Update [Fri 2nd Aug, 2024 12:00 BST]: Since we posted this initial story back in September of 2023, we've been trying to get in touch with Sega Europe and, in particular, Sega Forever lead Danny Russell in order to get some clarification on what is happening with the retro-focused channel, which mysteriously went dark in August of last year.
We can now report that Russell appears to have left Sega, or is at least in the process of doing so.
Russell has remained silent on the matter but a now-deleted Twitter post from September of last year – shortly after the Sega Forever account stopped posting content – has been brought to our attention:
What should you do when you've been bullied all year and no-one is helping, five months after raising a grievance? I have been off ill in recent weeks adapting to medication due to the stress of this past year and this bully has used this time to take even more away from me.
We've contacted Sega multiple times for comment but, as of the time of writing, are yet to receive a response.
The last post on the Sega Forever Twitter / X account is from August 21st, 2023.
Original Story [Thu 21st Sep, 2023 14:00 BST]: We take game preservation very seriously here at Time Extension, which is why we've always been massive fans of the amazing work being done by Sega Forever, the Japanese company's official retro channel.
The brand itself began life as a way of promoting the company's emulated retro games on iOS and Android smartphones, but it has since evolved into a means of highlighting Sega's incredible legacy in the world of video gaming and is a regular source for unseen artwork, screens, promotional material and much, much more.
Sega Forever has also been involved with preserving assets and code, performing outstanding efforts in the realm of preservation. Last month, for example, the channel resurrected the Sonic statue from SEGAWORLD London, giving it pride of place on the show floor at this year's Gamescom.
However, that post – dated August 21st, exactly one month ago – is the last thing to have been uploaded to the Sega Forever Twitter (or X, if you prefer) account. The account – which has almost 60,000 followers – has been ominously silent since then.
To put that into context, the Sega Forever Twitter has been posting on an almost daily basis for as long as we can recall, which makes this prolonged absence all the more worrying. Its YouTube account hasn't posted a video in five months, either, while its Facebook and Instagram accounts last posted on August 31st.
We've seen lots of companies scaling back and making redundancies of late, and while this is wild speculation on our part, the radio silence could be down to the fact that Sega Forever has been deemed surplus to requirements – a crying shame when you consider all of the amazing work which has been achieved by the channel when it comes to celebrating Sega's past and preserving unseen items.
We've reached out to Danny Russell, Sega's Senior Global Community Manager and the custodian of the Sega Forever account, and we will update this story if and when we get a reply.
Comments 30
Really hope they haven't pulled the plug on Sega Forever. It's great that a games company has something dedicated to the things of the past. It's a great way to learn about things and is also still quite a unique concept Sega has done. Nintendo, Sony, SNK, etc could quite easily do something quite similar if they wanted to as they each have an incredibly rich history of stuff that I'm sure people would be dying to discover. Fingers crossed this isn't the end.
This is how rumours start.
This feels like an article you write when you get the response from Sega, not before.
There was obviously a curse placed on that statue. They disturbed Sonic’s slumber and released the curse. I hope the Sega Forever team survives whatever plague Sonic has put upon them.
Maybe they've figured out that Twitter is garbage and they get zero ROI from posting every day.
On brief glances I always liked that logo/banner art - but I just realised the Saturn pad is mirrored, and its plugged into the wrong port. Looks like the artist mirrored the refererence image, corrected the logos in photoshop, but didn't think to correct the pad, not realising it wasn't a symetrical layout. But even that wouldn't explain why its plugged into the wrong port, so they must have used 2 reference images.
Upon checking, all the console and pad images match up with the Evan Amos photos from Wikimedia commons including the separated Saturn & Mk2 US / J-S pad. The TV is a Mini Star / Tele Star which are the most common models to come up when you search for stock images of portable crt tvs.
The fact they made those 2 really obvious mistakes makes me feel like they chose an artist who has no familiarity with the console or even retro controls whatsoever, who just looked up free stock images, made a photoshop collage, then traced over it... or even more likely (as specifically pixel artists presumably are well aquainted with retro consoles) used and AI pixel art filter, of which there are several that work very well and give results akin to this.
That makes me sad. And the fact this is the main promotional image for their tribute to their history is doubly sad.
@samuelvictor Totally agree. Composition-wise, I've always felt that it's a rather poor image too, but this is subjective.
I did not realize it was more than a promo account for the mobile game.
Still hoping they port the Sonic Origins version of Sonic 3 & Knuckles to mobile.
Can they give us one last Sega Forever game?
Blood hell that tweet is cryptic! Desp want to know more now. So Danny raised a grievance with HR at Sega, and a bullying colleague continues to ruin their life?
@samuelvictor
Regarding the mirrored pad, I thought it was a sly, cheeky reference to a very bizarre piece of Sega marketing material, from years ago, that showed a mirrored controller like this, but with the logo shown correctly.
I wish I had it to hand to cite as a reference.
I just recall reading in a mag readers and the editor speculating on how this happened.
I can't even recall the mag... EGM? GameFan? Sega Saturn mag?
It might not be a reference to this. But it's a heck of a coincidence if not.
Gee, who didn't see this coming ?
Sega Forever was always a low ball, low rent, low effort affair.
Dragging out most of the usual corpses around but this time on mobile.
It always reeked of bandwagon jumping and desperation.
If Sega cant be bothered to make an effort for it, why should we the consumers ?
Because it was free ?
Bullying certainly happens a lot, but my experience the people who say they're being bullied usually aren't the ones who are. With exceptions of course.
@samuelvictor
Ok, so I went googling and found nothing. Mostly garbage news about Retro Bit.
So then I browsed marketing materials and nothing.
But I swear - I saw it - official marketing material depicting a Saturn controller, layout inverted, but the correct logo.
Sadly I have around 300 magazines and really don't want to go through them just for this.
Has anyone else seen this?
@KitsuneNight The 'old' Sega Forever was that, sure - but, more recently, it was a vehicle for Sega Europe / Danny's efforts to preserve and celebrate the company's history. That work now seems to have ended, which is a crying shame, and the fact that Danny's tweet alludes to a less-than-satisfactory working environment makes it worse.
@Sketcz Some google fu later and i didnt find anything about the controller.
But i did find a cool interview with Kenji Tosaki about the Saturn and DC controller design
https://www.segasaturnshiro.com/2022/06/03/interview-kenji-tosaki-talks-saturn-dreamcast-peripheral-design/
Which explains why the 3D pad has a break away cable
An article about prototype DC controllers
https://www.segasaturnshiro.com/2023/10/18/retro-bit-unveils-early-dreamcast-pad-prototypes/
But nothing about a mirrored Saturn controller.
Console Variations doesnt have it listed
https://consolevariations.com/database/sega-saturn?filters[type][0]=3&activeSortLabel=rarity_score&order=asc
It possible it was just a botched marketing mock up
Marketing firms aren't exactly on the ball especially not with consoles in the early days.
The infamous back cover of the NES box comes to mind.
@Damo
THAT is a shame yes.
I looked in to Sega Forever when it was new , saw it was the usual suspects again, and ignored it ever since.
I thought they killed the entire thing years ago, but apparently not.
That tweet and other things seem to suggest there is something rotten in the kingdom of Sega Europe
@KitsuneNight
Indeed, the conclusion of the mag staff and readers (and myself), was the image was a result of someone in marketing mirroring it, seeing the logo backwards, and fixing it after.
I think it was EGM or GFan. Will have another peruse.
@Sketcz
That explains why I never saw it.
I don't really read EGM or Gfan
However maybe you can help me out.
Ages ago I read a massive article about FF6/FF3
in A EGM, EGM 2 or Gamepro from 1994
Any idea which issue that was ?
Or what i'm even talking about ?
aw man, they were doing great work. all sorts of cool lost art was popping up towards the end of Forever's run. i hope Danny landed or will land his feet somewhere where his talents are appreciated and his concerns are taken seriously
@KitsuneNight
I don't have a full set, but I have issue 63, October 1994, and on page 170 is a three page feature with interview.
If you check magazine archives for that issue, take a look at 64, 65, etc., They might have done a follow up.
No clue about GamePro.
GameFan had some good coverage too, again starting in the October 94 issue. Might it have been GF?
Can you describe the feature / number of pages?
@samuelvictor
@KitsuneNight
Found it! EGM 91, page 154. Sega's marketing material for Nights. Flipped controller, normal logo. EGM staff express surprise at it. Claim to have contacted Sega - apparently a layout error.
@Sketcz
On to retromags !
Ahem.
As for the feature it has been ages since i last saw it it was an EGM EGM2 or a Gamepro from 1994, because they talked about Mortal Kombat II a lot.
It was partially a showcase, part walkthrough.
I remember them talking about how expressive the sprites were while showcasing Edgar.
And rafting section while getting confronted by Ultros.
oh well, its no big deal to me, we can always just wait for the next internal leak to hit SEGA for unused prototypes and concepts😈🤷♂️
What is it with some people online. We need to name and call these people out and then remove them from the discourse. Assuming it's real bullying and not just being annoying, stuff like using actual deranged unrelenting trolling, attacking, lying behaviour and basically stalking and doxing and that kind of thing, they are not contributing anything of worth and don't need or deserve to be part of the conversation anymore.
Sad to see they haven't really changed. Sega needs real leaders.
@Bonggon5
Uh yeah so ?
Guys aren't allowed to show emotions then ?
They are supposed to be robots and keep everything bottled up ?
The stress was getting to him and he was venting.
Hardly a "weakness" .
@Sketcz Wow, good memory and good find, what a strange and silly error, no idea how that made it through. I think its also odd how the reader asked if this would be for left-handed gamers, as if that's what we want, NO WAY! I'm also left-handed and wouldn't dare use a swapped position controller like that.
Internet Archive, quick link for those who want to see it for themselves.
https://archive.org/details/ElectronicGamingMonthly_201902/Electronic%20Gaming%20Monthly%20Issue%20091%20%28February%201997%29/page/n155/mode/2up
@RetroGames It seems like it was a co-worker harassing him, going out of his way to make Danny miserable. HR departments are notorious for not doing their job, and not giving a ***** about their employees.
@Chocoburger Yeah they seem to be far more concerned with social engineering than actually protecting employees.
@Chocoburger
Thank you for finding this!
I was justing browsing my collection, and thought I should find this to link to, but you saved me the trouble. My thanks.
The question now is, which Nights related material ran this image?
Such an interesting oddity.
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