Game News

SEGA Networks Declares Sonic Runners a Failure

SonicRunnersFailureIn part of a presentation highlighting the company’s strongest performers, Sonic Runners is ranked as a failure. The game generates a little between ¥30 million [$256,563 USD] to ¥50 million [$427,588 USD] a month.
It should come as little surprise to anyone following industry news that the mobile market is a veritable shark tank, fighting with many others for a limited pool of money and attention spans. SEGA is part of those never ending digital meat grinding, and is touting their successes in the market. Sonic Runners isn’t so fortunate.
These numbers appear under the Domestic Market section, likely indicating they are Japan specific, but the fact Runners fails to even show up in the Overseas section doesn’t bode well. In fact, the game is no longer available for download on the U.S. Google Play Store and hasn’t been since Nov. 2015.
This shouldn’t come as a shock given the negative reception that surrounded Runners. Since officially going global Summer 2015, the game was constantly criticized for performance issues, glitches, and microtransaction practices that for all intents and purposes amount to under-aged gambling for new characters. If anything, it was a fine endless runner at its core drowned by countless terrible design decisions.
Most of these came to a head with the recent 2.0 update that added death walls to runs, offered more performance issues and overheating devices, and did little to improve the character unlock structure to make it less like a gamble.
One thing to note though is Sonic Dash 2 (referred to as Sonic Dash Boom and Sonic Dash 2: Sonic Boom) is expected to meet continued successes overseas with pushes to continue expanding its market presence.

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7 Comments

  • Reply

    The only thing that surprises me at all about this is that Sega admitted to it being a failure.
    Granted they undoubtedly have no idea why it failed and are likely assuming it’s just due to unpredictable market forces. Watch them learn nothing. Again.

  • Reply

    There was a legitimately good game there during the soft launch! It boggles my mind to this day that they’ve decided to go double or nothing on Sonic Boom instead of doing proper damage control on Runners.

  • Reply

    I would Love to play Sonic runners…BUT for some reason it doesn’t actually work unless I’m in a place with good internet. Is this one of those BS “online always even though theres no reason for it” games? I’ve only tried it once and yea it was so laggy and took forever to load unless i had good internet .
    It’s like Sonic rush but you only tap the screen rather than actually play. Endless Runners are always so lam unless they’re actually difficult.

    • Reply

      Yes, Runners requires an online connection. This also killed the game since it either means being your data network or skimming around on open wifi hotspots if you want to play outside of home.

  • Reply

    I completely agree with the article Gene… I enjoyed this game at first, but it wore on me… FAST. Let’s just say by the time it hit global markets I was already burnt out…
    FFRK is really the only mobile game I spend my time with anymore.

    • Reply

      That would explain a lot and that is stupid. Never Change Sega Never change,

  • Reply

    I thought i would hop on sonic runners for the first time in months and found out they are discontinuing the game in July. Shame for all the hard work. They should have just made it a standalone game.

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