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A recent push amongst Sonic fans is claiming that Sonic has transitioned from a game franchise to a multi-media one. While that is true on its face (i.e. multimedia *exists* for the character), I believe Sonic is still at its core a game franchise for the following reasons.
Primarily, Sonic is a game franchise because its owner, Sega, is a game company. If Sonic's games fail to the point that Sega fails, other multimedia gets diminished unless the franchise is sold. These other facets of the franchise spin off from this and can't supplement it.
While yes, the film was the biggest win the Sonic series has had in years, remember that the film was licensed by Paramount. I don't know the specifics of that contract, but how licensing works is that Sega was paid upfront by Paramount for use of the character.
That's why when asked, Sega employees would basically state they had nothing to do with it. When the first design came out, Sega could do nothing whatsoever to change it because they had already been paid and clearly creative control was not involved in the contract.
If what we are calling a "multimedia franchise" is defined by *licensed products exist for franchise* then yes, sure. But by that metric literally ANY game franchise with licensed products counts. And I can think of plenty of franchises that qualify there that don't clear the bar
But when judged by the metric of "could this franchise thrive financially if their core product were to stop being made" no, I would argue Sonic doesn't clear that bar due to the fact manufacturers would be less likely to license a series that doesn't produce products.
The sentiment I think is good and I think Sonic is CLOSE, but that he's not there yet. I think this push is coming from an apologetic place to the fact Sonic has not released a mainline game in some time and there is tons of other awesome things available from other avenues.
But I think arguing semantics, it's coming from a place of misunderstanding or ignoring the financial and business aspects of Sonic in favor of sentimental.
And while sentiment is an important aspect of transitioning a franchise from its core product to a multimedia franchise (Garfield, Peanuts, Ninja Turtles, Betty Boop, etc.) Sentiment alone isn't enough when the franchises success is still primarily dependent on its core product.
