Streets of Rage 4?

To be fair, the donations on the SORR board,where for just that: the board/site. As you guys are likely aware, domains/bandwidth cost money and the donations where to help ease the cost of running the community (which was important to the project).

I can safely say I, and the others who worked on SORR, never saw a cent from the project.

What ultimately bothered me, and pissed me off to no end was the shutdown. This coming from Sega, who let's fans A) Create their own Sonic fan-hacks and full-on fangames, B) COMMENTS and PRAISES said Sonic endeavours and C) Even allows goddamn Sonic FAN GAME EXPOS to be pulled off year after year.

But a fan touches a property they've ignored time and time again? Ooooooooo shit the gloves are on now!...

Great work Criss, 2d beat em ups ftw. Why not just make a original beat em up instead though ?

Because it was Streets of Rage. I, and everyone else who worked on it, loved the shit outta those games growing up and frankly still do. Fact that noone cared for the franchise probably sparked the interest. I only jumped in ....2008? after it was started and just submitted some team attack sprites for use before contributing more and more so I don't know anything before that.

Would have been great if it was original and people would compare it to SOR or Final Fight instead of using so many copyrights you guys didn't own. I enjoy playing it though, so thanks. But it could have been a great posthumous beat em up esp released as rom for DC or MD and could have been up there with Pier Solar in terms of a great reviewed homebrew.

I honestly think if it was totally 100% original stuff, the project would have never finished.

Yeah making new art is a lot of work, music wise you always got a ton of musicians, but art wise..

Thing is too none of us were Pros, in the industry or anything. It was purely a "free-time" project for a lot of us. Working in the confines of an existing structure, and working within that helped a greatly.

Another thing many forget (which made the Sega thing even more aggravating) was the 2007 Version 4 release, that was also known throughout the web, published in magazines, etc. and not one peep from Sega about it. If you were gonna pull something, why wait years to do it once you're aware of it?

And we made some great friends.

except for that annoying Canadian who kept showing me his Adam WIP's!!

Cool. You guys did great work. I happen to know Sega talks to certain homebrew programmers esp for their "dead" systems, so as long as there is no donation$ related to project (which I guess they shot your guys one down in 24 hours) they don't care. They aren't the Sega we grew up with though. And they still pulled a scumbag move striking videos and flagging youtube accounts over Shining Force II. I can understand why they ceased your project though with various copyrights and donation$ related, but odd timing just as Segas SOR2 mobile comes out huh ? (Points at Sega again)

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Originally Posted by Criss

Another thing many forget (which made the Sega thing even more aggravating) was the 2007 Version 4 release, that was also known throughout the web, published in magazines, etc. and not one peep from Sega about it. If you were gonna pull something, why wait years to do it once you're aware of it?

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Exactly the word got out your engine was better and when v5 came out they pulled it ! I tried telling Neo that but he said it was related to one of a million compilations ?

That's all fine and dandy, but can you name a Sonic fan game struck down by Sega?

Hell, I remember a Sonic CD fan game/port that used an incredible engine. Wonder what happened to that.

Ohhhhhhhhh wait, everyone knows the happy end THAT got.

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Originally Posted by Criss

That's all fine and dandy, but can you name a Sonic fan game struck down by Sega?

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I brought that up many times on this forum recently.

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Originally Posted by Criss

To be fair, the donations on the SORR board,where for just that: the board/site. As you guys are likely aware, domains/bandwidth cost money and the donations where to help ease the cost of running the community (which was important to the project).

I can safely say I, and the others who worked on SORR, never saw a cent from the project.

What ultimately bothered me, and pissed me off to no end was the shutdown. This coming from Sega, who let's fans A) Create their own Sonic fan-hacks and full-on fangames, B) COMMENTS and PRAISES said Sonic endeavours and C) Even allows goddamn Sonic FAN GAME EXPOS to be pulled off year after year.

But a fan touches a property they've ignored time and time again? Ooooooooo shit the gloves are on now!...

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Well to begin with, those "sonic people" you're describing? I'm one of them. I've been with the Sonic Hacking scene since 1998. I'm one of the oldest tenured members.

I understand the issues, probably because I paid more attention to what actually happened to SORR than most. I know your donations were intended to cover server costs. I even sympathize. However, and perhaps it's because Sega wasn't quite as explicit about "laying out the rules" for you guys as they have with us in private several times, their leniency ends immediately once public donations are taken.

For sure, your claims about the chummy-chummy relationship the sonic hacking scene has had with Sega is pretty revisionist. Several of our sites have come under legal attack from Sega when we crossed the line. Remember when Sonic Cult leaked Sonic Heroes early and got threatened with several lawsuits? Remember when Sonic Retro banned discussion about Sonic 4's soundtrack once it leaked on partnernet? I can point out dozens of instances where this occurs.

However, the main difference is that we explicitly do NOT do public donation drives. Because Sega explicitly forbids it. Even if it's to cover server costs, not development, it's still forbidden. I challenge you to name me a single Sonic fangame that has taken in donations. Even with Sonic 2 HD, the server costs and all that jazz were paid privately by a single member, out of pocket. There's a reason why Sonic Fan Remix's author had to strip all mentions of Sega, even vague, from his racing game once he took it to kickstarter.

Let's take a look at an analogue to your project - Beats of Rage. It certainly caught Sega's eye. Why was it never shut down? Aside from it being generally shoddy, it never took donations.

Framing this as a "we're not the special jewel of sega's eye" sort of argument is pretty off putting. I guarantee you that the Sonic scene has had to endure far more legal threats than simple C&Ds. If you want to know why Sega is so chummy chummy with the Sonic scene today, it's because of our willingness to adhere to the guidelines they put forward.

If you REALLY feel upset about this, shoot a tweet to Aaron Webber (https://twitter.com/RubyEclipse). His job revolves around exactly this. The community manager position was pivotal in getting Tax's project off the ground. I'm certain he knows about SORR. They're not exactly a close minded company.

P.S. before the first physical SAGE event (the fan-game expo you mentioned), there were 13 previous online ones. And the physical SAGE took place in somebody's house. These aren't conventions like you're framing them. And they're privately funded, not publicly driven.

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Originally Posted by Criss

That's all fine and dandy, but can you name a Sonic fan game struck down by Sega?

Hell, I remember a Sonic CD fan game/port that used an incredible engine. Wonder what happened to that.

Ohhhhhhhhh wait, everyone knows the happy end THAT got.

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You mean the private engine that never received public funding, not even for server costs? That one? The one that was presented to Sega privately, behind a closed door, instead of being published online with a donation button? That got a happy ending? I'm shocked.

Again, name me a single Sonic fan game that had any sort of public funding. Even for server costs.

Cross the line by leaking ACTUAL Sega stuff? No shit! Hah.

Could the donations thing have made the impact? Sure, but rather than a "fuck you shut it down" attitude, why not open that dialogue that Sonic Retro/Sonic fans get? How hard would one simple email detailing what the actual problem was?

As much as I hate to say, it still reeks of that that "It ain't Sonic? than it ain't Sega fuck you" attitude they've had for years. I congratulate what the Sonic-fans pulled off, really do. Just wish Sega extended that to the rest of us.