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Post by Nester the Lark on Jul 26, 2013 16:35:05 GMT -5
This is something that has occurred to me occasionally. I know that I (and I assume others) have a tendency to think of Sega as a major game developer/publisher because they were once part of the "big three" (or "big two" in the pre-PlayStation days), but it seems that with the main exception of Sonic the Hedgehog, most of their games don't really have mainstream appeal anymore.
And when I think about it, even when they were a console manufacturer, they struggled to find consistent international success. The only system that was really successful in North America was the Genesis, while the Master System, Saturn and Dreamcast all failed. The Master System was only popular in Europe and Brazil, while the Saturn only had a reasonable life in Japan.
Now, in their post-Dreamcast, third-party era, Sega's games still seem to have a difficult time finding an audience. Whether they're original games like Billy Hatcher, Vanquish and Binary Domain, or revivals of classic franchises, like Shinobi, Panzer Dragoon and House of the Dead, they seem to fly under the radar, even if they're critically well received. (Yakuza is hanging by a thread outside of Japan.)
Aside from the fact that Sega does rely on a lot of external developers (they always have, really, as does Nintendo), a lot of their games have a specific feel to them. Maybe they still reflect Sega's arcade roots, and that simply doesn't click with today's gamers.
tl;dr
Sega is kind of like a company out of its time, and their sensibilities don't seem to have much appeal to the PS/Xbox crowd.
So, do you think Sega is a niche company by today's standards?
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Post by Shrikeswind on Jul 27, 2013 8:30:00 GMT -5
I'll be honest, I've always thought this. I mean, I know a few big-name SEGA franchises, but when it comes down to it, the only one I can really describe well is Sonic the Hedgehog. This is actually something I see in a lot of non-gamers, as well. Ask anyone about Nintendo franchises and you'll get reactions like "Mario, Zelda, Pokemon, Donkey Kong." Ask about Sony, you get "God of War, Little Big Planet." Ask about SEGA, you get "Sonic," full stop. Billy Hatcher, Vanquish, Shinobi, NiGHTS, Bayonetta...they just don't have the mainstream appeal that other, more iconic franchises have, so ultimately, they kinda ride on the backs of their fans, which thinking about it probably explains the amount of fan-appeal they've tried for.
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Post by kirbychu on Jul 27, 2013 10:15:37 GMT -5
They seem to be having a lot of success on Steam with Total War or whatever it is. And apparently they're doing well enough that they're buying up other studios for millions of dollars.
Sega actually do have a bunch of popular, iconic franchises that people remember them for, they just haven't done anything with any of them besides Sonic and Monkey Ball in forever. Everybody knows Golden Axe, Streets of Rage, Ecco the Dolphin and Alex Kidd, but they've all either been forgotten, or got new games that were really awful.
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Post by Nester the Lark on Jul 27, 2013 13:19:50 GMT -5
Well, some of their attempts at revivals haven't gone over well, like Golden Axe: Beast Rider. But I think the new Shinobi on 3DS got good reviews, as did House of the Dead: Overkill. I guess Overkill sold OK, as it got an expanded port to the PS3 and an iOS game, but we never got a full-blown sequel to it (as was teased).
Once again, I think I'm showing my age here. I'm having a hard time understanding what's appealing to the masses. It just seems to me that Sega should be more mainstream, not in that they need to change their style or approach, but in that their games strike me as already having mass appeal. Except they don't.
I guess Shrikes is right that they rely on their fans. Sonic & All-Stars Racing is a total fan service game, just like Smash Bros. Without all the classic Sega references, it would be just another generic (albeit solid) kart racer.
I remember when they first went third-party, it was thought that they might challenge EA as one of the biggest publishers in the world. The rational was that Sega's games were being held back by poor selling hardware. Yet, Jet Set Radio Future, Panzer Dragoon Orta and Shenmue II all flopped hard on the Xbox, and I don't think Skies of Arcadia sold any better on the GameCube.
Maybe Sega's games were just always niche, and I never thought of it that way.
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Post by Shrikeswind on Jul 29, 2013 21:39:53 GMT -5
They seem to be having a lot of success on Steam with Total War or whatever it is. And apparently they're doing well enough that they're buying up other studios for millions of dollars. Sega actually do have a bunch of popular, iconic franchises that people remember them for, they just haven't done anything with any of them besides Sonic and Monkey Ball in forever. Everybody knows Golden Axe, Streets of Rage, Ecco the Dolphin and Alex Kidd, but they've all either been forgotten, or got new games that were really awful. That gamers remember them for. A non-gamer will only scratch the surface, knowing the biggest names of the bunch. You'll notice I didn't mention Metroid and Kirby for Nintendo. They are great, masterful games. Their old games are classics, their new ones best-sellers, but they don't have the same sort of mainstream, non-gamer appeal that Mario, Donkey Kong, Zelda, and Pokemon do. Beneath any company's surface will be those other franchises, like (for SEGA) Total War, Bayonetta, NiGHTS, Alex Kidd, etc., which the fans love, but a non-gamer will never even consider them. Think about it this way: Deadpool is a very well-received character, but so is Batman. If you ask someone who's never opened a comic book if they know who Batman is, they will probably say "Yeah! I saw the new movie." If you ask the same person if they know who Deadpool is, the answer's gonna be "Uh...yeah, he was in the new Batman movie, right?" And yes, I do realize that Batman and Deadpool are owned by different companies. |
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Post by kirbychu on Jul 30, 2013 6:31:28 GMT -5
Oh, well yeah. But to be honest, I think that goes for almost every video game company besides Nintendo. The only thing Microsoft has that's really recognised by non-gamers is Halo, and.. Does Sony have anything that non-gamers would really know about? I'd say Crash Bandicoot and Tomb Raider, but Sony never even owned them.
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Post by Shrikeswind on Jul 30, 2013 8:44:07 GMT -5
Oh, well yeah. But to be honest, I think that goes for almost every video game company besides Nintendo. The only thing Microsoft has that's really recognised by non-gamers is Halo, and.. Does Sony have anything that non-gamers would really know about? I'd say Crash Bandicoot and Tomb Raider, but Sony never even owned them. As I mentioned for Sony, at least, you have God of War and Little Big Planet. I don't really know much about Microsoft's games that aren't Rareware, Halo notwithstanding. Counting Rare's works, you have Banjo-Kazooie for Microsoft as well. But in the cases of Microsoft and Sony, you aren't exactly looking at game developers. Most XBox and PlayStation games come from subsidiary companies like Bungie or Naughty Dog, and the parent companies themselves only treat gaming as a division of the company as a whole, while they draw most of their attention (and for that matter, most of their revenue) from non-gamers, via their electronics, computer hardware/software, and what-have-you, not through their gaming. Since they aren't developers themselves, to describe them as niche developers would be to overstate their roles. No, you have to look at companies like Nintendo, Capcom, or Bungie, companies with a near-100% gaming output. |
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Post by kirbychu on Jul 30, 2013 18:08:59 GMT -5
Honestly, I doubt there are many non-gamers who could identify God of War, Little Big Planet or Banjo-Kazooie. Certainly none of the ones I know.
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Post by Shrikeswind on Jul 30, 2013 19:34:32 GMT -5
You'd be surprised at least with LBP. With Banjo-Kazooie, admittedly, my understanding is that non-gamers are hit with the Namco Effect there (i.e., if you assign value to cherishment for a game, the Namco Effect is what happens when the franchise's total cherishment is predominantly-to-exclusively held by the oldest games in the franchise, for example, the arcade Pac-Man to the entire Pac-Man franchise. It'd have been called the Pac-Man Effect if a) I wasn't so sure that already existed and b) the fact that it applies to a bunch of Namco games.)
But I digress.
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Post by kirbychu on Jul 31, 2013 8:07:42 GMT -5
No, I'd be genuinely surprised if a non-gamer had even heard of the first Banjo-Kazooie. Unless they had a close friend or family member who loved it, there's really no reason for them to have. And even if they had, there isn't much reason for them to remember it. It's not comparable to Pac-Man at all. There are actually fairly few games that have really broken into public awareness that much. If you ask a real non-gamer to name all the video games they know, more than likely you'll get a list of mobile games, with Pac-Man, Mario, Brain Training and Wii Sports thrown in there. They're not even that likely to mention Pokémon, since most people think either the TV show or card game came first.
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Post by Shrikeswind on Aug 1, 2013 4:38:49 GMT -5
I think you're underestimating non-gamers, Kirbs. Think about it: Where did your first game come from? Was it you, or your parents? Do you have any siblings who aren't gamers? Can they name some of the games they played growing up? I can answer these questions myself.
I was...jeez, I wanna say 4...when I was first exposed to video games. My dad had a Super Nintendo, and we'd play Donkey Kong Country and Super Mario World. These are touchstone games for most gamers for a reason: Pretty much everyone played them. He had a bunch, some more difficult (Jurassic Park) or crappier (NFL Quarterback Club '96) than others, but we all remember those ones because holy crap, how can you not? We'd later end up with an N64 (awesome,) and we would later still end up with a bunch of games for it. I won't bore you with details, but I can offer two outstanding particulars: Jet Force Gemini, and Banjo-Kazooie. The reason I bring these two up is because of the next part: My older sister. She is not a gamer. Never was. She played a bit of both JFG and Banjo-Kazooie. Really, there wasn't a person in the house who didn't play one of those games at some point. If I ask her today what games she's familiar with, without offering suggestions, and besides the obvious "Mario/DK/Pac-Man," she'll definitely offer off the top of her head one of those two N64 games. Guess which one it is. I'll give you a hint: If none of the main characters are named after a bluegrass string instrument, you have the wrong game. And you can't attribute this to osmosis, either: I wasn't a gamer when I was 8 and she 10.
Parents who buy games properly make gamers like us, gamers who appreciate games like Mario and Sonic and Banjo-Kazooie. Those children who don't become gamers will still remember the games their parents bought them, and will continue to remember games like Mario and Sonic and Banjo-Kazooie because dude, those games rocked, even though they aren't really all that into games regardless.
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Post by kirbychu on Aug 1, 2013 15:58:11 GMT -5
Yes, hence why I said "Unless they had a close friend or family member who loved it". My parents bought me most of my games back then too. My mum is an extremely casual gamer and will remember Banjo-Kazooie if I mention the title to her, but probably wouldn't without prompting. My dad is a complete non-gamer, and if I mentioned Banjo-Kazooie to him, he would have no idea what I had just said, despite having seen me play the game a billion times. It would be like him talking to me about a football player. I could've seen the guy on TV thousands of times, but mention his name to me and all you're gonna get is a blank stare. 'Cause I'm just not interested in football.
My point wasn't that non-gamers can't know those games, it's that they likely wouldn't have ever heard of them unless they know someone who was really into it. Unlike Mario, Pac-Man, Sonic and Pokémon, which you can't really avoid knowing if you own a TV or go outside ever.
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Post by Shrikeswind on Aug 1, 2013 18:17:38 GMT -5
Yes, hence why I said "Unless they had a close friend or family member who loved it". I can cut this off right here for a reason: This sentence directly ignores the point I made. My sister and I (to continue with that example) were not gamers when we first played Banjo-Kazooie. We did not buy Banjo-Kazooie, that was our parents buying it for us. Have you ever noticed the most iconic video game characters are so cartoony? (Pac-Man notwithstanding, he too was cartoony, but there's a lot of other factors involved in his fame.) It's because they are fun, sure, but it's also because parents look for family friendly games when buying for their kids. Not all of those kids will grow up to be gamers, but they will remember the games they did play regardless, because they grew up on them. That's a lot to do with how Mario and Donkey Kong became the icons they are. Sonic as well, though he had the extra step of being compared and contrasted with Mario. Pokemon had the whole marketing push, but it was still marketed as family friendly fun for the kids. But we're getting wildly off topic here, so let's return to the question. Is SEGA niche? And I suppose as valid a question by this point is "What is niche?" |
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Post by Nester the Lark on Aug 1, 2013 19:12:58 GMT -5
Honestly, you guys have kinda lost me here. I think you're discussing something way beyond the scope of my original question. When I was thinking about whether Sega was niche, it was in the context of people who are familiar with games (gamers, aficionados, hobbyists, or what have you). By "niche," I meant that Sega would only appeal to a small subset of those people. I guess they're doing OK, as it was recently reported that Sega's profits increased by over 400% in the last fiscal quarter. It was due mainly to digital sales, including a mobile Puyo Puyo game, and Phantasy Star Online 2 for the PS Vita. It occurred to me recently how much I missed being a Sega fan (of the old Sega, anyway). They occasionally still release games that feel like "Sega games," but it's those games that don't seem to have the mass appeal that I would've expected. (PSO2 not withstanding, apparently.) |
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