#wait sonic heroes is like my fav game ever and i just learned it was released in 2003?

[chisungie]

.

[blazehedgehog]

With the recent EGX demo and the reception it's got from fans and critics, do you think there's reason to worry, at least for the Switch version and, since I can't think of a way to put it nicely, has the overly defensive tone some fans taken towards critics who've played the game, or even criticized it, been just or unjust? I know Sonic has this maligned reputation with game journos, but it's not like every person who's been critical are haters looking to take Sonic down.

I think a lot of Sonic fans wear some very deep scars. Many have stuck it out through some pretty dark times, myself included. You learn to put up some pretty strong defenses. You make it easy for yourself to dismiss opinions that don’t line up with what you want of expect. “IGN never knew what they were talking about, so why trust what they have to say about Sonic?”

Plus, there’s a very weird growing distrust of games media right now. It started with Gamergate, I guess. It goes without saying, but GG was an awful hate group actively centered around misogyny (or worse), and it’s a shame how many people did not realize that immediately. But that’s the thing: GG tapped into something that was also real. It did so purely by accident; under the surface, Gamergate was nothing more than an ex-boyfriend getting revenge for being slighted by his lover, and it snowballed out of control into something some are calling the new culture wars, and we’re still feeling its effects today.

But part of the reason GG originally gained momentum in the first place is because there’s an underlying distrust of any and every major games media outlet. Kotaku sucks, Polygon sucks, Destructoid sucks, Giantbomb sucks, GameSpot sucks, IGN sucks, Game Informer sucks, CVG sucks, Famitsu sucks, EGM sucked, 1UP sucked, GamePro sucked, Gamefan sucked, PLAY Magazine sucked, GameSpy sucked. Trust no one. The truth is out there. GG connected to those people who were basically waiting for any kind of “game press injustice” to rally behind, because they essentially hated all of the industry’s biggest, most important names.

Where does that come from? I mean, I guess, at least for me, is that once these places lose my trust, it’s basically impossible for it to be regained. And every outlet, at least once in their careers, has a moment that betrays that trust. Where personal interests or even financial interests outstrip the reader’s interests. Trust is so valuable and so fragile that even a single bad editor can spoil a site forever. Even if that person gets fired, the damage they caused can haunt the site’s brand basically forever. Why would I trust IGN? Hilary Goldstein worked there. I think I disagreed with everything that man ever wrote. Why would I trust Polygon? Ben Kuchera writes for them. He said Mario Kart 8 would be the worst selling Mario Kart of all time, when it was probably the single biggest sales driver for the Wii U until Zelda came along. And so on.

This isn’t even touching stuff like Kotaku’s advertising, where they dedicate whole weeks of coverage to a single game because they are paid to do so, which always ends on a glittering review. Even if the review is written honestly, the frame around it places doubt on and hurts that honesty, which above all else should be protected first and foremost.

And I think the thing that really crystallizes all of this is that once an outlet has this happen to them, where they betray someone’s trust, they never, ever, EVER make even a single iota of effort to rebuild that trust. They move on, they bury it, and it’s just assumed that the person yelling in the comments about bias is just “another crazy fanboy.” It turns into this kind of war – the scorned fan in the comments section who obviously still likes the site enough to hang around versus the person employed by the site parroting a “never read the comments” mantra while also repeatedly insulting the very same people they’ve scorned (actually some of their most dedicated fans) just for cheap laughs.

And so the fanboy’s bitterness grows. Salt in an open wound that never really heals.

It’s turning into a serious problem. Maybe there’s no turning back now. It’s that moment in the opening scene of Pixar’s The Incredibles where (spoilers until the end of this paragraph) Mr. Incredible stops the bank robber but the kid, Buddy, gets in the way. Mr. Incredible scolds him for it, and we as the audience think, “That’s right, the kid shouldn’t be there.” Rejected by his hero, Buddy then grows up to become a super villain, channeling that bitterness into a force to kill Mr. Incredible and permanently destroy his entire culture.

“Little guys” like Videogamedunkey, with nearly 4 million Youtube subscribers, are being treated as the new voice of the people. Dunkey has actively attacked what he called “limp dick game journalists” for not doing what he thinks is their job. Dunkey makes some good points against these journalists, even if he does cross some lines, but overall, the message he’s sending is that sympathy for traditional game press has run out. And Dunkey will probably not be the last big name to launch a direct attack against these establishments. They grew up reading these outlets, got burned by some type of distrust, and were constantly told their feelings of betrayal didn’t matter. And now, as these big establishments begin to show signs of weakness in the face of individuals on Youtube, guys like Dunkey are throwing all of that stored up bitterness right back in their faces. As it turns out, not every betrayed fan in the comments section will remain a faceless raging nobody forever. You might not be reading the comments section, but the comments section reads you.

Anyway, getting back to your original message, do I think some people are going overboard with their Sonic Forces hatred? Maybe. Also tying back into what I was just talking about, there is a tendency on the internet to go overboard. With so many voices speaking in unison, in order to be heard, you have to speak REALLY loudly. It’s not enough to simply communicate with friends, some people are competing for reblogs, retweets, likes, thumbs and favs. The loudest, rudest fan is just trying to be heard above the background noise. That’s why you’ve seen this trend, time and time again, where a person will meet their biggest internet heckler in person and they turn out to be nothing. Some of them just want to be acknowledged. So yeah, there are definitely people out there trying to be as loud as possible, hoping somebody will listen to them.

But here’s the deal: I’m not one of those people, and I think there’s a lot about Sonic Forces that’s worrying. As worrying if not more than Sonic Lost World was. It definitely doesn’t look like the successor to Sonic Generations people were hoping for. From what they’ve shown us, I think this looks pretty blatantly like another game where Sonic Team is flying blind and hoping they can stick the landing. I don’t blame anyone who thinks they won’t.