It pains me to see some of the creators of the brilliant sonic mania finding things so difficult, and like many here I also hope that sega are engaging some of the creators at least to continue they project because it was so excellent.
But I think a lot of era truly doesn't understand how rare the mania situation was or how big companies usually treat their brands, most licensing deals involve teams going to big companies and pitching amazing ideas and then having to pay huge upfront costs as part of either a minimum guarantee or straight up one off licensing AND you'll be on the hook for all development costs AND it'll have a bunch of stipulations about how you can use it etc etc. the one adavantage if that kind of setup is the revenue generated is usually split so you won't be just a one off if you find success, though you're definitely not seeing close to most of that money. I assume this is how many of the other external ip licenses projects are handled.
Yeah that setups is dumb and more companies should be engaging talented and passionate indies to do interesting stuff with things they really aren't leveraging but that's also just the unfortunate business standard.
Anyway back to the main topic, best of luck to this creator and I hope their reboot of the Kickstarter goes well.
But how does this even affect ST? It's not like they're making 2D Sonic games on consoles anymore. This just seems like an easy layup for Sega in general. By all accounts Mania sold well, and it's the most critically acclaimed Sonic platformer in several decades.
I think most of us (at least on Era) understand that a successful project like Mania doesn't equal a large payday for the developers.
I think what some of us are confused about is the apparent disinterest in Sega to capitalize on Mania's incredible success, both critically and commercially.
I guess it's possible Sega approached Stealth, Whitehead, and the rest of the team to develop a sequel....but I honestly doubt it. Sega should have created a brand new studio for these guys after Mania's success and let them go crazy on a brand new 2D entry.
it's fucked up that he's broke but wasn't the director of mania christian whitehead? he founded his own studio this year, do we know that he isn't making mania 2 or if he even wanted to make it?
Definitely would be a good way to use their money.
Good idea, 2D Conker
Guessing after the Forces fiasco they just decided to put Sonic games on the backburner for a while.This is so messed up, why wouldn't Sega greenlight Mania 2, are they really that clueless about this IP.
SEGA confirmed earlier this year that they're working on the next Sonic game.Guessing after the Forces fiasco they just decided to put Sonic games on the backburner for a while.
Which is a damn shame, since Mania 2 would have helped cemented that it was not a fluke and keep the train rolling.
it's fucked up that he's broke but wasn't the director of mania christian whitehead? he founded his own studio this year, do we know that he isn't making mania 2 or if he even wanted to make it?
that has nothing to with anything though.Stealth is the patriarch of the entire sonic hacking community, he is literally the one who started the entire scene. There would be no Christian Whitehead, without Stealth.
Pretty sure that was in response to people in this thread assuming Stealth's the entire Mania dev team. There's plenty of posts in here assuming that cause he's not working on a Mania 2, that Sega screwed him over. While the reality is a bunch of the Mania team, including the director Christian Whitehead, started their own studio (Evening Star) last year that Stealth's not a part of. And we have no idea if they're making a Sonic game, or if they even want to make one. There's also no reason to believe Sega (nor Evening Star) screwed Stealth over also.Neither does pointing out that Christian Whitehead was the director in the first place.
He's not making Mania 2, his company is assisting with Freedom Planet 2.it's fucked up that he's broke but wasn't the director of mania christian whitehead? he founded his own studio this year, do we know that he isn't making mania 2 or if he even wanted to make it?
He's not making Mania 2, his company is assisting with Freedom Planet 2.
Yup, on top of that looks like he's long been done with his work on FP2:christian whitehead is personally assisting with freedom planet 2, but as far as i know evening star's next project is completely unannounced
No, it was contract work. If the devs did get royalties then that would probably be a first for a game like this.Wait I didn't read the second page the Headcannon got no royalties at all?
I was under the impression that this was the case, like how everyone assumes Alpha Dream's bankrupcy was because the 3DS sales were going south so the royalties weren't enough to add to their pay.No, it was contract work. If the devs did get royalties then that would probably be a first for a game like this.
Thanks for your input. People in this thread don't really seem to differentiate between the Mania team, Evening Star and Headcannon. Mighty confusing for someone not all too familiar with their respective involvement with Sonic Mania and their respective current status.I feel like some stuff should be clarified here though cause people here don't seem to actually know which Mania devs were involved with this or where they are at right now:
So Sonic Mania was made by a bunch of independent developers. This included Christian Whitehead, Headcannon, PagodaWest Games, as well as a bunch of people outside of those devs.
Christian Whitehead, PagodaWest, and some of the others who worked on Mania went on to start Evening Star. We don't really know what they're up to right now but it's fair to assume they're working on an (unannounced) video game. A couple of Mania's artists, Paul Veer and Midio, went on to work on Cadence of Hyrule.
Headcannon, which afaik only consists of Simon Thomley/Stealth, went on to work on projects with other people, which included a Darkwing Duck pitch that wasn't picked up, and is/was leading Vertebreaker. There can be a lot of reasons for why he's not working with Evening Star, him not working with them or on a Mania sequel doesn't necessarily mean he was screwed over, there's not really reason to believe that he was right now.
I hope he lands on his feet, I can imagine this Kickstarter failing being a motivation killer for him on top of being bad for him financially.
You shouldn't be surprised that people on this forum are as ignorant as they are regarding game development.I'm more surprised people thought any of the contracted developers were getting royalties from Mania.
Alpha Dream was a bit bigger, so maybe they could negotiate out some royalties, but if they got a flat payment instead the problem would be getting another flat payment for another project while previous ones did not work out. You know, just like with the "why didn't Sega order Mania 2" subthread here, except for the question part.I was under the impression that this was the case, like how everyone assumes Alpha Dream's bankrupcy was because the 3DS sales were going south so the royalties weren't enough to add to their pay.