Sega vs Shining fans

Just saw this video about Sega's removal of Youtube fan videos. Not sure what to make of it yet, but it's not a good look for Sega.

 

Yeah I don't see this making too large of an impact honestly. Boycotting doesn't work, you have to just be loud and complain about it. If you take away the dollars, the games just stop being made.

 

ive been following this on neogaf the past couple weeks. sega really makes it so easy to hate them with a passion sometimes.

 

What are people's thoughts on Sega trying to sue Level-5 for how players move their characters in Inazuma Eleven?

 

Explain please?

 

http://www.joystiq.com/2012/12/11/sega-sues-level-5-charges-patent-infringement-in-inazuma-eleven/

Inazuma Eleven is a game I've wanted to play... so I'll probably import a UK version of the first game (well, piracy is always an option too). It's a kids soccer RPG series that's been doing very well in Japan and there have been many sequels. Sega wants to halt the sale of 1-8 and get paid in damages because of how touch is used to move the characters in the game, which it alleges is a patent infringement.

I think I heard that the patent in question is 2009 though and this series started quite a while before that. If that is true, then I guess videogame publishing welcomes patent trolling?

We'll see...

Update: A bit more detail here, and it's apparently over 2 patents.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...-5-for-touchscreen-controls-in-inazuma-eleven

Another Update: Edge gives a better idea of one of the patents (but still...)
http://www.edge-online.com/news/sega-sues-level-5-claims-inazuma-eleven-series-violates-two-patents/

 

Wow, a soccer rpg? Sounds pretty interesting.

As a gamer, I never agree with companies suing each other of stuff that makes their games more enjoyable. Yet, I'm sure as a publisher, Sega and other companies don't like their products being manipulated in ways they didn't intend...

Sticky subject. However, on that note, gonna go find me a copy of this. Sounds fun...

 

Nice. Not sure which region you are in.... This game never came out in the US, but it's big in Japan and at least the first two (I think) have been translated into English for Europe. Honestly the games look awesome to me. I believe you can find the english version at a decent price on ebay ^_^

 

That's okay, I just ordered it from play-asia.com. I speak enough japanese to wing my way through it.

Thanks for the heads up.

 

General thoughts about Sega...

Ever since they got taken over by Sammy, they've become a lot more conservative. Sammy of course being into pachinko machines, the top men in the company are much more traditional Japanese than the heads of old Sega, and this has its ups and downs.

For one, they're less experimental. Sega used to always try to be at the forefront of technology, come up with new game concepts and really push the boundaries, but SegaSammy seem more content to stick to safe formulas. This means we don't get the huge gameplay and engine leaps like from VF2 to VF3, or as many big innovations like Shenmue anymore.

It does however also mean they no longer take successful franchises and throw them at completely different development teams which change the whole feel of the games, like they did with Golden Axe 3 and Phantasy Star 3. You can be pretty sure that the next Yakuza or Shining game won't deviate from the previous one all that much, unlike for example Virtual-On suddenly becoming 4 players.

It's very obvious though that SegaSammy are very Japan-centric, unlike old Sega which embraced a broader world-view. Remember those old Dreamcast ads? PLAY WITH THE WHOLE WORLD!! Right now though, Sega are happy just releasing most of their games for Japan-only because they don't think there's a big enough market for them in the rest of the world.

It is said that most Japanese companies have no idea what the true effect of overseas fan publicity is doing for their sales, because as far as they know, their domestic sales are doing great. However, large amounts of Japan's so-called "domestic" products are being exported overseas by places like Play-Asia. As far as the top brass know, all those imported games we've got on our shelves are still somewhere in Japan. This doesn't just happen with games and anime, but with products like pharmaceuticals as well.(Japan's high QA standards make their medical and beauty products top of the line and highly sought after overseas.) Of course, there's no way to even estimate the amount this export trade affects their sales numbers because it's all under the table. Could be as little as less than 0.1%, or as much as 20%. I mean, some Chinese guy came into Mr Tanaka's shop and bought 80 copies of Valkyria Chronicles 3, who cares what he did with them right?

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Shining Fans....

Having been part of the anime community for a long while, I think I may see where Sega are coming from in their response to Shining fans. For years and years fans have been translating manga and anime from Japan and redistributing it. Eventually Japanese fans clued on that they could easily download these fansubs from overseas for free, instead of paying the high prices for anime DVDs in Japan.(In general, anime DVDs are even more expensive than movie DVDs) From sometime in the middle of last decade, most anime have had piracy warnings added to them, warning their viewers about evil foreign online pirates who are taking money away from hard working Japanese.

A lot of those traditional old guys in the publishing companies have demonised Western anime fans because of this piracy issue, ESPECIALLY fans who do translation. It wouldn't surprise me if some big shot at Sega with friends in publishing has decided that all these English speaking Shining fans are nothing more than a bunch of thieves, disregarding the fact that most of those guys are hardcore enough to have legitimate copies of the game.

If these executives are as old-fashioned and insular as I think, it's likely that the Shining community's voices as fans are never going to be heard, unless the Japanese fans come over and side with them, the way Kamaage backed us up here on VFDC. They might have a bit harder a time though, as it appears that the Japanese Shining community only plays the new games, while the English Shining community only plays the old games. However, if people who have connections can reach out to the Japanese fans, then I think Sega will have to sit up and take notice.

I'm also reminded of how Sega shut down a Streets of Rage remake project some time ago. The members of the project had contacted Sega and requested permission to use sprites and sound effects from the original games with remixed music. I have no details on what exactly transpired, but Sega waited until right after they had finished making the game and had done a final release to shut them down.

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Level 5....

Personally, I think Sega's claims against Level 5 are silly. So many games during the NES era had A for jump and B for attack. Figuring out that you tap the screen to kick a ball can't possibly be such an ingenious and unique idea. However, Level 5 being a much newer company, they may not have the legal experience to handle this kind of thing. The sad thing is that Sega is just using this as a stall tactic against Level 5 so they can gain market share with their own soccer games and everybody can see right through it....

 

One of my youtube subs talked about this. The message in the video (from Sega) doesn't make any sense. I remember the videos that got taken off of his channel, they were nothing but positive about the game.