Ben, your example has a game already released in one region. This is the equivalent of a beta of a title being leaked out before release. This situation has not come up with a high-profile title like this before in gaming history.
And that's really different, in what context...?
The bottom line is, in both cases, you, as the publisher/developer, have it so that people are going to see a version of a product that you may or may NOT want them to see.
Keeping with the Sonic theme, let's take it back to the days of when Adventure came out for the Dreamcast in Japan. This was also the
same version that was marketed with Sega and Blockbuster's campaign to help "sell" the system, no less.
That version of the game, to put it bluntly, was definitely HOT GARBAGE. I still look back and wonder how it was able to get released as it was. It's the only Sonic release that, in my eyes, begins to challenge 06's propensity for "not-fun-ness". Camera was bad. Glitches were bad. Framerate was all over the place. There was a whole lot that just pointed to that this was just not a good game. But be as it may, Naka's Sonic Team at least were willing to turn some things around, and the Western release of DC-Adventure became what it is, likely because people made such a big stink about they saw in the import/Blockbuster package.
It'll be interesting to see if ANY of the [parasitic bomb] that's gone done this last week will effect Iizuka's Sonic Team and Dimps in the same way. I sincerely doubt it, but hey, whatever at this point.
I'm getting tired of this whole "stick it to the man" attitude the Internet has toward Sega. "Yeah, [tornado fang] Sega!" when they have done nothing wrong here.
^That much is debatable. But besides that much, ask yourself this though...has Sega done anything to really warrant anything less than this type of response? What have they done to deserve the "surely they deserve an A for effort~" that the apologist crowd some how thinks that the rabid dissenters and cautiously pessimistic should give them?
Sega, as a company, has earned their fan-based ire for no more than what they have allowed to transpire, themselves. In just the last few years alone, they've done things such as:
* Mess up a sequel to a game people always wanted to see (Nights 2)
* Mess up a next-gen "successor" to a fondly remembered franchise (Golden Axe: Beast Rider)
* Allowed the release of a lackluster PS3 port to Bayonetta (where
Sony had to clean up the mess through that recent patch update, and at least give us decent load times; the original release was HORRENDOUS)
* Put the sequel to Valkyria Chronicles, an original and SUCCESSFUL PS3 IP...on the PSP; nobody, on either side of the pond, specifically ASKED for a PSP version of the game, and the sales reflected as such
* Denied and turned a deaf ear to the wants and wishes of people who wanted the update to Virtua Fighter 5 on PS3 and 360; we can only hope that by some stroke, it was because they wanted to wait for this "Final" release, but God only knows what's going to happen there
* Cut out content from the Western release of RGG/Yakuza 3, for seemingly no real reason at all; seemingly only doing more to try and basically help the game series fail in the West
In short? It ain't just the Sonic fans who have reason to be angry at Sega. It's gamers in general, who are angry at the various bad moves that Sega has made which only serve to do more to troll the fans of their games.
The "Sonic problem" is perhaps the loudest example. But the problem is much bigger than that, and so, the Sonic problem does a lot to showcase the rancor that the gaming community at large has towards Service Games.
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