Sonic Boom's Disastrous Development | The Art of Failure 

I hope everyone enjoyed the start of this new documentary series! Now more than ever, I'd greatly appreciated it if you all shared out this video if you enjoyed it! Thank y'all tons for the support!

So basically: BigRedButton was already well on their way developing the game at an already tight deadline. Then suddenly Sega decided to step in and say "Hey. You see this game? It's cool and all, but what we need you to do is change it to whatever we say we want it to be. Also, it's going to be on the Wii U." And the Wii U was incompatible with Cry Engine, which they were using to develop the game and as such had to start all the way from scratch, and somehow get Cry Engine to work on the Wii U. And then with little time to finish the game, what we got is an alpha version of a game.

As usual, Sega has atrocious management.

BRB really don't deserve the hate. Sega was rushing them just like they rush sonic team. Sega really needs to get their shit together. Fans are out doing them.

This hurts to watch, seeing all that BRB had to go through. BRB were the victims in this. I don't blame them or Nintendo and the Wii U. I blame Sega for this. They made them change consoles, they put an unreasonable deadline on them, they forced them to change everything and ruined a potentially great game. It hurts seeing people still hating BRB even though they weren't the villains. Sega did alot to screw over that game. Same with 06. I won't lie. I want boom to live. I want to see the series at it's fullest potential.

This video shows how poorly managed Sega was with this game. They had these same issues in the 90s with Sega USA.

So, sega curbstomped the games chance with good old wii-u.

This really hurts, I almost closed youtube because it was too painful to watch.

Yet another reason to blame Sega Japan.

I KNEW I WASN'T WRONG FOR FEELING SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVS OF THIS GAME!!!

Sega is why we can't have nice things.

It kinda sucked that Sega was not in the greatest mood and didn't want the game to fail based on how so many sonic games went through development hell like sonic 06

Poor Chris Senn. This is legit Sonic XTreme all over again.

Sonic Boom has already been established as Big Red Button's "old shame." It is reassuring to see that the company rose up from such a low point. Now, something that really irks me, even more than people still badgering the company over this old game is that people seem to blame the Wii U itself for Sonic Boom. Where does that mindset come from?? The fact of the matter is that you can't simply blame a piece of hardware for the failure of a game. Sega did not properly handle supporting Big Red Button during development of the game. Had Sega said from the start that Sonic's new game was a Wii U exclusive, made it clear what expectations where from the get-go, then allowed the team to have consistent communication and more freedom, then Sonic Boom would've stood much more of a chance. There may not have even been reason for redesigning their vision. But that's not what happened. Sega screwed them by informing them way too late and pushed for the game's release when it clearly wasn't ready. Koei Tecmo, Ubisoft (before they backpedaled) and PlatinumGames made Wii U exclusives. Why did those turn out great? Because no one was pushing those companies and breathing down their necks to rush out a nearly unplayable, unpolished mess in a short time frame. Sonic Boom failed, simply put. Nintendo had little to nothing to do with that and had zero to do with Sonic Boom's clumsy development. Big Red Button at worst put strained effort into a doomed project. The blame lies entirely on Sega.

While Sonic Boom was bad, it did do a few things right. 1) you were able to play with other characters besides Sonic. 2) the story for RoL had a balance of seriousness and light hearted moments 3) the final stage (minus boss) felt like a final stage 4) Tails in RoL wasn't a pussy unlike Forces

I hate hearing this story because I feel so bad on what they had to go through. I really wish they could finish and release the original version on the next gen consoles, it looked like a really solid game

I like the high production value of this, it seriously felt like I was watching something from TV. Anyway, I fall into the small group that enjoyed this game. Yeah, Sonic Boom wasn't well received, despite that I enjoyed the game as a spin-off, and had fun with it, still will play it occasionally. Sorry if most disagree with my opinion. I've heard of the troubled development this game had, didn't know how much troubled it was until seeing this, let alone the different early demos of the game shown off. Though, I'm glad to see Big Red Button had a hit with The Arcslinger, so I'm glad they're still developing games.

The changes of the story is kinda interesting. Because the story structure of the Sonic Boom cartoon is still very different to the one of Rise of Lyric. RoL felt more like an serious action adventure, while the Boom cartoon is much closer to shows like Spongebob, been an episodic slice and life comedy cartoon.

Hey! MotoBadnik here, you did a great job! Nice to know more about what happened behind the scenes and great editing!

So basically, BRB got screwed over by Sega, and that’s pretty much the only reason why the game sucks. Damn. I feel really bad for BRB, I really would’ve liked to see the game they originally had planned.

Gotta love how such a horrible game can have a fascinating development history where the old vision is absolutely nothing like the product we received. I can’t even be mad at the developers, it’s not their fault. SEGA basically said “Hey, that game you wanted to make and show fans what you and the modern generation of consoles can do? Well, too bad. Make this thing and all your hard work will be completely disbanded.”

Darn that Wii U!!!

Virgin sauce

Great Video! Ever since I saw the leaked footage/trailers for Sonic Synergy, I became incredibly intrigued and interested in the game’s troubled development. The footage in my opinion, showed quite a bit of promise and I do think the game could’ve been at the very least okay, had the developers not been so creatively constrained by Sega.

This's still hurt to watch, but still. I'm honestly have lots of passionate to the spin-off Sonic Boom series at the beginning. Its sad to see Big Red Button going on what they got from start. Whats make me very upset the most is some several Sonic fans harassing Bob Rafei. I'm a fan of his works (concept arts) since he work on Crash Bandicoot and Jak & Dexter games. Well, I guess I have to say. I don't have problem with Rise of Lyric and Sonic Boom as whole in general. I just like thier world environmental and art style, its feel similar to Jak & Dexter. I don't really mind about gameplay itself too, even if its final product. But I still wish if they going to be like BETA footage one, only if that part was not scraped away. I've heard that why they did scraped due to issues of Wii U hardware limitation, making them recreate game from scratch for half year. I also sad to hear that it was originally planned for PC/PS4/XOne because CryEngine did fully support it. As much I hate to say that is SEGA, maybe they're such big company but I'd give them respect sometimes, for now. And final thought so far, only if this mess was not causing by Wii U exclusives deal, The game and the Sonic Boom series as the whole would have a good representation from the start. Sorry if this comment was too long ^^

Absolutely superb, glad I could be even a small part of it!

Awesome that you got to talk to Chris Senn! He's good people and provided some pretty darn good insight!

This is awesome! I love the editing style/flow in this! I can tell how much care was put into this. Can’t wait for more from the series!

Sega is basically is being a jerk and almost killed a company and forces the company to do some things that are no good. This is actually sega's fault for the game being crap. We really need a new people yo be the lead for sega that makes the games good and respects their franchises very well. This is what I don't like about them and if they continue like this, they will be hated on their fans and stuff. And BRB don't deserve hate for this. It is sega's fault for this.

I dont understand why sega decided to put rise of lyric in wii u as exclusive game? Did they asked BRB if the game using cry engine 3 is best for wii u or BRB have to follow the Sega's order? I fear the latter was adhered.

Bloody sega! Every problem people have with Sonic, whether it's the games or comics are always at the fault of sega higher ups intervening and shutting down the creative teams they put in charge of their productions. Sega's so stuck in the past they're hurting themselves. Eg. studios being treated like shit, Shadow only being an edgelord, Sonic never crying, female hedgehogs can never go super and several other issues. Every behind the scenes story we hear about these issues describe how Sega stepped all over the writers/developers. They need to drag themselves into the future.

So if Sonic Boom wasn’t on the Wii U, it may have been a good game?

All in all though I think with RoL, SEGA was able to acknowledge that they betrayed their fans and that hopefully in the long run that BRB and SEGA will learn from it and I wish for both of them GL

I think the reason it failed was the contract sega made forcing big red button to make it on a worse engine be a if u look at the trailers for sonic synergy the game doesn't look half bad.

Sega really needs to get out of their own way when it comes to Sonic.

This honestly makes me sad the original teaser trailer for sonic boom was so cool only to fail as bad as it did

5:57 meanwhile Insomniac games made fantastic R&C game with 10 months development time, low budget and was based on a movie, it just shows how bad Sega is with the sonic series blinded by the iconic states without thinking about the quality of the games.

I would love to try the first build of the game.

Excellent work man, truly, truly excellent. Loved it!

I hope you keep on doing videos like this! Good job!

They really should have scrapped the Game, too many complicated changes that I'm pretty sure they didn't want

I think I've finally decided that I'm going to exclusively pirate Sonic games from now on. SEGA has done so much to piss off millions, and has likely ruined dozens of developer lives. Regardless of the quality of whatever trainwreck SonicTeam shits out next, I still want to play it, but I refuse to financially support such a poorly managed and outright stupid company.

Would you recommend celeste physical for $40, or save for pokemon 2019?

same things happened in 90’s they still not learn the lesson yet ?

Poor big red Button Thanks for the video, i dint know alot of things you talked about

This was amazing! Didn't know that this game was supposed to be something completely different. Makes me wonder what other failures were gonna be great until they had a redesign thrown at them. Plz moar, I love this!!!

You telling me this mess was caused by the stubborn, greedy higher-ups at Sega, shooting everyone in the foot? How unexpected of them. Since they have NEVER done this before, and particularly their exclusivity deals with Nintendo haven't forced their developers to work with hardware unsuited to the software being produced and gave them extra work that ultimately killed a promising game that I would still be salty about; just for them to shove everything about it (even the things they got right) under the rug and pretend it never happened. Sega would NEVER EVER DO THAT.

I've been looking forward to this! (Note: I'll add a comment with my thoughts about the video after watching)

Sad thing is had the game been successful Sega would've cancelled the main series altogether

Sega really drop the ball for this game

Another sonic game sega shat all over

2 + weeks late on this, but *THANK YOU SO MUCH* for making this! A really well done first episode. This video needs to be spread around to the Sonic community and to the public, so people will know what exactly happened to this game when in development. *long passionate comment incoming* Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric is a game that fascinates me; a game that had a huge amount of fresh ambitious ideas and passion that was mostly kinda squandered, thanks to the Nintendo 3 game exclusivity deal that should of never EVER happened in the first place. Looking back at the partnership, It makes me question why SEGA would limit their flagship franchise to one video game hardware manufacturer when it was doing just fine as a multi-platform franchise? As for the game itself, Boom: RoL is no where near as dreadful as people are currently making it out to be, and is a perfect textbook definition of an average 5/10 video game (IMO). It's a bummer that the game has the reputation it has, because it make me fear of the fate of the sub-set franchise that is Sonic Boom, which is unknown at time of writing. The Sonic Boom series is actually really good, thanks impart of its primary aspect: the TV show. It also has a fantastic criminally short lived Archie Comic book, and two very solid Sonic Dash and Sonic Boom: Shattered Crystal sequels (Sonic Dash 2: Sonic Boom and Sonic Boom: Fire and Ice) that demonstrates the series can improve from its short comings. Thanks to Boom: RoL's reputation, outsiders only think of that game when they think of Sonic Boom as a hole; which is a DAMN SHAME and are missing out on the other content the series has to offer. I *severely* hope Sonic Boom hasn't completely gone under after the shows second season (which was really good, BTW), because this sub-set franchise still has plenty of untapped potential. Despite the show's piss poor treatment from Cartoon Network in America, the show performed swimmingly in other countries, and has also been nominated a good few times. . .and even won some! Most people clearly love the TV show, so why stop here when its already starting to find its footing?! With the Sonic Facebook page's announcement of the show now available digitally on Amazon & iTunes (season 1 for now) and new DVD releases of it starting this Spring, I hope that this it'll bring back the show and the series as a hole if they do well in sales (if this series is indeed dead, which again we don't know for sure). I'll be crossing my fingers for the time being. Back to Boom: RoL itself, since most the game's development was dumped to the internet almost two years back (a decent chunk of it is shown in this video), it honestly. . . made me want a remake of Boom: RoL that's a complete re-imagining of what we have now; the game that was supposed to be. A remake that resurrects most of the old incarnation of Boom: RoL (Sonic Synergy); bringing back & completing most of it's scrapped ideas and concepts, while also keeping & enhancing the elements of the original Boom: RoL (and it's scrapped material as well) and also keeping it fateful to the Sonic Boom universe. *Sonic Boom: Synergy* , anyone? It all sounds insane, but. . .man. . .a remake that'll completely replace the original completely?. . .I would love to see that happen. Again, *THANK YOU SO MUCH* for this! Hey. . .since Sonic X-treme was briefly mentioned in this and you managed to speak with Chris Senn in order to make this video, for a future episode, will you make one about Sonic X-treme? That's another game I have a huge fascination towards.

This video is incredible! I love all the research that went into this! Sega definitely sank this ship.

i like big red's old story, i feel if it wasn't an exclusive the game would have been better

I am so glad someone like you can talk about the series so throughly.

Awesome job! I really enjoyed this and found it very informative. Thank you man

No it's considered one of the best sonic TV shows to date.

well with senn's video game career now down the toilet because of sega yeah tiara boobowski is pretty much deceased now

Damn you really went all out for this. Good job man

Sonic 06? more like sonic *OH SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIOOOT* I always had a theory that Sonic is probably the most mismanaged game franchise ever, and boy howdy does it show. Sonic always gets shafted by behind the scenes bullshit.

Please let there be more videos like this! I just finished the Mighty No.9 video!

They could still present their original idea as a fan game.

Very nicely done, now you just need to do the rise and fall of the Atari Jaguar. lol!

What a shame! Sounds like it would have been a great game if it wasn’t gimped by executives forcing the artists to make it a Wii game.

Did they know which system the game would be sold on before the Wii U exclusive deal?

Why doesn’t knuckles have a Rasta voice? Like ya mon I’m gonna find da masta emerold

Great video man, very informative.

holt shit yes. i feel like this series will blow up

Nice video, keep the good work.

This game is way worst than sonic 06 Toycat is yes

At least the show was actually pretty decent

Well I'm sure after this sonic game failed, due to sega being a retarded company, chris senn likely doesn't want to have anything to do with sonic now and I wouldn't blame him. Sega can't do anything right with sonic and there communication is shit. Why else did they tell BRB that the game was meant for Wii U in the middle of development and not say anything sooner?

7:21 "My friends are my power." cliche

I love sonic unleashed

Everything went wrong with Sonic Boom Rise of Lyric LOL

damn sega wtf goin on w yall :/

The Wii U was a failing console with inferior hardware compared to its competitors, and SEGA took one look at them and said *this is a sound investment!*

sonic boom more like sonic it was doomed from the get go (haha xd)

If you want bigger success for your channel - stick to the topic, i clicked on the link to listen about a certain game, not about whole history of Sega and its consoles.

Never played it but it looks bad.

Hot Take: I don't believe this was BRB's OR Sega's fault. Let's think for a second, Nintendo HAD to have made that Exclusive deal with Sega. They made it, therefore they trusted them. People are spitting at Sega, I'm more questioning NINTENDO'S end. Considering all the drama, and the footage was shown at E3 (or whatever), and the fact that it was being released the same month as Smash Bros. Wii U... why didn't Nintendo stop it? For a company that has a rep of being "Flawless" and "caring for quality", you would think they would do anything to keep the Wii U relevant... but no. BRB was pressured because Sega was pressured because Nintendo didn't give a shit, and they even KNEW the Wii U was a failure, to begin with. If they planned to make Sonic Forces or "Sonic Wars" as the final exclusive (Because I'm convinced that Sochi 2014 was a glorified cover up to fill the contract) and have it made within 2 years after Lost World, the Wii U would've been close to its own death at that point. (2012 or 2013) Nintendo: Hey Sega! You want to help us boost the sales on the Wii U? Sega: Sure. Nintendo: Great! Let's make a temporary team up then. Just sign this contract. *Sega reads the contract* Sega: Three exclusive Sonic games for the Wii U? Deal! *Sega signs the contract* After developing yet another Mario and Sonic Olympic Game (Which pretty much no-one gives a damn about), and Sonic Lost World (with it's mixed reviews) (2014) Nintendo: Great work! Sega: Thank you, even though those games did jack shit in terms of helping the Wii U. Nintendo: Oh relax, weren't you telling us that you have a special game in the works? Sega: Yes! We're even taking our time with this game. (Sonic Forces) We also have former Naughtydog employees (a.k.a. Bigredbutton) working on the Sonic Boom spinoff franchise. We're probably going to have to skip out on 2014 unfortunately. *Nintendo hears that last part and they get pissy* Nintendo: Oh no you're not! We need a game from you this November, just like last year! Sega: But I can't just rush this time. Nintendo: And our console is doing really poorly. Sonic on Nintendo sells don't you know! If you refuse, I'm suing you for breaking our contract. Sega: That would put us out of business! You wouldn't! Nintendo: Try me. *Nintendo walks away and Sega is panicking* Sega: SHIT! What do I do? I know, I'll get Sonic Boom out for the holiday season! It's a spinoff title, and it shouldn't harm anyone if the game is bad. *Sega texts Bigredbutton for the info on Sonic Boom*

As bad as this game is, it´s a firecracker compared to the tactical nuke that is Sonic '06 (at least i heard the cartoon show was good)

If sonic boom wasn't rush and bad then sonic boom tv show get season 3

The Cryengine did not work well for the WiiU during that Time as well as Sega not giving Big Red Button enough time to work out the Kinks,Such a Misunderstood Game of an Underrated series gone way too soon. I still wish that Sonic Boom would continue and get a 2nd Chance at Attention and this game also getting a Remaster port on Playstation,Xbox,Nintendo Switch and PC.

we need more of this series. This was so interesting to watch

I always wondered if Sega came to BRB AFTER a lot of work being done already before telling them it had to be a Wii U exclusive, why didn’t BRB just turn around telling them it can’t be done and pull the plug? BRB probably could have taken some of the work they had done and made their own IP out of it.

If this were released on the switch i think things would be different

The japanese were probably scared that some foreigners would make a bettter sonic game and the reason we are probably not getting sonic mania 2 or why origins was so dissapointing is because mania was made by a bunch of foreign people who were hackers and modders and japan really loves to have a clean image of themselves

Sega shouldn't have told BRB to release the game on the Nintendo (wii u). It looks like a lot of problems started when BRB had reprogram the servers. My suggestion to SEGA is to focus on the quality of the game rather than the profit and give the people who are working on game development time to rest. Making game is really difficult and BRB deserves better.

This is 120% Sega's fault and yet, BRB and Sonic took the blame.

Sega: ain't I a stinker

Sega seriously needs better management sega needs to learn there lesson to not rush products what happened to the days when sega actually cared about the quality of games Sonic the hedgehog deserves better and his fans deserve better hopefully this new up coming game sonic frontiers will redeem the franchise and if not it's over for sonic and his fans and sega sammy fix sega #MAKESONICGREATAGAIN #MAKESEGAGREATAGAIN

BRB never deserved any of the hate they got. Sega does. it's entirely THEIR fault Sonic Boom turned into the broken disaster we all know today

Sega still making bad decisions.

Sega’s worst enemy is itself.

The long-standing rivalry and resentment between Sega of Japan and Sega of America has been well-documented. Makes me wonder how Sega of Japan feels about the fact that, their most popular character is one that appeals far more to westerners than to native Japanese sensibilities.

Sega stop alling with american studio games entreprise cuz they will DESTROY SONIC LIFE AND RUIN YOUR REPUTATION plus sonic CHARACTERS BOOM DESIGN ARE UGLY OBNOXIOUS and out of character Sonic boom is arrogant and to much egostical Tails boom is also annoying cringe and a little bit egostical Amy boom she is weird stupid Knuckles boom oh my god he is SUCH A DUMBASS , OBNOXIOUS, A JOKE , MEAT HEAD , STUPID , HE IS SO ANNOYING , A FUCKING DUMBASSS FOOLISH OBNOXIOUS ECHIDNA . boom shadow WHY SHADOW THE HEDGEHOG IS THE SOURCE OF WHAT HE IS NOW . HE IS AN EDGELORD , MEAN , HEART BREAKER , AN BULLY STUPID LIFEFORM , Boom eggman he became stupid SIMPLE MINDED , HE IS A NUISSANCE , HE ISNT A THREAT ANYMORE , HE BECAME A JOKE , HE KEEP CLAIMING HIMSELF A REAL VILLAIN LIKE EVERY OTHERS BOOM citizens but alll they do is JUST CAPTURING SONIC AND HIS FRIENDS AND DO THE PARTY , hhahhahahha they are such JOKES ! TOTAL FOOLS OTHERS BOOM CHARACTERS OR CITZENS they are annoying and OBNOXIOUS ,THEY TRUST EVERYTHING THAT VILLAIN OR OTHERS SAY , THEY ARE SIMPLE MINDED , STUPID , LAME , BORING , Sonic boom is a dissapointing , obnoxious, annoying, boring , both game and tv show . Big red buttons entertainment DESTROYED ALL SONIC FANS AND THEIR CHILDHOOD THEY RUINNED AND DESTROYED BOTH SONIC ANS SEGA WITH SONIC TEAM S’ REPUTATION SONIC BOOM IS A JOKE AN INSULT OF SONIC MAIN FRANCHISE HOPE THAT BIG FUCKING RED ENTERTAINMENT GONNA BE SHUTED DOWN AND DESTROYED

If the whole story is to be believed, then it shows how people with original creative ideas and a smart, planned approach could revive the Sonic series and make something great. At that time at least, it seemed that such attempts were often undercut by Sega themselves making hamfisted mandates and failing to listen to the developers. It really makes you wonder what could have become of the game had it not been forced into a radical overhaul halfway through development.

This just show Sega never learn from their Sonic X-Treme and Sonic 2006 situation.

Sega has published some amazing games in the past, but their habit of rushing the devs to meet deadlines has absolutely ruined so many potentially great games like this one. It's frustrating, because I love this company and their IPs, but I absolutely hate them at the same time. Being a Sonic/ Sega fan is such an emotional roller coaster.