In a conversation with Automaton-Media, Sonic Team head Takashi Iizuka spoke about the support strategy for the arcade racing game Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds and the reasons for choosing the Season Pass model.
Desire to Keep Players Online
According to Iizuka, the studio's main goal from the very beginning was to create a project that users would return to over a long period of time:
«The Sonic series has many single-player projects, but usually after a lot of hype at release, players finish the playthrough in a couple of months and drop the game. Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds is an online title, so we wanted people to play it for years. And to maintain interest long-term, it is necessary to regularly add new content, otherwise the audience will simply get bored.»
Why Season Pass?
Since developing new content requires time and funding, the studio resorted to selling paid content via Season Passes to secure a budget for upcoming updates.
- First Season: featured crossover packs with Minecraft, SpongeBob, PAC-MAN, Mega Man, TMNT, Avatar Legends, as well as free characters (Joker from Persona 5, Hatsune Miku, Ichiban Kasuga, etc.).
- Second Season: expands the roster with new DLC, notably Godzilla and Evangelion, as well as a free appearance of Bayonetta on the track.
Iizuka noted that at the start, the team had not fully thought through the monetization, so the need to finance development specifically through a Season Pass became an important learning experience for Sonic Team.
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