SEGA Vintage Collection, SEGA Heritage and now SEGA Alliance. Seems SEGA is on a roll with these new defining terms for titles, and frankly I love it. Maybe we no longer have the many development teams as we did in the Dreamcast days, but it’s refreshing to have a bit more order in the titles being released. What is Alex Kidd & Co.? Why it’s a Vintage Collection release. What is NiGHTS HD rerelease? A SEGA Heritage release. And so, when we get to the recently released Jack Lumber, what is it? A SEGA Alliance release. Straight from SEGA’s mouth (also known as a press release):
SEGA® of America, Inc. and SEGA® Europe, Ltd. today announced the formation of a new publishing initiative, SEGA Alliance. The SEGA Alliance will focus on publishing mobile games made by independent developers. The SEGA Alliance will provide participating developers with comprehensive marketing and production support as well as creative consultation.
It’s an intriguing initiative to be sure, and perhaps it will satisfy SEGA fans who get up in arms about distinctions. I won’t even get into the many “Bayonetta is/isn’t a SEGA character” fights I’ve been in. Now if somebody says “Is Jack Lumber a SEGA character?” you can reply “He’s a character from Owlchemy Labs whose game was published by SEGA. He’s a SEGA Alliance character.”
SEGA did clarify for us, via twitter, that Hell Yeah! is NOT a SEGA Alliance title. So keep up the “Is Ash a SEGA character” arguments.
Ad:Related posts:
Review: Jack Lumber (iOS)
Owlchemy Labs: Jack Lumber “hasn’t been financially successful”
Sega’s Newest IP, Jack Lumber chops it’s way onto iOS
SEGA Reveals Classic Tails, Chemical Plant and Stardust Speedway Screens
SEGA reveals Tokyo Game Show 2015 lineup – we may know what game the Yakuza team is working on!
I always get into the “sega character” argument with idiots online.
Sega IP = Sega Character. End of story. Not that hard to understand.
Bayonetta is definitely Sega.
HELL YEAH! THE RABBIT IS COMIN’, YOU BETTER START RUNNIN’!
lol
I feel that Spiral Knights is between SEGA Alliance and a full SEGA franchise.
That game would be a GREAT F2P Vita game.
SEGA Heritage sounds like their Arcade/Saturn output whilst Vintage is Mega Drive/Genesis and before that.
(edited your post to fix your mis-type) 🙂
Well, Spiral Knights was initially very similar to what SEGA Alliance is until SEGA made the developer a part of SEGA Holdings U.S.A. Inc., a subsidiary of Sega Sammy Holdings (thanks wikipedia!). So now, Spiral Knights is a SEGA IP. It just didn’t start out that way.
What I love most about these partnerships are the possibilities of crossovers. Like, Spiral Knights had Sonic themed armor. I’d love to see some SEGA power ups in Jack Lumber. Like perhaps an Eggman beard power up, or a Sonic-like animal friend.
I believe this is going to very supportive for SEGA. The digital market is growing in a massive scale and it was definitely a smart move for SEGA to make this decision. As their parent company had said previously, SEGA will have strong revenues for their digital game business. And thanks to this, SEGA is will be around for a long time.
So, Sega owns these titles they are gonna publish? Or they are just publishing it like they did with some From Software titles on the past?