DJ wrote:Dark Age Iron Savior wrote:no, the people you're thinking of don't give a shit about the 8-bit sonic games either.
I assure you they do. Maybe not about playing them (most marketing people I know rarely play games at all), but about understanding the nostalgia behind them, and they're more than willing to name-drop them in the interests of hype.
Classic gaming is no longer off-limits to the mainstream marketing department and it hasn't been for a while. Classic downloads and the retro market are a big deal these days compared to six years ago where it was taboo to bring them up, and now even the corporate big shots know there's money to be made. There's a reason they slapped Sonic's name and old-school likeness on the most recent genesis collection. Those things sell, and they sell pretty well for something that costs Sega virtually nothing to produce. Playing off the nostalgia factor is a key part of that. Marketing people aren't stupid; it is literally their job to figure out what is going to sell, and why it's going to sell, and to drum up support for it.
Just because something name checks a classic title doesn't mean it's not marketing pap. You don't have to agree with me if you don't want, but I've been lucky enough to make a bunch of friends in the industry and trust me, the hardcore/classic gamer market is something they are keenly aware of, especially these days when it means a comparatively-cheap game to produce that comes with a built in fanbase. Those are all really big fat bullet points on any game proposal that gets floated these days, and if one of the mandates sent down to marketing is "play this up to the '90s diehards" then that's exactly what they're gonna do. The fact that Sega's making a big deal about what The Fans Have Clamored For is another dead giveaway.
This isn't necessarily a bad thing, either. Hell, a little marketing jargon might be a good thing. Might mean Sega are actually throwing some money behind this and taking it seriously.
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