As gamers debate among themselves whether a game is good or not, many fans tend to wonder just what the developers who make said games think of their own product. Many players tend to want to hear the stories behind scrapped objects or features as well. These behind the scenes anecdotes from studios and gaming companies are something many fans enjoy, and Sonic Team has given fans a chance to learn some stories from itself directly through the unexpected medium of YouTube livestreaming.As long as the video game industry has been around, its brought all sorts of people together. It's no secret that video games have helped many players find lifelong friends and have left an impact on a fair deal of gamers' lives, which makes some fans wonder if those that create the games share the same sentiments about it as they do. Sonic Team has taken a rather unique step forward to share its own games with these fans. The Japanese Sonic the Hedgehog social media channels have launched a project featuring a team called "On-Soku Gamers;" which can be translated to "Sound Speed Gamers." The On-Soku Gamers are a team comprised of Sonic Team members who will playing Sonic titles live on YouTube every so often. The first video is already available which features a playthrough of Sonic Mania.
According to the official tweet announcing the project, currently the group features Masayuki Inoue, a Day-time Level Designer from Sonic Unleashed, and Eitaro Toyoda, a long-time creative Sonic Team member who's worked on games from Sonic Adventure to Sonic Forces. Among them are two of the Japanese Sonic social media account personnel, "Ed" and his manager "Fujiki-san." Another Sonic Team member, Kazuyuki Hoshino, has spoken about the project on Twitter in English.
According to Hoshino's tweet, the project aims to show fans how Sonic Team personally enjoys the games it creates, while also sharing stories from the developers themselves about the games in question. Unfortunately, the behind the scenes stories may only reach Japanese audiences, as the stream is quite understandably only in Japanese. However, the streams are available to fans worldwide, so some fans may translate the more interesting anecdotes for others as the project goes on.
Despite the language barrier, some gamers may still enjoy watching the streams regardless. The reactions the team give are rather genuine, as can be seen by the first video featuring Ed getting all seven Chaos Emeralds in Sonic Mania within the first 30 minutes of the stream complete with him stressing over the Special Stage's difficulty curve. Fans may simply enjoy watching members of Sonic Team experience their favorite games in general. For those interested, they may want to keep an eye on what Sonic Team streams over on the official Japanese Sonic YouTube channel.