How Sonic Rumble Brings Sega to Mobile Gaming | interview

During my recent trip to the Tokyo Game Show, I was able to spend pre-show time in the heart of Tokyo visiting iconic game companies like Sega.

At Sega, the company was excited about the upcoming release of the third Sonic movie in theaters – something that has helped revitalize the franchise in recent years.

At Sega’s headquarters in Tokyo, I had a tour of the company’s common areas, as well as lunch with a group of influential people. One of them wore a large fake mustache and a round black ball, and another influencer said he creates Sonic content every day of the year. We all need to play Sonic Rumble, the upcoming PC and mobile game, on our smartphones. The game was very reminiscent of Fall Guys, a cute Battle Royale game where players competed in obstacle races on crazy courses – only with characters from the Sonic games.

The next day, I interviewed the team leaders in the Tokyo Game Show press room. I spoke with Takashi Iizuka, head of the Sonic series at Sega, and Makoto Tase, game director of Sonic Rumble. Here is an edited transcript of our interview.

GamesBeat: Could you talk about the origins of the game, the inspiration for it, and what you’re trying to achieve?

Takashi Iizuka: Project Start – Sega currently has other Sonic mobile games such as Sonic Forces and Sonic Dash. However, they come from outside Sega in Japan. Sega Japan, on the other hand, has had several hit mobile titles, but we haven’t had a title using Sonic. We wanted to use the Sega Japan development team to create a game using Sonic. That’s where we started.

GamesBeat: What do you think about the series and how often do you want to make Sonic games? It was interesting when one of the creators talked about creating Sonic content on a daily basis.

Iizuka: For consumer titles, our goal is to release one new title each year. This year, Sonic Rumble will be available on mobile devices. We wanted to do something for Sonic on mobile devices. In addition, we have film, animation and comics. They will be positioned between mainstream consumer and mobile titles. We’ll spread it all out throughout the year to keep Sonic fans excited.

GamesBeat: Are the movies so popular that it requires extra time from Sonic game developers? Do you also need to supervise a lot of the film content?

Iizuka: Before the success of the movies, we had our core Sonic fans. Then we attracted new fans thanks to the videos. As a result, we don’t see any problems with the development team, but we need to create titles that can also excite new Sonic fans. This may be a new challenge when producing new titles.

GamesBeat: How would you describe Sega’s strategy in other media following these films?

Iizuka: Within Sega, the Sonic brand defines the transmedia strategy for the entire company. I moved to the United States nine years ago. By this time, the Sonic brand had reached a really low level. Users weren’t too interested in Sonic. It wasn’t popular. Based on this experience, we had to create games, animations, films and win back our core Sonic fans. We also had to find new Sonic fans. By attracting more and more fans over time, we finally found success with Sonic IP. This is the same strategy we are now trying to pursue with other IPs at Sega.

GamesBeat: I saw you had a very successful game on Roblox, with over a billion plays. It was a surprise to see that of the over 400 brands currently at the top of Roblox, Sonic is number one. Did this surprise you at all? How did you do it to be successful?

Iizuka: Previously, with Sonic titles, we primarily created consumer games that users had to purchase to play. Thanks to Roblox, it’s free and a lot of the younger generation plays games there. The initial goal was to find more new users who could play Sonic and learn about Sonic on Roblox. We thought finding a Sonic IP address would be a great experience for new users. That said, the development team has to update the Roblox game every week, and that’s hard work. However, as a company we think it was a very good experience.

GamesBeat: Are you thinking more about user-generated content? Will users one day be able to create their own Sonic experiences?

Iizuka: We don’t have anything planned for user-generated content at the moment, but we do see fans creating their own games. We follow it and sometimes we like to watch it.

GamesBeat: With Sonic Rumble, do you feel like the game fits into a specific genre, alongside games like Fall Guys? Is there a particular twist that makes this very Sega, very Sonic?

Makoto Tas: Compared to other titles, we feel that, firstly, we have the speed that everyone knows from Sonic. We wanted to make a game very much like Sonic, and that was the first thing we thought of. To show that we have implemented features and scene variations to show Sonic’s speed in the game. Additionally, compared to games like Fall Guys and Stumble Guys, we think Sonic is a very strong IP. We have unique stages, character expression, Sonic world. This affects core Sonic fans and new Sonic fans. These are just some of the unique strengths of our game.

Users compete to get as many rings as possible and may try to take rings from each other. This aspect of competition causes a mixture of excitement and frustration. There is a lot of excitement in the game.

GamesBeat: Do you see any similarities between Sonic and the Angry Birds characters from those series?

Iizuka: In March, we had cross-promotion of Angry Birds and Sonic mobile games. Both feature animal characters. We believe that cross-promotion has had a positive impact. These two IP addresses have a good relationship with each other. Both audiences seemed to have fun with this cross-promotion. In the future, if we have another opportunity, we would definitely like to do more.

GamesBeat: One of the interesting things about Angry Birds is that you can learn to play the game in a matter of seconds. It’s a very accessible game. What do you think you can learn from such simplicity?

Taz: The Rovio website has extensive experience in developing mobile titles. They know how to create successful mobile games. They know how to make them accessible to multiple users. They understand the marketing side on a global level. The experience they have is something we definitely took into consideration when creating this game. We are happy to work with them and learn from their experiences.

GamesBeat: When I was playing yesterday, I noticed that I could have made a mistake, or even more than one mistake, and I wouldn’t necessarily have finished last. I could still regain my strength and catch up. I thought it was interesting that even if you make a mistake, you don’t have to just give up.

Taz: When creating this game, we wanted to reach a wide audience. Like you said, if users make one mistake and watch better players win every time, it wouldn’t be as fun for such a wide audience. That’s why we have some random elements, throwback elements, these aspects of the game. We have made every effort to ensure that many users can have fun while playing.

GamesBeat: Do PC players play together with mobile players, or are the platforms separated in multiplayer?

Taz: Right now we think they can play at the same time. At the beginning we talked about balance. The game may be easier to play with a controller, but we’re not a competitive game like League of Legends – we didn’t want skill to be the only thing in the game. We wanted to have a more party feel. We wanted as many users as possible to be able to play. That’s why we decided to let PC and mobile players play the same games.

GamesBeat: Is there anything else you wanted to focus on today?

Taz: We wanted to emphasize the number of stages and their diversity. We have 35 stages in pre-launch, but once we reach global launch we expect there will be more. Each stage has a different game design. The personality at each stage is very different. We feel that users can have fun at every stage. We definitely want users to see it and enjoy it.

Iizuka: We’ll be launching this winter, and once we go live, we’ll be releasing new content every few weeks. This is one of the biggest advantages of live gaming over traditional consumer gaming. There are many characters in Sonic, and users will be able to play as some of the smaller characters. These characters will get a chance to become heroes in this game. We also plan to collaborate with other IPs and hope this will be exciting for users as well.