Have the Shenmue and TJ&E Kickstarters knocked some sense into Sega?

You know that one kid in your neighborhood who had the Sega Genesis instead of the Super Nintendo? Yeah, that was me. I was a diehard Sega fan in my youth, with a console ownership history that reads like a laundry list of misunderstanding — Genesis, Sega CD, 32X, Saturn, Dreamcast. That love continued through the Xbox era, when Sega subdivisions like Smilebit put out gems like Jet Set Radio Future and Panzer Dragoon Orta. These days, I’ve grown up, moved on, and watched as Sega made one soulless decision after another.

I’ve seen Sega franchises come back and quickly disappear again. Re-releases like NiGHTS: Into Dreams and Rez HD not only reaffirmed how great those games were, but also cemented that they’d be forever misunderstood. The tepid response to NiGHTS was particularly rough — that game was my Mario 64 back in the day — and now it was back alongside a stack of negative reviews and vocal critics emphatically touting that, “NiGHTS was never good.”

With my childhood nostalgia being slowly unwritten — one “game that was never actually good” at a time — I see the Sega logo in modern games like Alien: Isolation as a weird novelty. I expect bad Sonic games and I’m not surprised when Sega fails to localize potentially cool titles. I worry when Sega acquires Atlus because they might ruin a good thing. But some recent quotes from Sega CEO Hajime Satomi in Famitsu have me wondering if there’s still hope for them yet.

The quotes in that article imply that Sega fans still exist, perhaps in greater numbers and with more eager wallets than previously suggested, and that Sega has betrayed them. It’s a weird idea coming from them, as the last several years have heavily cemented the idea that Sega fandom went extinct long ago. Sonic is a character for a new generation of kids, with a new cartoon and game to appeal to them. And the rest of the franchises? Well, they’re fine for filling out the roster of a Mario Kart clone, but not much else.

Why the sudden change of heart? I don’t think you have to look further than the wildly successful Shenmue 3 Kickstarter for the answer (with bonus additional evidence found within the fully-funded Toe Jam & Earl Kickstarter). The fans for long-forgotten Sega franchises still exist, and can be a powerful force in the right circumstances. Sega seems to be quickly coming around to the idea that hearts and minds have wallets too.

Perhaps the most encouraging part of the story is the bit about Sega learning from Atlus, a publisher that has been successfully making games the way Sega used to for a long time now. If Satomi makes good on the vow for quality going forward, we may see some long-dormant franchises coming back in ways fans can genuinely get excited about. More importantly, we may one day see that special brand of Sega creativity taking chances on new ideas.

There are a lot of old, obscure Sega brands I’d like to see come back. Panzer Dragoon, Vectorman, Ecco the Dolphin, Jet Set Radio, Virtua Fighter, even Burning Rangers had the beginnings of a great idea that could be amazing on modern platforms. But more importantly Sega needs to build teams who understand these franchises and can do them justice. I’ve already had some of my favorite Sega games get sequels (NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams) or spiritual successors (Crimson Dragon) and the results were lousy.

Can Sega truly return to form? I can only hope that Shenmue 3’s record-shattering Kickstarter gives them the financial drive to make the creative decisions necessary. My fear is that Satomi’s words are merely a company-wide version of the promises Sega makes with every new Sonic game: “The last Sonic wasn’t good, we understand why, and we’ve nailed it this time.” The same false promise has been repeated again and again. Will this be any different?