While I am in no way blaming SEGA, because I think any true panel of game experts would name off at least a dozen great and incredibly influential SEGA games (which TIME's panel clearly lacked), I will say that I think SEGA needs to do a better job getting their old stuff and their past accomplishments out there. I'm not exactly talking remasters and ports, though those would be nice, I mainly mean pushing their past stuff actively online through social networks and through the media.
Nintendo rubs our faces in Mario, Zelda and Star Fox again and again, and I feel that due to this people have been conditioned to see these games and immediately think "great games". Even non-gamers will see a screen from the original Mario or Zelda and say "oh, those are those games that are supposed to be really great". But stuff like Virtua Fighter, Panzer Dragoon, Virtual On, Daytona USA, NiGHTS and Shenmue is just not out and about as much because SEGA doesn't really see it as a priority to push these games unless they are making profit on them through merch or rereleases.
But the problem is, SEGA doesn't get that by touting your legacy again and again you build your brand up through educating people on your past and reminding people who were once aware of these games that they still exist and were what made SEGA great.
I think the Sonic twitter account does a good job with this. Aaron and Gene (and whoever else is on their team) are not afraid to talk about great moments from Sonic's past even if said games are not being rereleased or there really is no financial reason to mention them. But it helps the brand, as it reinforces the past accomplishments.
Basically, I think those who made this list for TIME were largely modern gamers who knew little of the past, but were aware enough of the stuff that is being shoved in their faces as classic time and time again (like Pong, Tetris, and half the Nintendo titles on the list).
I honestly think SEGA needs somebody on staff who is in charge of building the brand through boosting recognition of legacy IPs, somebody who seeks out brand partnerships, commercial options, and plain old social media touting. If somebody like that already exists, they either need to step it up or be replaced with somebody who gets it.
You can't throw your accomplishments like that just so people can remember them. It has to come from consumers themselves if they want the games to be memorable. The problem here is that SEGA unlike Nintendo wasn't constantly producing quality games and because of that, people hate SEGA like how they hate Konami, EA etc.
That's not to say that SEGA is like THOSE devs because obviously, they treat their staff better (atleast that's what I think) but SEGA did end up copying Capcom and made it worse to the point that nobody cares about them anymore.
I think hate will slowly be removed if SEGA can do wonders in this modern gaming. If they do that, then people will start caring for SEGA, I'm sure of it.
