SEGA Kills Fan Made Streets Of Rage
Boo!
Published: 16:20, 13/04/2011 by Staff.
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10The fan-made remake of SEGA’s Streets of Rage has been shut down by the original publisher, according to a report on RPS today.
The homebrew project, which was apparently in development for eight years, has been taken off the team’s site, leaving only the multitudes of torrents that still hold the game as the only way to get hold of it.
“SEGA is committed to supporting any fans that take an interest in our games,” says a press release, “and where possible we do so by involving them in Beta tests and other development, marketing or research opportunities.”
“However we need to protect our intellectual property rights and this may result in us requesting that our fans remove online imagery, videos or games in some instances.”
Sadly, leaving such a decision until the game was actually finished is, in our opinion, a little bit nasty, especially as the coders claim they contacted SEGA when the project was first announced.
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13/04/2011 at 16:29
Member since: Jun 2010
This is rather sad. I can understand they need to protect their rights, but they’d better hire those guys and get a HD remake of SoR 1,2 and 3 out.
Or better yet, a Streets of Rage 4 in 2.5 HD. That would be awesome.
13/04/2011 at 16:31
Member since: Aug 2008
Arsehats! Sega blatantly took the original contact as “aww, look at the silly fans making a little crappy Stweets of Wage game”. Now they are like “shit, we should have done this and made a bunch of money. Shut them down and get on it!”
13/04/2011 at 17:24
Member since: Dec 2008
My thoughts exactly. Talk about a kick in the unmentionables.
I really hope that Sega have secretly taken the developers on for a ‘project’.
13/04/2011 at 16:36
Member since: Apr 2009
Sega have every right to do so.
In fairness, if they contacted Sega and obviously got ignored, they should have pestered them until they got it in writing that they could do what they did.
It may seem incredibly harsh to take it down eight years later, but this was always possible. It probably means Sega are looking to be making some money from Streets of Rage soon. Watch the PSN, I’d say…
One positive thing is that apparently, they never copied even one line of code from Streets of Rage, meaning that these fans could probably reskin the game and make some money themselves as indie developers. Just saying, but I think it’s a good idea…
13/04/2011 at 16:43
Member since: Jun 2010
Well, they’re releasing SoR 2 on the PSN, but just the classic genesis/megadrive game.
13/04/2011 at 16:52
Member since: Aug 2008
But they weren’t trying to make any money, that’s the sad thing. All this was going to do is serve the fans and raise the profile of the classic franchise. I think it would have benefited Sega unless, and here is my unlikely conspiracy theory for the day, Sega are preparing a new SoR game themselves and it’s not as good as this!
13/04/2011 at 16:58
Member since: Apr 2009
I know they weren’t trying to make money, which may also have worked against them getting permission- if they were, they could have negotiated with Sega?
I don’t think the Streets of Rage franchise needs it’s profile raised much, and if it does, a bunch of fans remaking it is probably only going to appeal to people who are already fans.
Sega will most likely just rerelease the classic version, as mentioned above by Klart.
But the fans (can we call them developers at this stage? We probably should) have an original piece of code for a fine beat-em-up. Surely if they reskin it a bit, change the visuals, they will have a high-quality game to sell themselves? A bit derivative, but that would hardly be a first, would it?
They certainly have a solid foundation to build upon, at any rate.
13/04/2011 at 17:46
Member since: Feb 2009
yeah, change the character graphics and the name, and they could easily sell this.
13/04/2011 at 17:01
Member since: Feb 2011
I think publishers need to try and find a way to work with these independent projects, as they are good business opportunities for them. Someone just needs to have the initiative to make it work.
13/04/2011 at 17:03
Member since: Oct 2008
Guaranteed to be a result in Sega’s new found interest in rebooting the series, I’d put money on a new title being released in the next 18-24 months…. I betcha !!
13/04/2011 at 17:17
Member since: Dec 2009
I believe all 20 year old games should belong to the public domain.
13/04/2011 at 17:45
Member since: Feb 2009
it’s probably still available if you care to look for it.
i found a copy this morning.
and it’s bloody fantastic.
13/04/2011 at 17:54
Member since: Mar 2010
I love Sega, but closing the game down is an outrage…
13/04/2011 at 18:37
Member since: Oct 2010
not if they’re loosing money on their own IP. think about it.
13/04/2011 at 19:13
Member since: May 2009
IMO- SEGA was going to chalk this up to some free press and hope to capitalize with a renewed interest from fans re-buying the originals until they saw that this game was better then anything they’ve made in the last 8 years and decided that this was going to damage their already somewhat damaged image of development. I expect SEGA will just purchase this game from them and slap a SEGA on it and then say look how great it is.
14/04/2011 at 07:56
Member since: Dec 2009
Me and my GF enjoy SOR esp 2….Grannnd Uppppper! They should do a new one, Id buy it fo sho!