SOA's Five Star Policy
Dr. Cossack
sirenj@iu.net"The kind of games that (Sega of America's Five Star Policy cause to) get rejected are ones that we believe have little appeal to US gamers, based on storyline, characters and graphic quality. We also reject games that have limited playability and/or limited replay value. It's done by committee review which involves representatives from marketing, product development and the executive staff."
In summary, SOA's Five Star Policy prevents unique and unusual games from appearing on US Saturn regardless of their quality, which are what Saturn needs. Because of the Five Star Policy, many high quality Japanese games will not appear on US Saturn. SOA has limited itself to mass-marketed games which other companies have already made their fortunes from.
No one should ever judge what will in the future based on what is popular today. George Lucas thought few people would care about Star Wars becasue it was outlandish compared to other movies, and it became one of the most popular movie series ever, with related merchandise that continues to make profit for over 20 years. Nintendo released the NES despite overwhelming discouragement after the video game crash of 1984, and the NES became the most popular video game system ever. Secret of Mana, a role playing game considered obscure in the US compared to much publicization in Japan, sold over 2 million copies worldwide, and more sold in the US than in Japan. Sony has authentically translated Final Fantasy 7 despite discouragement of authentic RPG translations and RPGs in general, and many people think that FF7 will sell over 1 million copies in the US. SOA must publish unique and unusual games, especially anime styled Japanese games. Anime's popularity slowly but steadily increases in the US and people will accordingly demand games of that sort as well. If SOA waits for other companies to make new styles of games popular, those companies will make most of the money from them and SOA will only pick up the scraps of long since claimed markets. What SOA does not realize is that people want unique and unusual games. The only reason US players aren't as excited about Sakura Taisen and Keio Yugekitai as they are Duke Nukem and Sonic is because they don't know about them yet. The reason SOA has a smaller market now than in 1993 is because its games have become predictable and uninnovative, which is the only type of game SOA wants to publish now.
SOA must never put marketing people in the position to decide the fate of games. They do not know what will be popular in the future because they do not make what will be popular in the future. Developers do. People who develop products for any industry have always ruled and directed those industries; all other hierarchy is folly. Games are the future, and because developers create the games, developers create the future. Marketers' only meaningful role is to make people aware of the future that the developers create, whatever it may be.
If a game is good enough to become popular in one region, it is good enough to become popular in all regions if it is marketed correctly. Cultural diversity does not make a game unpopular. To make Saturn popular for its games, SOA must publish in the US all good games Sega of Japan publishes, regardless of their style, and not develop any games for a single region. SOA must not make games such as Scud or Bug until they publish Sakura Taisen, Iron Storm 2 and Sega Ages Phantasy Star. Also, SOA must publish all good games, regardless of their style, from 3rd party developers that will not publish their games in the US. Saturn Bomberman and Enemy Zero are good starts, but where are Thunder Force V, Grandia, Gun Griffon 2, Silhouette Mirage, Keio Yugekitai, Solo Crisis, Baroque and Falcom Classics?
SOA must not Americanize games. They must translate the text authentically, but change nothing else. They must not re-record the voices, redraw the artwork, rewrite the music, or censor the theme. The more the original product changes, the less it is as the developer intended. People buy games for what they are, not for what the marketers think they should be. If SOA worries that these games will not sell well, they should advertize them heavily. Heavy advertizing will make anything popular once, but if the advertized product is truly bad, people will not want to buy similar products or any product from that company again. However, if a truly good product is heavily advertized, people will want to buy similar products and any product from that company again. Advertizing increased heavily as SOA, Genesis and Sonic the Hedgehog rose from obscurity and became popular in the opinion of most of their owners. If SOA hadn't gone head to head against Nintendo with heavy advertizing, Nintendo would still have full control of the US video game industry today. Most people don't discover games on their own, they must be told about them. Remixes and re-releases of older games excluded, SOA must not publish predictable and uninnovative products such as almost every US-developed SOA game. If a game is truly good, regardless of its style, people will buy it when they know about it.