Controversial Sonic Origins DLC/pre-order scheme mocked by Devolver Digital

[midian182]

A hot potato: Sega's launch date announcement for the remastered Sonic the Hedgehog collection (Sonic Origins) was overshadowed by the DLC and preorder packs that were, at best, a complete misjudgment by Sega and, at worst, a slap in fans' faces from executives motivated by greed—a sentiment seemingly shared by developer Devolver Digital.

The launch announcement of Sonic Origins was greeted with enthusiasm by retro gaming fans, but that quickly turned to confusion and anger due to the selection of pre-order bonuses, DLC, and deluxe edition content so bewildering that it would make Ubisoft blush.

Sega's chart shows that the only thing buyers of the $39.99 standard edition of Sonic Origins get is the "main game." There will also be three pieces of DLC, one of them available only to those who pre-order the standard or $44.99 Digital Deluxe editions. That means pre-ordering appears to be the only way to access mirror mode, something that used to come as standard in Sonic titles.

Even more surprising is that the game's Hard Missions are only available in the DLC and Digital Deluxe Editions. These also contain meme-fodder such as character animations in the main menu and during music islands, and camera controls over the main menu islands.

Our marketing department created a handy guide for preordering Trek to Yomi.

Please use it to navigate your path to purchase. pic.twitter.com/cN9f303FIZ

— Devolver Digital (@devolverdigital) April 20, 2022

Joining the mockery from gamers is Devolver Digital, which has created a pre-ordering guide for its upcoming Samurai title Trek to Yomi. It notes that all versions include an epic journey to the underworld, and back, and even "full credits at the end."

Sonic Origins will be available on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series, Nintendo Switch, and PC on June 23.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/94318-controversial-sonic-origins-dlcpre-order-scheme-mocked-devolver.html

 

[Theinsanegamer]

Funny, I can play all the old 2d sonic games for free within 5 minutes.

Sega has long lost the plot, hope this game flops hard.

 

[Neatfeatguy]

If I really wanted to play Sonic, Sonic 2 or Sonic & Knuckles (I used to have Sonic 3 and Sonic Spinball as well) I'll just turn on the Sega Genesis....but I don't want to play them. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the games when I was 25-30 years younger and I bought the games when they came out, but today they have zero appeal to me.

Sega can suck it.

 

[m4a4]

I approve of this move.


A great example of what not to do. A shame that this needs to happen so often though...

 

[Aceseven]

Terrible of sega to do this but honestly they're only doing it because they've looked at what gamers buy and think it may work.

You can laugh at them but should also put some of the blame on gamers who have proved repeatedly they'll buy whatevers in front of them.

sega just reached a bit too far and got burned, hopefully gamers are learning.....

 

[defaultluser]

Funny, I can play all the old 2d sonic games for free within 5 minutes.

Sega has long lost the plot, hope this game flops hard.

Its true man, you can already have functioning Widescreen + up-scaling on Retroarch Widescreen core.

If you don't care for the bolted-on cutscenes, then this really is a waste!

And now that they are actually de-compiling the games then porting them natively (plus adding a ton of superfluous features), how likely are we NOT to have tons of launch-day bugs?

 

[DukeJukem]

What a glorious way to encourage piracy. Keep it up game developers

 

[Rdmetz]

Let's be real they aren't doing anything here that's different from almost all game releases these days.

Act as hard as they want game media to make it sound like an exhausting mess the fact is its just like any other game out there.

There 2 options (standard or Deluxe)

And on top of that there are pre order bonuses

Boom end of story nothing else to discuss

Pick your version and either be enticed to preorder for the extras or wait for reviews and miss out.

What they really screwed up was trying to advertise that those same "extras" both from the Deluxe and the perorder options would in fact be made available (at a later date) as seperate purchases.

This to me is at best a benefit that many other games never even give you or at worst they do but only much later and you living without the knowledge that you'll ever be able to get them or not.

They did SOME a favor by letting them know these "extras" would in fact be made available later if they DIDN'T get the Deluxe or preorder but by doing so they've effectively only hurt themselves because games media journalists are too stupid to read a chart and ALWAYS looking for a cheap story.

Now... Do I agree with preorder dlc or delxue editions splitting up content... No I do not.

But that Changes nothing for the fact that EVERY big game release these days is likley going to offer one or the other or both and likely even MORE variations of "levels" to have to choose from.

This is a non story but of course trchspot and all the other clickbait websites aren't going to miss the chance for a few more angry gamer clicks and that sweet ad revenue.

Have a problem with paid dlc and multiple versions of game releases.... Fine write an article about that and why it's bad but don't try and make a martyr out of one game by purposefully trying to confuse readers into thinking its some super complicated gotcha system when all it is is the typical pre order bonuses on top of a SINGLE choice between standard and Deluxe editions.

Again all the other fluff in their "chart" is there to indicate these same bonuses that you MIGHT miss out on will in fact be made available later as a seperate purchase instead of some lost to time preorder dlc you WILL NEVER have the option to pickup.

 

[AMDGeForceRX4090]

Sega higher ups have been making bad moves since the Saturn.

Actually, before that. 32X anyone?