A part of me is hurtin' about this.
When I was a child reading them Sonic the Comics, there was an article for a brand new place in London called
SegaWorld. To my 8-year old mind it sounded like a "promise land to Sonic fans" and the fact it was in UK made the idea of visiting it more tangible. Problem was I was eight years old, in the middle of Wales and a single mother with four boys to worry about, so of course it be a hard "no" on going to Sega World with the old "Because you're too little" answer, that and it's too far away. But Mum says when I'm older I can probably go there so I had hope that when I grow up I'd get to see the most Sonic-iest place in all of UK.
SegaWorld lasted for about three years.
I've heard of Tokyo Joypolis not long after the internet became a common thing in my life, can't recall how I found out about it but I knew for sure that this was the most sonick-iest place in the world and I'll probably never get to visit such a place. Not only that but Joypolis towers the area with a big Sega logo which is kinda make it look Sega is a big deal there. Like it's their own
'90s Boulavard of sorts. Nintendo has a theme park in Universal Studio's Japan, but Sega had Joypolis... I would of loved to play the Sonic exclusive games and rides they have there, such as
Ghost Shooting or
Brain Ranking, or even visiting the Sonic carnival which is more for the little ones. Heck there's even Sega arcade games I never got to play like Scarlet Dawn or Virtua Fighter 5.
I knew it was unlikely I'll ever go to Japan to visit Joypolis, now I know I never will.
I'm a 33 year old man and as a Sonic fan I feel like I missed out most things that other more dedicated Sonic fans go to enjoy and it makes me feel depress, like sorta worthless as a Sonic fan. But I also imagine Sega themselves feel much-much worse than I do given they're losing one of their castles here. Joypolis had a bit of history, brought revenue to Sega and left their mark in Tokyo than just being some sub-par software company. Ever since 2006 it's been somewhat of a tumble for Sega.
(Also, Segabits forums is as slow as heck today, I had to rewrite this heartfelt speech three or four times with awkwardly long wait times in between. It was daylight when I tried first posting.)