The Dreamcast Complex

The Dreamcast Complex: Sonic’s Development Problem
By Elah

“The reason why we probably ended up with what we see today, involves a lot of reasons. One is that we did want to launch the title around Christmas, and we had the PS3 launch coming up, but we had to develop for Microsoft’s 360 at the same time and the team had an awful lot of pressure on them. ”
Yojiro Ogawa, 2/20/07, Kikizo Magazine

Many people, from Sonic nuts to skeptical reviewers, have been complaining for the past decade about the speedy blue hedgehog.  Whether or not their complaints are sound is not an issue I’m here to debate; what I am concerned with is what causes the complaining in the first place.

Look on the forums of any given Sonic-related website, and chances are you’ll find the word “lazy” somewhere to describe SEGA or Sonic Team.  I’m not going to rule this out as a problem in the developing process, but that’s not at the primary issue.  Returning to Ogawa’s quote:

“We did want to launch the title around Christmas.”

First, note the word “want.”  The usage of such a word necessarily means that Sonic Team did not have to launch Sonic ‘06 by Christmas.  So, if they didn’t have to, then why did they?

Sonic ‘06 was an outstandingly bad game by almost unanimous opinion among gamers and professionals.  It has been frequently commented that such a poor excuse for what could have been a fantastic game should not have even been released, much less released with such an air of shameless self-aggrandizement that SEGA took with it.  So why did they release it?  Because they wanted to launch the thing around Christmas.

Time for a little combined history lesson and development insight.  SEGA, as we all know, used to manufacture consoles until they could no longer afford to do so, and they had to fall back to a third-party position.  When one is the first-party developer, releases are remarkably different than those of third-party developers.  Most importantly, a first-party developer needs to focus on getting the title out at a certain date, only delaying if they absolutely have to.  You have to make sure you can draw people consistently to your system, so you sometimes have to sacrifice features for deadlines.  Because of the massive amount of funds it takes to keep a console going, you also have to hold yourself to deadlines that center around major sales areas, especially the Christmas season to encourage console sales.

Third-party developers get more breathing space because they have more platforms to release their game on (meaning more opportunities to produce income) and no console to suck away at their earnings.  Thus, they can, to an extent, delay games more that any first-party developer would dare to do.  Final Fantasy XIII, for an obvious example, has been in development for such a long time that they’ve announced the sequel and they haven’t even released the game itself.  And everyone just laughs lightly, talking about it as if it’s just funny, not disappointing.  If I remember correctly, Duke Nukem Forever was in ongoing development for about ten years before it was finally abandoned.  Blizzard, the makers of World of Warcraft, once explicitly tossed aside deadlines while developing an expansion for that same behemoth of profit and addiction.

My theory is that SEGA, and especially Sonic Team, still has yet to recover completely from the shock of the Dreamcast’s ultimate failure.  Those who were around during the Dreamcast will remember that Sonic Team was SEGA’s forefront developer at the time: starting with NiGHTS into Dreams and Burning Rangers on the Saturn, they whipped up Chu Chu Rocket,  Samba de Amigo, and Phantasy Star Online, as well as dishing out a pair of excellent Sonic titles in the form of the Sonic Adventure games.  And because they cannot get over their loss, they continue to work as if they still have a console. This can be seen twice in the opening quote: first, at the development team’s frustration and pressure from developing for two systems simultaneously, and second, the “by Christmas” deadline that had been established.

Sonic ‘06 isn’t the only example.  Go back and look at quotes, articles, or any given media concerning most of the console Sonic titles in the past eight years, and the phrase “time constraints” should appear somewhere.  And, of course, there’s 1up’s famous quote from a SEGA employee about how much time and effort it takes to make such long tracks that Sonic levels require.

Well, Sega, you now have the time to put in the effort.  Sonic is your most prominent, profitable, and prolific franchise on the market.  Let’s see you bring out something that has been given all the time, care, and attention it deserves.

GX’s Two Cents:

Ironically, I think the reverse is true; they place so much emphasis on deadlines because they are no longer a first party developer, and I imagine being a first party developer is easier than being a third party.

If you look at our current generation of console makers, Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony, these are massive companies that are in a far better position to delay a game than an EA or Ubisoft.  First party publishers not only have the biggest titles for their consoles (Mario, Halo, God of War), but they also have funding to fall back on through licensing to third parties who want to develop for their console.  Conversely, the only way for third parties to be profitable is by making games and selling them, and the high cost of development does place quite a lot of pressure to meet deadlines.  Square Enix and Blizzard could be considered counter-examples to this pressure, as they strongly  emphasize the quality of their product, and their sales success is almost guaranteed.  Duke Nukem Forever is an excellent example of how reckless abandonment of deadlines becomes a major liability to the bottom line.

As gamers, we feel it is reprehensible to release a game that could only be considered brokenly unfinished, but from a stockholder perspective, Sonic ’06 had a very rough development cycle, and it’s understandable to cut one’s losses from a bad idea and release what you have.

To me, Sega’s Dreamcast Complex has a greater influence on the types of games they are developing.  Until Secret Rings, Black Knight, and Unleashed, most every previous-generation console Sonic game closely resembled his Dreamcast outings, and attempting to develop to that scope is costly and time consuming; in turn, quality control suffered.  After Sonic ’06, I feel that Sega has been reducing scope, and generally improving the quality of their games.  They’ve taken more manageable approaches and created Sonic experiences that still share some of the other games’ faults, but are far more technically proficient.