TSSZ SRB2 Reunion Interview

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With SRB2 being one of the first communities I was glad to be a part of, I had to watch the reunion interview. I did have a couple questions that I want to ask that weren't necessarily covered in the interview that revolve around the community.

1) Developers come and go on the staff and so do people within the community. I used to post quite a bit back in the day (5,439 posts... I had too much time on my hands) but I have not been active in years. Does the staff miss interaction with specific users/seeing users move on?

2) Do you believe a game like SRB2/SRB2's Community would succeed in today's environment?

[My Perspective Below]

I personally believe it wouldn't, as I remember the internet revolving around websites with free games such as MiniClip and so on. With the newer generations growing up on mobile, I don't think they have as big of an issue finding new games to play. Same deal with the community as I've seen many message boards die through the years as people move on and more general websites like Reddit being the focus for online discussion in gaming communities.

3) Has SEGA reached out to the SRB2 staff at all? I know the interview mentioned if they were asked to work on a Sonic game would they accept it, so I'm assuming no in the hiring department but I'm talking more in a general "Cool game you guys got there", I'm also kind of curious if they ever saw SRB2 as a threat as they saw SonicGL.

Edit: Oh, I liked the question about mods within the community. I remember the one JTE mod being huge at the time.
 
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Not a dev anymore, but my understanding is that the closest thing to acknowledgement in a public sphere was Aaron's "hi sonc" comment (via the official Sonic account) on ProJared's video, around the time they were earning PR points for publicly stating they wouldn't take down fangames in the wake of AM2R.
 
2) Do you believe a game like SRB2/SRB2's Community would succeed in today's environment?

[My Perspective Below]

I personally believe it wouldn't, as I remember the internet revolving around websites with free games such as MiniClip and so on. With the newer generations growing up on mobile, I don't think they have as big of an issue finding new games to play. Same deal with the community as I've seen many message boards die through the years as people move on and more general websites like Reddit being the focus for online discussion in gaming communities.

This wasn't directed at me, but I feel like chiming in, since it's an interesting question to consider.

I think it's important to keep in mind that SRB2 became a thing only shortly after the internet started to become more of a mainstream thing. Places like Newgrounds, Sonic Fangames HQ and the like were always niche; the difference now is that the internet has become way more robust, with websites like Reddit and Steam appealing to a much lower common denominator. Most of these people would never have gotten into these side communities regardless.

To put it another way, it's not necessarily that less people are getting into these sort of communities, but rather that the global internet population is increasing, and so it makes us look small by proxy.

Message boards do die out and websites of olde tend to go extinct, but that's nothing new. If the community is strong, it always finds a way to survive, and that's been the case for a surprisingly large number of the sites I used to frequent -- SRB2, Spriters Resource, SMW Central, VGMusic are all still up and decently active. There is a fair question as to whether the mainstream websites are a bit overcentralizing to the point where they steal too much oxygen from splinter communities, but I think that ultimately people still want those more localized connections, and you can't quite get that from Reddit or Youtube.
 
Sorry, I missed this post.

1) Developers come and go on the staff and so do people within the community. I used to post quite a bit back in the day (5,439 posts... I had too much time on my hands) but I have not been active in years. Does the staff miss interaction with specific users/seeing users move on?

Absolutely! There's lots of people that have come and gone over the years. AKA2000 comes to mind. (He started 'diving mode').

2) Do you believe a game like SRB2/SRB2's Community would succeed in today's environment?

No -- see CobaltBW's comments. I also agree with your perspective.

3) Has SEGA reached out to the SRB2 staff at all? I know the interview mentioned if they were asked to work on a Sonic game would they accept it, so I'm assuming no in the hiring department but I'm talking more in a general "Cool game you guys got there", I'm also kind of curious if they ever saw SRB2 as a threat as they saw SonicGL.

Back at the turn of the century, Sega was a little bit sue-happy with the fans -- lots of takedown notices on websites and such. Certainly not on the level of Nintendo, but it still happened.
 
No -- see CobaltBW's comments.

Well, perhaps I should clarify, as I didn't really give a "yes" or "no" explicitly. I don't think SRB2's survival is necessarily a byproduct of its legacy status, nor do I think today's environment prevents similar projects from succeeding. Perhaps if SRB2 was started today, it would have used a different engine or the community would be structured a bit differently, but the ideas that brought the community together would stand on their own merits regardless.

I think the issue is more so a matter of framing -- a community like this one seems less significant nowadays because the internet is so much larger than it used to be, but that shouldn't be seen as an objective measure of a project or community's success. Facebook and Twitter serve their purpose to a wider audience, but the internet at large has always been ruled by nerds.
 
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Sonic World, before its untimely project management collapse, was basically SRB2's principles made manifest using a more conventional 3D Sonic engine. A strong community of people interested in its development, iterating features, and - as glaber said - lots and lots of modding support.

Even if its approach to "what should end up in the main game" was "everything they make except Classic Sonic", It's perhaps the strongest evidence yet that something about SRB2 is pretty dang timeless.
 
It's based on Damizean's Blitz engine, but has major dedicated releases on a semi-regular cadence, an unlock mechanism, specific developer-made alternate challenges for emblems, a chao garden, and special stages.

Lacked a story or any cohesive singleplayer level progression mode, but when the category of 3D Sonic Fangames That Aren't Just An Engine Test With One Or So Levels is otherwise just SRB2 and Sonic The Hedgehog 3D (SAGE 2014 Edition), and the developers didn't feel interested in adding a feature like it, you might as well slip your standards a little.
 
Lacked a story or any cohesive singleplayer level progression mode, but when the category of 3D Sonic Fangames That Aren't Just An Engine Test With One Or So Levels is otherwise just SRB2 and Sonic The Hedgehog 3D (SAGE 2014 Edition), and the developers didn't feel interested in adding a feature like it, you might as well slip your standards a little.

I would actually argue that this is a very big part of SRB2's staying power. Similar types of fangames do not have a direction or mission; and like a company that has no direction or mission, there is no morale and no participation by the employees.
We were very fortunate to have somebody like Johnny, who went on to actually work on Sega properties, to lay a lot of the groundwork and vision to build upon. You could then think of myself as the whip, keeping people in line and if they didn't do something, I did it myself. For a long time between 1.09.4 and 2.0, I was doing all of the work exclusively until I started 'Sky Sanctuary' and the Arid Canyon texture contest.
 
Wasn't SRB2 also a very early example of a 3D Sonic fangame? Barring of course Sonic Doom 1 + 2, it's probably very close to the first of those kind of fangames too. =V

Reason I bring that up is that I'm wondering if SRB2's own age is part of why it's notable even today. If it were made today, it'd probably no longer be as impressive, considering the Sonic fangames that exist now.
 
Yes, it was the earliest, which helped. It wasn't exclusively the only one, though. A few came along shortly after that were 'engine tests' and went nowhere.
 
A few came along shortly after that were 'engine tests' and went nowhere.
I personally believe this is the main reason for SRB2's longevity. Even early on in the demo cycle, there was a priority in providing actual content as a "demo" and not an engine test. While we got sidetracked for a while with the final demo improvement cycle, even then there was a solid amount of actual content with the game instead of just a single engine test room.
 
Part of that content being an actual level flow instead of being booted back to a menu after every level
 
For a long time between 1.09.4 and 2.0, I was doing all of the work exclusively until I started 'Sky Sanctuary' and the Arid Canyon texture contest.

Ahhh, the memories...

Mystic said:
I personally believe this is the main reason for SRB2's longevity. Even early on in the demo cycle, there was a priority in providing actual content as a "demo" and not an engine test.

I saw something about this year's SAGE and decided to check it out. There were so many fangames, mods, and hacks, that it just seemed too much effort to weed through it and see if any were worth downloading and playing. And none of them seemed to actually look like (at least a preview of) a self-contained Sonic game the way Sonic XG/Retro/Nexus, or SRB2 did.
 
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