Is Sega racist?

[RocSage]

This is just blatantly wrong, and a stop needs to be put to it. SoA (mis)manages all of Sega's stateside MMOs.

SoJ doesn't do much of anything for the US audience besides develop content that SoA decides whether or not to patch in.

That being said, it's hard to believe that SoA would discriminate against the audience they exist to serve.

I love SEGA, have loved them since my childhood when I was the *one* kid with a Master System instead of an NES (thanks, mom)

SoA, however, is pretty much awful at everything. They're awful at marketing, their games made in-house are awful and their general management is awful.

SoJ produces gold, and is easily on par with Nintendo in terms of franchise and character development, but SoA is a serious hindrance to all their efforts.

SoJ loves its customers, and tries really hard to please us, but one weak link in a chain can destroy everything.

While SoA/E may be the direct problem it is a problem that SoJ, as the corporate head, can fix if they cared to. The fact they don't, and haven't in over a decade indicates a problem with SoJ even if it is a matter of execution with SoA/E.

The question always comes back to how can a company be consistently incompetent in any market for so long while being competent and having good product in another market that is so well liked in that market that they are doing poorly in? Surely you aren't saying that the people that head SoA have so much power in their own company that SoJ execs can't simply remove those people that are the problem from their company.

It's not all SoJ's fault which means it's not a completely ethnocentric problem, but it is also not all SoA's fault which means it is not just an incompetency problem.

I can imagine that the Saturn mess up was such a big mess that they lost a ton of support which resulted in low sales for the DC which lead to them prematurely pulling the plug which hurt support even more. They are then ignoring the big splashes they made because from a numbers perspective DC was a nothing system and they don't seem to get that just about everyone loved the machine. This has resulted in Sega continuously whittling away support as each successive "splash" only shows lower numbers than the previous and thus them caring less and less about the foreign market.

The problem is that people have loved the games and the systems and those who don't usually haven't touched them and have pretty much forgotten about them so now there isn't a lack of support in the same way as "we can't trust your brand" as the majority, but rather "we don't know about your brand" and that second one is a whole lot easier to win over people... that and the piss poor actions of other companies has resulted in a lot more hate towards those companies rather than SEGA.

This all comes down to SEGA, for economic reasons, has become Ethnocentric and the foreign market just gets tossed a bone here or there with no input going back to their primary market which has made them blind. At the same time, this lack of caring about the foreign market has likely led to less than quality people being hired by the foreign market branches which results in degraded quality on those few bones we get.

It's kinda like going "I don't like black guys because i got mugged by black guys once" Once you've said that you're going to get black guys angry at you for saying it and when you have that mentality your going to provoke the same type of reactions and take the same type of actions as though you are racist and thus provoking actions that make you not like them. It's a loop. You're not racist in that situation, but everything you think and say are going to sound racist because what racists say is being manifested by the actions you are provoking. Are you making decisions based on ethnicity? Yup, but that alone is not racism.

In this example you don't want to get mugged. You think Black guys are going to mug you, so you stay away from black guys and are always defensive when they are around. In SEGA's case they want to make money. They don't think Foreign markets with buy their products, so they don't put effort into it and because of that when they do the product is degraded.

The only way to fix that problem is with an effort of both sides. SEGA has to take a "risk" and put forth energy into selling their product to foreign markets, and those of us who get what has happened have to buy their products and convince others that they are worth buying, thus making SEGA profitable.


Someone's comeback at this might be "Well saying such nasty things about SEGA won't help." To that i say, Nothing will help until SEGA makes the first move and the best way to provoke that move is to be honest about what is actually happening and how people feel and why. Not to mention that you probably shouldn't support someone who isn't putting the effort in to fix the problem themselves. If SEGA cared they'd have made a move to reignite their foreign markets years ago, but they still haven't and I never see any effort from them so there is no point in trying.

[soulpimpwizzurd]

also THANKS TO ME LEARNING ABOUT BUSINESSES IN JAPAN

japan businesses are structured pretty crazy. its centralized around a life-time employment system that is very slowly fading away but still exists and traits of it remain that continue to hinder japan in negative ways. due to this japan is unable to take "risky" moves, it focuses on just beating procedures that have kinda sorta worked, all the time, since they'd rather do kinda bad with okay profits, than do well with the risk of larger failure.

but yeah, they probably took the failure of dreamcast etc super hard, and just said LOLNOPENEVERAGAIN, and quite simply, just never again'd.

so in a sense you could say their form of conduct towards treating silly gaijins in terms of language localization is in part due to how they've worked economically for so long, and is recently beginning to change (past 10 years or so)

but damn i didn't know about that tourney story you talked about roc. haha das still pretty lame

[Enforcer MKV]

Wisdom

You sir, have earned a cookie. What kind would you like?

[moorebounce]

Japan will never like Americans and the two reasons they'll never ever like Americans are.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki

As much as Americans would like to forget the past and sweep it under the rug there are people related to people who were hurt by America and they'll never forget. When will you get that through your thick skulls. Americans almost completely wiped out the Native Americans, enslaved Africans and bombed Japan. Japan only deal with Americans because they have to right now. There are people running these companies who were probably a kid when these bombs dropped and they won't forget.

[BIG OLAF]

SEGA has to take a "risk" and put forth energy into selling their product to foreign markets

This is the super TL;DR version of that post. SEGA doesn't make enough money overseas with certain franchises, like Phantasy Star, because they don't advertise enough.

Obviously I know it's easier said than done in most cases, but come on. SEGA could definitely put some more effort into getting the word out. There's almost no doubt in my mind that Phantasy Star's popularity would explode if they would just show it off more on a global scale.

EDIT:

Japan will never like Americans and the two reasons they'll never ever like Americans are.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki

As much as Americans would like to forget the past and sweep it under the rug there are people related to people who were hurt by America and they'll never forget. When will you get that through your thick skulls.

^This is all completely stupid. What about everywhere else? Like, say, France? England? Russia? India? What are the reasons for those countries getting cold-shouldered?

[kornkid212]

Japan will never like Americans and the two reasons they'll never ever like Americans are.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki

As much as Americans would like to forget the past and sweep it under the rug there are people related to people who were hurt by America and they'll never forget. When will you get that through your thick skulls. Americans almost completely wiped out the Native Americans, enslaved Africans and bombed Japan. Japan only deal with Americans because they have to right now. There are people running these companies who were probably a kid when these bombs dropped and they won't forget.

I understand that, but what about european guys like me whose ancestors never hurt japan? Do we have to pay for the americans too?

[shiink]

Well we should all start selling insurance for when the world blows up. There should be a very good market for that. We will all have to learn to get along someday (thousands, maybe millions of years from now) if we want to survive the demise of our solar system.

In all seriousness though. I think it has much more to do with the Japanese business models rather than stabbing at terrible past events. Money is money. Even the people that got hurt by other nations would still take their money in a heartbeat. You think China would take England's money in an instant after they practically poisoned and exploited their people with opium and invaded their country? Bet your ass they would.

[RocSage]

Japan will never like Americans and the two reasons they'll never ever like Americans are.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki

As much as Americans would like to forget the past and sweep it under the rug there are people related to people who were hurt by America and they'll never forget. When will you get that through your thick skulls. Americans almost completely wiped out the Native Americans, enslaved Africans and bombed Japan. Japan only deal with Americans because they have to right now.

#1 One of the lessons that have been the longest taught and the hardest to learn is that seeking revenge only creates an endless cycle of revenge.

#2. Most of the people alive today have nothing to do with any of that stuff even if what I say in #3 wasn't true and only idiots take revenge on the descendants of a someone that did their descendants "wrong" or are "mad" at them.

#3.
Hiroshima & Nagasaki was a forced strike that saved many more people than it killed and not only did it save Japan from it's own honor stricken self, but it was a devastation that happened solely due to Japan's actions. Japan attacked the US and dragged the US into WWII while they were talking of peace. Japan refused to surrender even when the outcome of the war was certain. The US before dropping either bomb, warned to evacuate the cities and gave ample time. So if Japanese have any anger from that time period it should be at their own government of that era.

The US government is responsible for a few horrendous actions taken against Natives, but the majority of the population was ravaged by disease which they were unknowingly exposed to.

Africans were not "enslaved" by "Americans." Africans were enslaved by Africans and then sold to slavers who then sold those slaves to several regions of the world. And the whole "OMG my ancestors were slaves therefor I should be mad" thing that blacks (yes that is the politically correct term) have is disgusting. Every person on Earth has an ancestor that was enslaved by someone else and people around the world, regardless of culture and nation have been kidnapped and sold into slavery to a lot of areas around the world. To focus on one short period in time that you have nothing to do with is short sighted and disgustingly ignorant.

#4. I think the person that needs to get over it is not the "US" but rather you who apparently doesn't know history all that well.

[RocSage]

Well we should all start selling insurance for when the world blows up. There should be a very good market for that. We will all have to learn to get along someday (thousands, maybe millions of years from now) if we want to survive the demise of our solar system.

In all seriousness though. I think it has much more to do with the Japanese business models rather than stabbing at terrible past events. Money is money. Even the people that got hurt by other nations would still take their money in a heartbeat. You think China would take England's money in an instant after they practically poisoned and exploited their people with opium and invading their country? Bet your ass they would.

Actually, funny story that,

China and Rome were around at the same time and China was considered a threat because Rome's money kept on going out to the East with no money coming West.

Europe sent explorers to find ways to get to the East quicker easier to get their resources resulting in the discovery of the US.

England realized what was happening as their Economy was getting thrashed because China kept exporting stuff to England but importing nothing but moneys. This caused England to create the Opium market in China as a sort of cold war and a way to keep their economy from being completely destroyed.

That was the only point in history when China exported to the West and lost money. China fixed the problem and guess what situation the US is in with China?

Yup, China's method of conquering the West has always been to export their stuff and just wait for them to economically collapse, by taking all their moneys.

It's rather funny from an objective viewpoint how stupidly the West has been with China and continuously destroyed itself while china continues to thrive and be enrichened, but it does kinda suck as someone in the West watching it happen and watching as the governments still don't realize it.

[Ryo]

While SEGA's own IPs are designed with a Japanese audience in mind, they do plenty to attempt to generate hits with the American market. Looking at games they've published over the past four or so years proves that:

Bayonetta, Vanquish, MadWorld, The Conduit 1&2, Total War, Daytona USA.

They may not be succeeding, but they're definitely trying to break into the US market. In less developed countries, sega still sells Megadrive and SMS hardware.

If anything, SEGA is misguided. But saying they're racist or solely focused on Japan is ridiculous. SoJ approves SoA's actions, and they're the ones funding the publishing for all these Platinum games and other games skewed toward Western audiences.

Just because they've done us wrong with PSU doesn't mean they hate us, they just don't understand us; but it's clear they're trying. They're learning, too; last year's earnings were abysmal because we didn't buy anything.

I'm confident Sega will figure it out, but until then just vote with your wallet.

Also, to those blaming this on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, good lord. Just.... no.