INTERVIEW: JURGEN POST, SEGA
strategy. That’s all within that pillar. That quality has to be fantastic, brand marketing has to be fantastic. If that has to be under one roof, so be it. “In the past, developers would make a game, hand it to publishing, they would have brand marketing do something, and then executional marketing, and then it gets sold into territory. But now, certainly when you talk about service games, it becomes one. The development,
It’s definitely a different company to what it was. But we are still Sega.
“ Jurgen Post, Sega Europe
brand marketing and execution are very, very close together.” The merged model reflects the way many of the big Sega brands had already become hybrid digital- physical games anyway. “The clear distinction between what is digital and what is packaged goods is going away,” says Post. “What is ‘boxed’ at the moment, if we are honest? If we release a new Total Waryou can regard it as boxed goods because we will release it on a disc, but more than half the sales are going through Steam, probably 60 per cent and growing. So do I call that boxed or do I call that digital?”
HEDGING HIS BETS
So that neatly explains his respect for
Wargaming.net and its World of Tanksonline hit. But what about that Hello Kitty envy?
Sega wants Sonic to become as prolific as Hello Kitty, but it will always be a game first
Sega isn’t totally ruling out all physical goods – one thing the firm wants to do is push the Sonic character further into licensing. Post says earning status alongside
Sanrio’s cute cat is “the dream” for now, but thinks it can be achieved. “We’re still far off but we can see that our profits are growing year on year in the US and Europe and we will make a bigger push into merchandise. Sonic’s an extremely well-known character. “We’ve got a team on the ground in the UK now who are focusing on Europe, and that team will expand. Then we’ve got a team in the US, and that team will expand also. Having people on the ground with experience and knowledge is making a big difference to growing Sonic’s stature.” But Post himself told MCVtwo years ago there was room for improvement when it came to the quality of Sonicgames – can the online focus help improve that too? “Yes it can, we’re working on it. And in due time we will announce more on what we have there. We’re absolutely thinking of how to take Sonic forward. Can we make Sonic a contemporary character for current players? Yes we can.” So ultimately, Sega’s transformation isn’t complete yet – this is a long-term strategy for longer term rewards.
“It’s painful and we have had to
make a lot of changes. The business is shifting so fast we had to make the decision. The challenging aspect has been to form a company that’s going in the right direction, and over the next couple of years we will complete that transition,” says Post. “You have to embrace the new world, and you can’t continue doing everything like you were doing it in the past. If you do that, you will have a very
short success.”
POST’S FOUR PILLARS
WHEN Sega’s restructuring was announced two weeks ago, Europe COO Jurgen Post told MCV: “Some categories are just not working in the market anymore. Film licences, they don’t work. Then we tried with new IP; again it’s very tough so we basically decided to stop that kind of project because it just takes so much money out of the company.” So what brands do work for Sega? In Post’s own words…
Football Manager:“This is successful on PC but it is also now successful on iOS. It recently launched on Android, and it’s doing very well so we’re happy with that and will continue with our strategy there. We won’t lose sight of where it came from though, and there will of course be another PC game this year – and when Sports Interactive is ready to talk about it, they will.”
Sonic The Hedgehog: “Sega isSonic. The games will have a much wider range, going in all kinds of directions. We’re very successful with merchandising and we want to improve on that – and build something much more like Hello Kitty. Sonic is a well-known character so we’ve got a lot of room to grow in [merchandise]. Sonic will always exist as a computer game first – we have Sonic All-Star Racing Transformedheading to consoles later this year, and those formats are very important to something like Sonic – but pushing him out there further is crucial.”
Total War: “The Creative Assembly is very well known for its success on PC – but we’ve also launched Total
www.mcvuk.com July 13th 2012 15
War: Battles on iOS. It’s doing very well and has added things like micro- transactions to the series, which is interesting for us and a good learning curve.”
Aliens: “We were successful with Aliens vs Predator, but Colonial Marines is a much better title. It’s had lots of good feedback from E3 and it’s coming out in the first quarter of next year.” There’s also an Aliengame coming from The Creative Assembly: “It’s not announced, techinically. We teased it a little bit; the priority is ACM.”
And don’t forget digital-only games: “At E3 we presented Hell Yeah plus The Cave from Double Fine, which are big and important products for us. They are digital releases. We have just released Sonic 4: Episode 2, we’ve announced Virtual Fighter, we’ve just launched Virtual Tennis on Android and it’s now coming to iOS. That’s just the start.”
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48