on SSMB to claim that Sonic Colors is an uninspired, lazy game, but claim that on the Sonic Stadium’s comments section and you’re going to get ripped to shreds. As a result, Sonic fans tend to cloyster themselves into small groups they know won’t attack them, which ironically makes things worse since they don’t get to hear multiple perspectives on matters, making them ignorant to the current affairs of the franchise.
Yeah, that’s also part of the problem and reason the fanbase appears to be dying out, we do that and in turn become ignorant ourselves which then adds to the original problem. It’s a vicious cycle that only ends when people disown the fanbase.
Yeah. The expression and variants of “I love Sonic but don’t want to associate with his fanbase.” is becoming sadly common.
This is so true, I can’t even explain further how I feel. You hit the nail on the head.
I remember the good ole’ days! I hope DreadKnux is doing well. I posted my old “fansite” as my website in this comment. Oh my gosh, I miss the old community so friggen’ bad. Maybe if Sonic had some good games again, things would be different. Until Sonic picks up the pace, the community will remain a graveyard of old souls.
Im 28 turning 29 and Im still a big sonic fan, dare I say the biggest one in Australia? Dunno. That being said I enjoy sonic and it’s universe for myself. The only comment I can say about the fan base is, there are some fan’s who won’t let go of the past and maybe they should let the series move on from them. I mean you can still be a fan of the older stuff if that’s your cup of tea, but no point in continuing enjoying the newer stuff if you always will hate on it. It’s not good on your health or the progress of the sonic series as a whole.
OUR LAST HOPE is the 25th Anniversary to bring back sonic fans otherwise….
Turning 32 in a few weeks. I was just 8 years old when I first learned about Sonic (which was in 1991, so that makes sense). I guess it’s be cause the Sonic fanbase is no longer as excited about Sonic as they once used to. We will all yearn for a good game with solid gameplay and no bugs (if possible), but at least personally, every new Sonic game announcement in the last 4-5 years hasn’t had me excited in the sense of “Wow, what are we going to do next” but “what kind of non-Sonic-y gimmick are they going to try now and how many bugs is the game going to have”.
I haven’t gotten bored of Sonic, in fact I still play a couple of hours from time to time from any game just to remember old times. And I am still eagerly waiting for the announcement of Iizuka’s next game. But I am have mostly negative thoughts than positive.
Thing is, save for RoL, Sonic hasn’t had any significantly buggy titles. He’s had a few flawed ones, yes, but every non-Boom game from Unleashed onwards has been technically solid at the very least. Plus if I recall correctly, Colors was praised for integrating its Wisps well into its gameplay and Gens. was praised for not having any stupid gameplay gimmicks outside of level gimmicks (which were in turn handled well). Even Lost World was praised for having an interesting concept in parkour, even if the execution wasn’t the greatest.
I don’t hate you for being negative, I just feel like you’re basing your fears off of stereotypes rather that the actual situation at hand.
Yeah, exactly, Mad Convoy. Every game aside from RoL is highly enjoyable despite all the flaws, I mean, if you’re gonna hate a Sonic game because of its flaws or bugs, well, hello? The Megadrive games say hi too. Like, don’t claim recent games are bad for it then claim the early games weren’t. Biggest example is Tails in Sonic 2. I mean, come on, he’s infamous for being riddled with bugs and issues unless another player was using him!
Sorry, forgot to add, the only reason we’re not as excited about new Sonic titles as we used to be is simple. We grew up. We got older past the point where new games excite us as much. We also learned and gained experience about the fundamentals of what makes a game good. This knowledge and experience, like it or not, does greatly influence whether we’re going to get excited over a new game or not. We enjoyed the early games that were just as flawed as more recent titles for the same reason kids today enjoy the more recent titles more than us, we didn’t know any better! Give it a few years and, if Sonic’s still alive then, those same kids that enjoyed the likes of Sonic Unleashed, Sonic Colours and Sonic Lost World more than us will feel the exact same way as you about any more recent titles that exist when they’re that much older.
Pretty much. Stuff like Adventure, Shadow the Hedgehog and Sonic 06 were outright despised by the fanbase for awhile, but when the people who did play them as kids grew up and started using the internet extensively, their positive opinions of and nostalgia for those titles became influential and helped better their reputation. I suspect that one day we’ll see people wishing that Sega did more with Colors and Rise of Lyric’s ideas just as we see people wishing that Sega did more with Adventure and 06’s ideas now.
(Also, don’t even get me started on Sonic 3’s wraparound bugs. If you have a solid knowledge about how the game handles scrolling, you can trick it into moving you all kinds of places, from the end of the stage to previous stages to certain sections, and if you mishandle it, into dead ends or soft resets. Mind you, these wraparound bugs won’t happen while playing normally, but they do exist and they give Sonic 3 a large array of bugs to exploit.)
Exactly. I lost count of the amount of times I fell through walls, enemies and bosses, got hurt while being nowhere near enemies and randomly started pushing things or dropped of ledges in Sonic 1 too. “Oh but it’s old!” There’s plenty other platformers from that era that didn’t have these issues! I absolutely love Sonic but I refuse to be so blinded by my love of the franchise that I’ll ignore the flaws. Nothing’s perfect and I’m willing to admit it.
Weird stuff happens in video games all the time. Once in Unleashed I managed to punch an Eggbot into a rock, and had to restart due to entering a stalemate where he couldn’t hit me and I couldn’t hit him. Plus I once managed to randomly clip through a wall in a friend’s copy of Sonic 2 into a narrow section with a Badnik, which also for whatever reason caused the game to stop scrolling, trapping me into a section. Fun times.
But anyway, yeah, every game has flaws. I don’t doubt that Sonic is in a bit of a rut right now. Its just that I think people tend to base their criticisms on stereotypes rather than what’s actually in the games.
Well, its to be expected given the various fandom wars. I think you’d be surprised how many Facebook and Twitter fanpages and accounts exist for Sonic though. People don’t need to create new websites because Facebook offers the same community benefits without requiring coding knowledge. Plus making a website is simply harder nowadays– we’re no longer in the Web 1.0 days where all you needed to make a website was a Geocities account and a vision. Now you have to expertly format and design a website for the website to be considered acceptable, or shell out some cash to have somebody else do it for you. Plus, since most website revenue is derived from banner ads and websites are expensive to run, websites covering a niche within a niche within a niche topic like Sonic tend to get stuck in a trilemma of selling out to clickbait, asking for donations and risking that people won’t give much, or keeping to their values and likely not meeting the bottom line. Meanwhile, social media and Youtube will do all that formatting and funding stuff for you, making it a more viable offering for somebody inexperienced with web design.
Plus Sonic forums have gained a bad reputation as cesspools of irrationality, so people tend to avoid them as a way of avoiding the stress.
I’m beginning to think an evil gypsy got pissed one day and placed a curse on the Sonic franchise, that would doom it (as well as its different mediums, the Sonic fanbase, and individual fan works) with various misfortunes, but in a way that wouldn’t become painfully obvious until the new tens.
This is just unreal. Sonic is one of those franchises that’s supposed to be up there with Mario and Pokemon. People say Sonic is dated due to his “90’s lingo”, but TMNT puts far more emphasis on that brand of lingo, and it’s STILL popular (mainly for its toy advertisements/etc.). And how many people still say “dude”, and how many times has Sonic actually said “radical”.
Aside from that, this franchise still feels like it’s been cursed, and people just assume there’s no way Sonic can do any better and his time is just up.
With your second paragraph, I agree, that claim is silly considering Sonic doesn’t use any ’90s lingo anymore. When did he last say “dude”, “radical”, “way past cool”, “let’s juice and jam”, “Let’s juice” or “Let’s do it to it”? Yet shows like TMNT (new version), Regular Show and Adventure Time all use that type of language.
LOL, now I’m imagining Sega making a deal with the devil in exchange for success…
But I think the reason for Sonic games coming off as “dated” is because most of them are, in some way, products purely of what was popular in their time. 90s Sonic’s lingo and standard 90s plots would never fly now, the Adventure games and Heroes had a whole slew of technical problems indicative of being an early 3D game plus its rather reflective of a time where genre roulettes were cool, Shadow’s edge in his self-titled game is the product of Sega/Sonic Team trying and failing to upgrade Sonic to the tastes of 2005, Sonic 06 is a product of the “everything and the kitchen sink” mentality Sega/Sonic Team held in the Adventure era, Colors was the product of Sega/Sonic Team trying to move away from all the criticisms of 2005-2009 by doing the exact opposite, Gens. was the product of Sega/Sonic Team trying to make lightning strike twice with the older fans after they were found to enjoy Colors, and Boom was the product of overconfidence spurred by the success of Gens. The only exceptions I can think of are Unleashed (which instead worked to refine the Adventure formula despite Adventure and its derivative’s reputations having been pretty much in the gutter back in 2008) and Lost World (which seems to be doing its own thing entirely). I wish Sega would have better foresight in regards to these sorts of things…
I’ve been a fan since I was 7 (since 1991, guess how old I am now… do the math). I didn’t get to know the Sonic community that well until 2007. Bad time, I guess? After Sonic the Hedgehog (2006)… I guess things were declining? Then you got the stereotypical Sonic fans (I will not drop their names, but we all know who they are) that give the community a bad rap/rep. It’s time we ignore them. They are zeros, they are irrelevant. Do not give them attention at all. I hope they fade away and/or they move on to other things and leave Sonic alone. I hope the community gets better and better as time goes by.
Natural evolution. Why join a Sonic fansite when you can make fan pages on Facebook and Tweet? It’s a lot lighterweight.
Of course, it should go without saying that the long near decade span of awful games certainly endeared no one and that is the whole reason Sonic Boom was created: not only as an avenue for Sega of America to have a stake in Sonic, but to try and bring in younger fans. Combo in that forums tend to be full of mid to late 20s geezers and a certain handful of them have been reported doing “the naughty touch” and it gets pretty messy.
It’s also hard to when you consider that through time, the Sonic community has galvanized under a few major sites:
-Sonic Stadium for the general Sonic fan
-Sonic Retro for the research, archival and documentation, and generally more grounded conversations (also a gated community.)
-SSRG largely as a twin sister of Retro
-Sonic Center for the folks interested in speed running and competition
I’d list SFGHQ but they seem in a bit of turmoil due to recent developments. If I missed some, then don’t consider it as I’m insulting your site. It’s just these are traditionally the larger sites out there.
Thank you, this is the point I thought of as well. The community hasn’t died out more than it’s moved to other sites like Facebook, Twitter, DeviantArt (oh lord the DeviantArt), Tumblr, all that lot. Hosting and maintaining a website is expensive, but hopping on social media to post your Sonicy stuff and reach out to other fans? Much easier.
Why is the Sonic community dying out? Because Sega turned Sonic into a series aimed exclusively at 6-12 year olds. What did they do after Colors and Generations? They launched ANOTHER Sonic series aimed exclusively at 6-12 year olds! Most people don’t find this type of content appealing in Sonic games. There’s nothing for most fans to be excited about. Who will be playable in the next game? What will the story be like? Will GUN have a role in the next game? Those questions no longer apply with the current state the series is in. Long story short, the series became “kiddy.” That is the truth.
Sonic was always a series aimed exclusively at that age range.
Someone didn’t watch the video Sonic: Birth of an Icon…
Pretty much what Hogfather said. Plus, we still ask what the story will be like in the next game. You never know– Sega could very have fired and replaced P&G, or just stuck them with Boom games while Sonic Team went and worked on the 25th anniversary game. Either way, we still have the questions of “What kind of gameplay will Sonic have next?”, “Will the next Sonic game be in 60FPS like Lost World?”, “What will the music sound like?”, “Will it be for PS4/XBone?”, etc. Story isn’t the only thing that draws people to a game you know.
Plus there’s the fact that these “kiddy games” set off a temporary revival of interest in Sonic that only really ended when RoL came along. This would indicate to me that the core issue is less the concept of using a light-hearted atmosphere and children as a target audience, and more Sonic developers failing to properly execute their concepts.
SEGA’s execution issues wouldn’t be so bad I they would just swallow their pride and give actually fans (the ones who know the series better than they do) creative control for once, so we can have something. Otherwise, the rest of us are left to bitch and moan on fansites (that SEGA doesn’t even look at), And argue with some of the worst possible people, get banned, and gain nothing from all of it but a migrain and loss of faith in humanity.
Actually, that would probably end in a mess. Sonic fans are notoriously divided on what’s best for Sonic. One fan may campaign for a Gens. 2, another may campaign for a SA3, and if my experience with online debates means anything, neither will want to compromise on this. Ditto for the rest of the fandom wars going on right now.
Plus you’d be surprised. Sega does see this stuff– its just too incompetent to take our statements the right way or do much productive about our criticism. An ego check could do the company good, and perhaps hiring a better market analyst too.
At the very least, they have one member of the fan community working for them. And now I can’t even imagine my life without the official Sonic the Hedgehog Twitter/Facebook pages, lol.
Yeah, at least. But unfortunately, not everybody can be Webber.
If anything I would say the decrease in forums is due to the increased negativity between fans. It’s one thing to be critical and even cynical of the Sonic series itself, but then you have those fans that push boundaries and put other fans down for thinking or feeling any different about anything. It’s really gotten out of hand. Sure you could pull a Sonic Sanctuary and say it’s because of certain recent games that fans have gotten this aggressive in the first place, but I find that there’s no excuse when it comes to that kind of behavior. It’s not a game’s fault you decided to insult anybody, it’s yours. I don’t think the fan community will disappear altogether, but hopefully times will change where everyone isn’t so quick to throw flames and pitchforks at each other.
I always thought the “its Sega’s fault” thing was just deflecting blame away from the real problem. After all, if its somebody else’s fault, you’re no longer held accountable.
Except of course, the personal attacks aren’t anything Sega has encouraged or partaken in directly. So if you attack people relentlessly, you are completely responsible for your actions.
Yeah, that’s the main reason I’m having an issue with how the Sonic Sanctuary has been lately, or at the very least it’s main mod. Despite advertising the page as a “bias free safe haven for all Sonic fans” he forces his opinion on Boom down other fans throats, made an article that pretty much insulted the integrity of many fans who despite a lot of the spin-off branch’s problems actually DO like the show, as well as needlessly brought in several demographics that had nothing to do with the topic in the first place (indirectly insulting them as a result, despite trying to “defend” them), his attitude when he expresses his opinion and how he mishandled expressing it said article being the prime factors that caused two of his top contributors to leave, his constant denial of any responsibility for what he said and how he handled himself being what pushed them away, claiming that it was all Boom’s fault for existing in the first place, and then going out of his way to say that since Sonic Boom was “never intended for the fans” he doesn’t have to cover any news relating to it at all. It’s gotten to such a point that he’s being hypocritical about the reasons for everything happening and hes’s denying an entire part of the franchise ANY spotlight beyond the fact that he hates it. Whether everybody likes it or not, Sonic Boom IS a part of the franchise. It may have a different target audience but when has that ever affected who watches what, Steven Universe and My Little Pony clearly being marketed towards kids yet they have such HUGE adult fan bases, and Sonic fans are similarly giving this branch just as much attention, positive or negative. To pretend it doesn’t exist while claiming to be “free of any bias” and “open to all Sonic fans of all mediums” is just painfully hypocritical and it really saddens me to see it degrading like this. The page’s following is still decently strong for the most part, but if trends like this continue to alienate fans I fear that the number of followers who recognize this problem will grow and grow until it’s only a shadow of its former self (and not the good kind). That would be a huge disappointment, as I’ve found the page to be a nice decent little page to turn to for Sonic and fan community based news and fan projects whenever I’m on Facebook, and it pains me greatly to see things being mismanaged as they have been lately.
Nah, its fine. I can relate. I actually used to be an online friend of his, and one of two admins that recently left. If you’re prepared for a long read, I’ll give you the whole story.
When I first got talking to him, he was pretty chill. He had some weird ideas, sure, but usually we could agree to disagree. He treated me with respect, and as somebody who had a lot of bad experiences on the official Facebook page, I really appreciated that. We formed a close bond within a few weeks. I got even closer to another admin, Felix, who was and still is very insightful. Juvi was nice too, though I seldom spoke to him for whatever reason. I’d rated the page positively– still think that review is up there, actually. LOL. Then I successfully broke up a “debate turned nasty” between CK and Felix, which impressed Felix enough that I was asked to become an admin. Should’ve taken that event as foreshadowing, but whatever, I was pretty hype to get in. People congratulated me and I felt welcome. I got closer to Juvi as well through PM chat. Funny guy, I have to say. I really ought to get back in touch with him. My bond with Felix strengthened as well.
But seeing the PMs came at a cost. I ended up bearing first witness to the dark side of CK. For the sake of privacy I won’t name specifics, but he started saying a lot of ignorant stuff about Sonic and world affairs then act enlightened for having them. This began to bleed into his actual debates– I believe around the time Fire and Ice got announced, but my memory is a bit fuzzy on this. After awhile, I started to get the feeling that he looked down on Felix and I for liking Boom. Oh, sure, he’d tell me that he respected me and thought I was nice, but then immediately follow it up with something to the essence of “But I’m right and everybody knows it but you and your small group of Boom fans.”
I also started to notice that he spends a lot of time over at SA3. I knew that he used to admin over there, but was under the impression that he’d since distanced himself and reformed. It was a real shock when I saw that he actually agreed with the hateful and weird stuff SA3 was promoting and supported its actions. Indeed, CK’s involvement with SA3 created some tension amongst the admins as Felix (and later I) felt that he was started to regress back to SA3-type behavior. Obviously, CK brushed that off, but tensions only got worse once he started sharing videos from The True Sonic Spirit Channel, a Youtube channel that essentially functions as SA3’s propaganda wing.
His actions got worse and worse. Soon his posts were bashing current Sonic nearly all the time. He never missed an opportunity to make a mean comment about Boom, Stephen Frost, or Ken Pontac, no matter how uncalled for, how insulting, or unjustified the comments were. Later he came to bash Iizuka too, as he tended to assume that he was responsible for stuff that was actually Sega’s doing. Including, yes, Boom.
Then came the Boom shitpost, which proved to me once and for all that CK looks down on Boom fans. The real point of contention was that he seriously claimed that if you find Boom Knuckles funny, you must also find people with Down syndrome funny and worthy of being laughed at. Because, you know, a character depicted as amazingly stupid MUST be disabled somehow! Despite Boom Knux showing no hallmarks of mental illness and the existance of dumber people in real life who have no mental health problems whatsoever!
Can you tell why that accusation was offensive? I’m sure its obvious.
But contrary to what CK will tell you, his attitude in that article was only a contributing factor to Felix and I leaving. The straw that broke the camel’s back was actually PMs sent sometime around Iwata’s death. I’m torn on whether or not to share given the private nature of PMs, but I think I can say that CK said some downright nasty things about a Sonic Team employee with little basis in reality. Felix decided to leave, and I left with her, partially because I was sick and tired of CK’s crap and partially to support Felix.
But we’re not done yet! Eventually he devolved to the point where he would tell me to simply stop because I’m wrong, no mind to why. I’m wrong and need to accept the truth. Often he’d say that he used to blindly accept everything that Sega did until he became “enlightened”, as though to imply that I’m really just a blind fan in denial. Ironic, I know. Today, he actually went out of his way to revive a three-day-old, dead conversation just to tell me to stop… something (stop liking Boom maybe?) and accept somebody’s ignorant and condescending viewpoints. Felix got angry when she found out about that, and immediately gave CK a piece of her mind through PMs. Again, private, don’t want to give out specifics, but in essence he tried to shift the blame to me while painting himself as above it all.
As a result of today’s events, we don’t plan on having any further communication with the guy. Hopefully, today is when this all ends. I’m dying to move on to better things.
…Oh geez. I figured there was a lot more going on here but…damn. I’m sorry you and Felix had to go through all that shit.
I mean, ever since CK’s Boom Bashing I’ve been pretty skeptical of a lot of the things he’s doing. And every time I ever bring up my feelings about what happened he tends to act pretty passive aggressive or straight up denies any fault in anything and claims that only a small amount of people actually felt the same way I did. And he says that it’s not his fault that “a few people were ‘overly sensitive'”. “Overly sensitive”!? This was coming from the guy who brought Downs Syndrome and racism into something that had nothing to do with either of those topics, and he calls people who felt offended by that attack “overly sensitive”? Naturally though, he says that it’s Sega’s fault for making Boom and that because it was “never made for the fans” in his eyes, it isn’t fit to cover anymore. And now he’s going to start having a weekly spotlight segment on other video game franchises and their characters. Sure, because THOSE were made for Sonic fans, right?
The hypocrisy that is spewing from that page nowadays is just mind-numbingly painful. I honestly keep hoping that it might just be me and that there might be some sense of responsibility and rationality that is going behind his actions, but it seems like the more I learn about this, the more disappointed I become.
Still, I can’t tell you enough how honored I feel for you to disclose this to me. I didn’t even realize that you were one of the mods! How the heck did this even happen!? XD
But seriously though, thank you so much for shedding more light onto this issue for me. CK doesn’t really seem to talk about it that often (out of sight out of mind I guess…) so it’s really tricky to get a grasp on the different sides of this matter. I’m so sorry that this whole thing had to happen like this and hope that some day things will get better, one way or another.
Give my regards to Felix for me, and from all of us here on SS!
Thanks for the support! I wouldn’t hold the entire TSOS staff as hypocritical- Juvi still admins there and he’s far from a hypocrite. Again, nice dude. Regardless, I’m glad I bumped into you so I could bring some things to light. 😀
I haven’t kept up with TSOS stuff after leaving… but wow, wow, wow…. Seriously? I know he’s told me in the past that I can’t call myself a Sonic fan if I like Boom, but this is ridiculous. I’ve got to wonder if he’s just trying to actively censor information on Boom so he can continue to push his own agenda against it without stuff like knowledge getting in the way.
As I said before, “I’m right and everybody knows it but you and your small group of Boom fans.” is his core philosophy in terms of debating Boom fans. His arguments are very Penders-esque, actually.
There is some logic that goes behind his actions, but he’s far from rational. Pretty much, he’s a stereotypically biased Adventure fan. This means that he views light-hearted Sonic as a regression from who Sonic ought to be, and Solo Sonic as a sign of laziness. Its not uncommon to hear him claim, in earnest, that Sonic 06 had a better plot than anything P&G wrote. He also takes a lot of debating cues from SA3– his tendency to go on the attack, to condescend to the “unenlighted”, and get offended at the very existance of things which challenge his arguments were all likely picked up from that place. His reasoning for hating Boom is that he actually supported the initiative before launch, only to be betrayed when Rise of Lyric came out and, well, sucked. That’s pretty petty if you ask me though, to go on a vengeful campaign against an entire subfranchise simply because it produced some really bad games. And its just plain dumb to try to pin the blame of your own actions on said subfranchise.
Actually now that I think of it, he’s developed an obsession with hating Boom and post-2010 Sonic. I’m a little worried about his mental state now. Hopefully all is well with the guy and he isn’t losing sleep over this.
Oh I’m sure Juvi’s great, I was just talking about CK in terms of hypocrisy.
But yeah, he actually believes “it’s something that Sega said they didn’t make for the fans, so I don’t have to cover it”. While every empathetic part of me wants to believe that maybe the main drive behind all this is that every time he brings up Boom or his opinions of it he’s going to get backlash and he just doesn’t want to deal with the stress anymore, I also can’t help but feel that everything he’s doing right now is just to push forward his own dogma of everything except Boom, and maybe some of the newer non-Boom stuff as well. At some point he managed to make an article about Sonic Runners and how it was frustrating him, like everyone else, but somehow he still managed to to drag Sonic Boom into it and equated the two games as the “Sonic 2006 and Sonic Genesis of 2014”. And like I said, now he actually believes other game franchises are more worthy to talk about once every other week than Sonic Boom. He’d rather talk about an unrelated franchise than something that is a part of the franchise whether he likes it or not. I-just-I can’t-I-it-WOW.
For a while I’ve been debating whether or not to just stop following the page. It would be a bit disappointing, as it’s been a decent source of Sonic and fan community related news and content for me whenever I’m on Facebook and it feels like a shame to stop following it for a reason like this. But I guess I’ll just keep seeing how things progress until I feel like things have really gotten too far. But yeah, considering his outburst with that article and how he just denies everything, I kind of question his stability as well right now. Being a mod isn’t easy, and he set a pretty high pedestal for himself with a goal as lofty as “bias free” and “open and welcome to ALL Sonic fans”. For a while in the early days it seemed like the only way he touched upon that trait was by belittling how “inferior” sites like TSSZ News where due to how many people got into arguments in the comments (it’s the only other Sonic community I’ve ever seen him in though, unless Chris K. happens to be someone else…). It felt like pointless ego-boosting to me back then but I got past it when that became less of the main focus and it was more directed towards content, but then, well, you know. I guess for now I’ll stick it out until he does something that REALLY pisses me off, which might not be too long from now. It’ll be disappointing, but there are other less biased pages to view fan art from (Sonic and MLP for the win!).
Oh believe me, a good news site is unbiased and run by reporters who put their own personal issues aside to convey the truth to a wide audience. TSOS is not that. If you don’t like what you see going on there, there’s no point in sticking around. Spare yourself the trouble and leave.
I think the real reason he hates Boom, is because its going to continue at least through this year and there’s not a thing he can do about it. He can’t cancel Fire and Ice, or replace Boom TV with SatAM season 3. He can talk to Boom fans, but he will never convert them (at least not with his current tactics). He’s fixated on Boom because it is the antithesis of everything he stands for, and yet its not completely failing nor is it that bad. In other words, its not doing what its “supposed” to do. He cannot run away or hide from the reality of Boom, so he instead pushes himself to the forefront. He figures that if he can’t make people stop liking it, then maybe he can make them shut up about it by shaming them. Maybe he can find people who aren’t familiar with Boom and lie to them, that way they hate it too.
I actually noticed that he’s somewhat sympathetic to Rise of Lyric. I was a bit confused by that before, but now I know why. Rise of Lyric is the only aspect of Boom that’s doing what CK feels its supposed to do! Namely, fail horribly, be a total mess gameplay-wise, and humiliate Sega enough that it swears off making stuff related to it forever.
Well if that’s the case, I’m sure something will piss me off soon enough. At any rate, yeah that might be what’s driving him. It’s getting pretty sad.
Yeah, he definitely has my pity. Its sad to think of a guy who seriously gets so worked up over something as minor as a blue hedgehog existing.
But I’ve learned that I can’t save everybody. If CK is going to change, it’s going to be his decision. I just have to move on from him to better things.
Apologies for the long rant by the way. Just had a lot on my mind about the topic.
I was a loyal Sonic fan for several years and lately I’ve just sort of drifted away from it. It’s no longer my favourite franchise. Granted, not all of this can be attributed to the current state of the franchise- I have developed an obsession with Vocaloids that’s consuming my life, but when Colours and Generations came out, I was excited and hopeful for what would come next for Sonic and since then nothing has really interested me. Even the comics which I loved, has sort of been pushed back. I got some more of the trade collections for Christmas and I haven’t read them yet. I still love Sonic and I occasionally come back to see how things are going and I might buy Fire and Ice because of playable Amy (provided another Pokémon game doesn’t come out the same time, which often happens). But I have drifted away. Maybe the movie when it eventually comes out could coax me back? Maybe if Sonic Boom wasn’t on paid TV in Australia I could actually care about it?
I mean, the longer Sonic continues, the more the fanbase splits. I didn’t really understand this until game grumps decided to let’s play adventure and everyone completely hated on the game. And from that I realized that there are 4 types of Sonic fans that the community is split into.
1. The fans who only think the genesis era is quality gaming.
2. The fans who love sonic up until the end of the dreamcast era. Even if adventure 1 and 2 had certain unpolished aspects, and some dated, (especially 1) they admit the actual gameplay was fun to them and the art and music were rad. (I fall into this)
3. Fans who think every game after was still quality (some even 06)
4. Fans who think Sonic Boom subset deserves more chances to make games.
And then you have the grump fanbase which thinks sonic has never had a good game, that it is a mishmosh of elements that don’t work. The issue is when someone trashes sonic, the 4 of the above factions will argue, and none will give the same answer. There’s no “faction” that is stronger, or more projected than the other. Being split and having no clear “this is the popular way to address this” makes it hard to relate or convince other people.
I still play every new Sonic game, for the record. Just because I don’t like the boosting mechanic in newer games doesn’t mean I don’t have hope for the series.
I’m sorry, I mean no disrespect to your argument, it’s very well constructed and your logic is strong. Your opinion is a meaningful one and I agree with most of your points…but the entire thing is just weakened by just mentioning a Youtube series of Let’s Plays as a legitimate source of contention among the Sonic fanbase.
It’s not your fault, just the escalating decline of society for finding any worth in Game Grumps other than a quick chortle.
I’m not a follower of said let’s plays. I just hate that I talk with a group of people about a game I love, they all go “yea it’s great; I watched a let’s play on it.” So I decided to use that due to the fact that I had a bunch of people I know tell me how bad sonic adventure is because they saw game grumps play it. And that’s a really crappy way to form an opinion.
And you’re right; I did not need to use a let’s play as an example, but it was brought to my attention from friends talking about let’s plays. If a bunch of people only know sonic from youtube, they’ll only know boom and 06. Not a very promising thing for new fans.
What I was getting at is the community won’t grow on top of the already split/declining nature when billions spend their times watching youtubers play games and then arguing among themselves on which sonic games are good.
Yeah, I know you are right: the fact is that thousands of young gamers are only getting their facts and opinions by bunch of tools recording themselves playing video games while acting like a bunch of clowns. It confounds me how these people are able to make thousands of dollars and get that sort of influence.
In fact, right after your reply, I tried to sample a few episodes of these let’s plays, and while they are some what funny in a few places, it’s just as asinine and ridiculous as Adult Swim’s most weakest comedies or a meme spouted by 4chan. It doesn’t help that the gaming media made it okay for Sonic to be a laughing stock (my theory is that most of them where raised on Nintendos or Playstations), so most Youtube personalities just get on the Sonic hate bandwagon just for the clicks. Of course, WHY Sonic is a laughing stock is a debate all to on itself.
And these are the idols of gaming in the 21st century? I weep for the future.
Thank the vocal stop having fun fans for this latest issue in their quest to rob Sonic of anything good.
It is no surprise that forums and fan site after fan site shuts down when each place is over by a very vocal and very unpleasant collection of fans who spend all their complaining about everything Sonic related.
Each new Sonic product is not greeted with interest or even a kind word but rather a steady stream of foul language and cries that this new addition to the franchise will kill it off.
Who in their right mind wants in on this, who wants to get verbally assaulted for liking the newest Sonic game rather then crying out for a remake of Sonic 2 or S3&k.
No one wants to unless they like complaining about Sonic. As such the Sonic community shrinks year after year as the now vocal and toxic majority chases more and more people off year after year.
When I was a kid I’d call myself the biggest Sonic fan in the world and I was always yelling at people who talked down about him.
Had I known that Sonic would soon be in the hands of gibbons trained to make video games, I’d have thought twice about it.
It’s been a fun ride. I enjoyed growing up with the series, I enjoyed Summer of Sonic which was always amazing, I enjoyed Crush 40, and now it’s time to enjoy the memories.
The community may die out, but the true fans will stick around forever.
Not enough good games or good fans. Really thought, it should be about 1000 other factors that seedling do relate which should explain the fanbase state.
I think the site should have trigger warnings. Some of the articles have really made me depressed and physically hurt. Also, some of the people on here and the forums are inconsiderate about another person’s feelings. I seriously get really anxious and saddened by some of the comments people make.
If this article is making you that physically upset, maybe you should avoid coming online at all?
It’s not the internet as a whole that is making me triggered. It’s this website. I think it could get better by having trigger warnings and disclaimers.
The fan base isn’t going to grow if Sega isn’t giving Sonic fans anything to be excited about. A lot of fans don’t want anything to do with the Boom universe and the last worthwhile game we got was in 2011. It’s hard to bring in new fans when all we’re getting is crappy mobile games and Boom tie ins. Old fans like me are losing interest and moving on to other stuff.