We previously posted about #SegaPCPorts, a movement designed to bolster awareness of the opportunities for expanding Sega’s PC library. It’s worth noting what was initially being asked for through tweets are by and large Japanese Sega titles. Amidst an ongoing debate over title selection for the campaign, #SegaPCPorts has made its next move.
Now, a petition has been launched on change.org to ask Sega to bring more games to the PC. While there was a lot of support for the original Valkyria Chronicles to be ported to PC, and Grief.exe (who started the campaign) intended to give the game a prominent place on the petition together with Bayonetta and Vanquish, the person who ended up making the petition removed it in favor of Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown, arguing that converting VC would be more difficult. The game was now given a special mention at the bottom of the petition. While it’s disappointing to see this change, we still encourage all the Valkyria Chronicles fans out there to sign the petition and ask for the game in the comments, and favorite other comments mentioning the game. And while Sakura Wars wasn’t mentioned in the petition, the franchise already has games on PC, so we’d encourage fans of the franchise to sign the petition as well if they want to see the games released on platforms like Steam. Or even better, ask for both Valkyria Chronicles AND Sakura Wars! 🙂
Sega has already made clear they have taken notice of the campaign by way of their Twitter account. In response to a fan by the name of Marow, the company had this to say:
the community team is aware of the movement, but no official comment to be made at this time.
Vis-à-vis the post we made earlier on this site about Reginald Fils-Aime’s response to fan campaigns, it is nice to see Sega make direct comments on this particular fan campaign. Statements such as the one quoted above are by no means endorsements, but it is some validation to the idea there is purpose to fan campaigning at all. It should be noted that this isn’t the first time a company representative has spoken regarding this campaign. Julian Mehlfield, perhaps more commonly known by the handle clumsyorchid and a Community Manager with Sega, has directly commented on #SegaPCPorts previously. He expressed his support for the spirit of the campaign and willingness to pass it on to the relevant Sega personnel, but also asked for more care in directing comments to Sega’s own twitter (as it interferes with how Sega mines their Twitter account for information), while also aiming to keep fans’ expectations of his actions tempered.
