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The infamous Sonic the Hedgehog movie character design fiasco of 2019 seems to have ended up working out in SEGA’s favor. At least that’s what the company told investors in a recent financial report, in which it noted that listening to fan feedback and redesigning the characters – however costly that may have been – improved fan satisfaction, which then led to a positive public view, ultimately driving the movie to success.
The report reads:
The secret of the movie’s huge success was precisely the strength of the global Sonic fan community. We made the movie’s character designs public as a pre-release promotion. In response, many fans posted harshly critical comments about the designs on various social media. We listened carefully to these voices and took the criticism seriously, and made major design changes. The result was a marked improvement in fan satisfaction. The fan community became positive influencers for the movie, which spread to the wider public, drawing a big response and driving the huge success of the movie.
SEGA believes that Sonic movie’s success increased the IP’s exposure and ended up “contributing significantly” to an increase in game sales.
“Our approach – taking feedback from fans to heart and reflecting their concerns in development and in actions to grow the IP – these kinds of actions to build fan engagement have become critical,” SEGA added.
SEGA further revealed that following the movie’s success and its deal with Netflix for a series, it has been approached with “numerous other offers for business opportunities.”
Sonic the Hedgehog movie is set to receive a sequel.