Sega, we need to have a chat. Just me, you and the entire community of Sonic Mania fans that you mislead during this entire promotion of the game. See, there was no mention of Denuvo at all. Nothing on the Steam page, nothing from your advertising, no mention on any of your live streams. Yet, once the game was released we’re suddenly hearing about this. We’re finding out that the omission of any mention of Denuvo was an “accident”.
What’s more, we were told that the two-week delay was to “optimize” the PC version. Now we find out that wasn’t the entire truth and that you needed time to add Denuvo to the game. Sega? C’mon, did we really need to do this? We’re all big boys and girls, we would have handled the truth. But you had to be sneaky about this all.
Now you’re getting blasted on Steam due to this lie. That and the fact that many people aren’t able to play the game due to Denuvo causing issues like it has been known to do. People that bought the game legit are not able to play and the game that you stated “could be played offline”, can’t. No one is pleased, just take a look at the Steam review for the game. If you haven’t seen them, you should have someone check that.
Seriously though, when someone tries to play offline, this is what happens. Now I’m sure by now you’re working on a fix, but this shouldn’t have happened.
What compounds the issue is that people who pre-ordered the game can’t get refunds. This currently isn’t possible due to the gift of Sonic 1 beginning given out as a gift, killing original two-week period. If I wanted to get a refund, I couldn’t, thanks to their “goodwill gesture”. You know, the free Sonic the Hedgehog 1 title they gave out. Hopefully, other places such as Amazon and Humble Bundle will let gamers get some sort of refund. Still, if I didn’t know any better, this seems planned to me, but I highly doubt that was part of the plan. Right, Sega?
Even your own members are quite upset at you. Take Aaron Webber for example, who is letting the fans know what they can do about this outrage.
In particular, please do share your feedback on DRM or any issues you're having at the link above. Make your voices heard.
— Aaron Webber (@RubyEclipse) August 29, 2017
Thankfully, he isn’t the only one that’s saddened by this. This shouldn’t have happened, not at all. For those who aren’t thrilled about this, make sure you click that link and let Sega know how you feel. I already have and I wasn’t too kind about this mess.
*Update 2: Christian Whitehead has also replied on the subject. He isn’t too thrilled either.
DRM is not something our team makes the decision on, if you have feedback send it via customer service to Sega's steam account
— Christian Whitehead (@CFWhitehead) August 29, 2017
I had already said that the delay for the PC version would hamper the sales. Sonic Mania was the return of our favorite blue speedster and the PS4, Xbox One and Switch versions were fantastic. Easily more than enough reason to forgo the PC version. Now we get this mess? It just seems like you don’t want it to do well on the PC and if that’s the cause, it’s well on its way to doing just that.
You can still fix this, in several easy steps.
- Apologize to the fans and consumers you disappointed. You lied, at the least, you misled us all.
- Let people who pre-ordered the game get refunds.
- Remove Denuvo, especially before it gets cracked. Don’t kid yourselves, it will happen. There are teams chopping away at this right now. Nevermind, it’s already cracked.
- Don’t mislead your fans again. Sonic Forces is next up and if you’re going to add Denuvo, tell us. Don’t hide behind a delay to implement this worthless DRM.
Finally, I definitely give credit where credit is due. The PC version of Sonic Mania is great. The small glitches on the console versions have been corrected and the game is still fun. We even said so in our review of the game, here. But it’s only fun when you can run it.
