Sonic 2 HD - Discontinued

shameless copy and paste from my post the Sonic 2 HD thread on Sonic Retro

What a shame.

Jokes aside, it really is a shame to see what happened here. I did have a lot of fun with the demo, and I appreciate the tremendous amount of effort the team as a whole put into releasing it. I sincerely hope that the team goes on to do some great things with what they learned while making this project, and that this mysterious new project some of the members are working on comes to fruition as well.

Although, I would be quite happy if the art and music resources were made public for use in other projects. But that's just wishful thinking on my part, wanting to see a HD Drill Car in every fangame.

Mistake #1 was not making 'Sonic 1 HD' first. Sonic 2 is waaaaayy too big of a game to set a realistic goal of completion. Once Sonic 1 is done, use the work from THAT to go on to Sonic 2, etc...just like the real games.

Honestly, I'd say the real mistake here is just complete mismanagement. The warning signs of problems were plain as day and they just prayed that the problems would fix themselves, and by doing so they sealed the project's fate. If there had been an intervention when LOst first started acting up, the project might still be alive at this point.

Kinda makes you wonder how SRB2 has made itself a shining example of longevity in the fangaming world, doesn't it. Some of the same problems that eventually killed S2HD plague SRB2's development (which I won't go in to), but you guys are still seemingly trucking away. It probably has something to do with the media fervour S2HD (and by extention Retro) always attract, what with their holier-than-thou "Second only to SEGA" attitude. Ugh.

This also says something about the Sonic community at large. One person cries wolf, and the next thing you know, mass hysteria. This has happened before, too (Tweaker tantrums, Sonic 4 physics, "green eyes", you get what I mean (and yes I am deliberately ignoring the irony here, thank you kindly)).

Giving a guy whose sole purpose/ability is programming the keys to the kingdom wasn't too smart either. You want to manage a team effectively? Get a guy with some real charisma and social skills up there, someone who you'd want to work under. This holds true for actual real-world game development as well. The people with "jack of all trades" skillsets have a tendency to lend themselves nicely to this position, because they can relate to each of their employees and gauge what a reasonable expectation is or isn't. At least, that's what I've learned through the projects I've worked on.