Between the upcoming sequel, Sonic the Hedgehog 3, as well as the recently announced Shinobi movie, and Prime Video’s Like a Dragon series, Sega has done very well for itself in Hollywood in the last few years. However, the company has even greater ambitions of becoming a media giant in the tradition of Disney, and a former Disney executive is trying to make that goal a reality.
After spending 17 years at Disney, Justin Scarpone was hired to as Sega’s head of global transmedia earlier this year. While speaking with GamesIndustry.biz, Scarpone noted that most video game companies haven’t followed Disney and Marvel’s examples of utilizing their properties across all media. But he plans to change that at Sega.
“Gaming is [today] the irreplaceable form of entertainment for the entire world, far greater than any other form of entertainment, [and] it’s high time that there is a replication of the studio system from Hollywood for the gaming industry,” said Scarpone. Game companies don’t have that content flywheel history that Walt Disney basically invented, of taking that IP and having a five-year, ten-year roadmap of content, like [Marvel executive] Kevin Feige does for the films. And connecting that into all the other businesses and evolving story over these different experiences, you know, content product and services.”
Scarpone also noted that Shadow the Hedgehog’s prominent role in Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and Sonic X Shadow Generations was an example of the crossover content that he wants Sega to pursue.
“[There are] things we’re doing on other channels: Shadow merchandise, Shadow character appearances,” added Scarpone. “We want to turn Shadow into an evergreen, individual character. That’s all planned.”
“I think Sega’s positioned to grow on the back of this evolution of our company into an entertainment company,” continued Scarpone. “There’s other gaming companies going in the same direction and with varying degrees of success, that we respect, and Nintendo is a great one, right? They’re sort of the big brother to all the Japanese game companies… But I think we’re doing pretty good and there’s a lot of more opportunities for us to evolve what the Sega brand means to consumers around the world. So that’s what I want to achieve.”