Although Sonic is conceived as a retro icon, the truth is that he is more alive than ever thanks to movies, comics, merchandising, and yes, when he has some free time, video games. Once he got out of the slump he was in a few years ago, when the quality of the hedgehog seemed irreparably tied to absolute mediocrity, SEGA’s mascot has managed to win back his audience thanks to games like Sonic Mania, Sonic Frontiers, or even his appearance in the classic Super Smash Bros. However, it is worth going back to the less golden era of Sonic, when, between little adventures for Wii or the terrible reboot of 2006, he experienced his most pitiful moment.
A very sonic game!
Year 2015. Sonic was becoming known again among kids thanks to the Sonic Boom series, SEGA had shown interest in continuing the classic saga with the two episodes of Sonic 4 and fans allowed themselves -a grave mistake- to have hopes for the future of the blue hedgehog. It was then that SEGA decided that, in addition to consoles, they needed to focus on mobile devices. They had already succeeded a few years earlier with Sonic Jump and Sonic Dash, which were simple extended mini-games (the latter, for example, was just another Temple Run), so why not try again?
After a year and a half of preparing and programming this new adventure, SEGA launched Sonic Runners, a side-scrolling game where the character never stopped running, and the player’s only task was to know when to jump to hit enemies or avoid tripping over something. Not only does it seem simple, but it was the typical game that used to be a hit among mobile players: it’s perfect for a subway ride, what more do you need? Well, it wouldn’t have hurt if, in addition to being easy to play… it didn’t try to continuously take our money.
As in every free-to-play game, the goal was to empty the consumer’s wallet. In this case, there were two types of “coins” within the game: the Red Rings (which were used to continue a game) and the Normal Rings (which were paid and could be used to buy all kinds of items). Additionally, each day the player could spin a roulette to win new prizes, with the possibility of buying more spins if -oh surprise- you loosened the purse strings. It’s fine, even South Park made an episode about the scam of free-to-play games. The problem is that Sonic Runners was particularly aggressive in getting you to buy its extras, and it managed to annoy fans faster than the hedgehog itself.
At least they tried: there was a story mode, they intended to have free updates every so often, they gradually increased the cast of characters, missions, alternative paths… But of course, if you have an absolutely insane amount of ads, the pop-ups keep appearing continuously preventing you from playing, and even critics agree that, at a certain point, you had to pay just to be able to play, failure was pretty much guaranteed. Five million people downloaded it, but after a month it was only bringing in just under $200,000, an amount that was not enough to keep it afloat, especially since it was gradually declining.
The game appeared on July 21, 2015, and disappeared on July 27, 2016, just a year later, with no one left to mourn it by that time. Curiously, it had a sequel, Sonic Runners Advance, which improved all the issues of its first part (it had a fixed price, instead of having to pay to win) and, in its own way, became a success that saved the honor of SEGA and Sonic on mobile screens. Who said a failure couldn’t have a happy ending?