I haven't been posting actively about Sonic lately because I have severe Pokémon brainrot, but this is something I think should be addressed since I haven't noticed anyone talk about it yet.
I saw on Instagram that Sega collaborated with the Olympics to create a set of t-shirt designs. Here are the screenshots:
Does anything look wrong here?
I'm sure some things are quite obvious, but I'll point out some things that caught my attention.
1. The back of Amy's left boot merges into her dress, and the heel is apparently flat
2. The cuff of her right boot merges with the boot itself
3. Her tongue is coloured pink like the outline, which looks extremely odd
4. Her right hand is deformed
5. I'm not a tennis person, but I don't think tennis balls look like that
1. Knuckles' left hand is missing most of its outline, and it looks quite strange
2. The gap between his right arm and quill is filled in white
3. Apparently the his right heel extends beyond his crotch. Also where is the cuff
4. In fact, what the fuck are those shoes, they don't look right at all
5. I didn't circle it, but that dumbell probably shouldn't be curved
1. Not a basketball person, but that ball does not look right. Also Sonic's hand is merging with his quill
2. These shoes are worse than Knuckles'. How the fuck
3. I find the lineart for this whole set to be weird and inconsistent, but shoutout to Sonic's right leg for being a mess of random bullshit lines with no form whatsoever
4. Also not circled, but he has no outline on half of his body
1. Shadow's fingers on his left hand don't make sense
2. On the same wrist, I assume that's supposed to be the tongue on his glove cuff. It doesn't go there
3. His chest fur looks deformed
1. Both of Tails' hands are deformed
2. His left ear is missing the canal, which is somewhat visible on the other ear
3. One of his fur tufts on his forehead is completely missing an outline
Issues that persist across the entire set are the inconsistency with the lineart, and the elephant in the room: the 'READY' text in the background that becomes deformed in nearly every piece of the set.
I'm extremely disappointed in Sega and the Olympics for using AI here, especially after there's already been allegations that Sega used AI textures for (I think) a Crazy Taxi game, and after receiving backlash for stating that they use players' data to train AI models in the terms and condition for that Chaos Emerald ARG thing they're doing (they don't specify if this is a generative AI model or a different type of AI, but the backlash is real). I don't know much about the Olympics, so I'm not sure if this is normal for them, but both companies are at fault here whatever way you look at it.
Sega have a very skilled set of artists, with some of them being my favourite artists overall. There is absolutely no excuse for Sega to be using AI for their merch, other than cutting costs. Seeing as these are two big corporations collaborating, I don't think cutting costs like this was even remotely necessary. Also this completely goes against Sonic's whole thing with nature and the environment. There are plenty of images and videos online showing how data centres are using extortionate amounts of water for cooling systems, and the noise pollution they create, and how this affects nature and local communities.
I can't control what you do after reading this. You can boycott, spread the word, invade Sega's headquarters (I will not be liable if you choose this path), whatever. Personally, I would like to hear a statement from them about this, but seeing as I haven't heard anyone else mention this, I don't have high hopes. If I don't hear anything in a week I'm pirating CrossWorlds. If they can't be bothered to pay real artists, I can't be bothered to pay for their games.
If I missed anything or got anything wrong, please tell me in the comments or reblogs, and feel free to reblog with any updates on this. Also feel free to repost this on other sites if you wanna spread awareness. Hopefully we can make Sega backtrack 🙏
Anyway, have a good day or night, and always remember that corporations aren't your friends!
