Complaining about a product if it isn't up to the standards a consumer was expecting is nothing new. Don't like your food in a restaurant? Send it back. Purchase a faulty product or something with a piece missing? Take it back to the store to be replaced or to get a refund. That system is necessary. The process of using social media to complain about something before that something has even been released is not okay. Thanks to game developers and movie studios caving to public pressure, it is a movement that continues to gain momentum.
Make Sonic Handsome Again
A meal you can't eat or a product you can't use is one thing, but a movie that a person doesn't like the look of is something else. Most people will watch a trailer and decide on the basis of that preview whether they want to see the full movie or not. That was not the case when the first trailer for Sonic the Hedgehog was released. Instead of reacting by thinking "the design of Sonic is poor, I'm not going to pay my money to see that," fans reacted by saying "I won't stand for this Sonic design, I demand the movie studio change it."
Paramount and Sega caved and Sonic has indeed been redesigned, pushing the release of the movie back by a full three months. That "win" likely gave the complainers quite a bit of confidence, and they quickly moved on to whinging about how the characters looked in the first trailer for Square Enix's Avengers video game. Although the developers didn't bend all the way and change the heroes to look exactly like their movie counterparts, by the time the next trailer arrived, it was plain to see changes had been made.
Boycott Sword & Shield
Another win for the angry gamers, which freed them up to move on to their biggest project of 2019, boycotting Pokémon Sword & Shield. Upon revealing that the games would not feature a full Pokédex (how dare a developer develop their game the way that they want), fans of the franchise lost their minds. People began to try and find other things wrong with the games. At this point, we feel the need to remind you that all of this was going on months before Sword & Shield were even released, so long before any of the people complaining about the games even had a chance to play them.
Thankfully, the attempts by those upset by the lack of a full 'Dex have been shown up since the release of Sword & Shield. The games have been breaking Pokémon and Nintendo sales records all over the world and as usual, the games are pretty damn good to boot. It just goes to show even though the bad press sounds loud, most of the time, it is simply a small group of people making sure their voices are heard.
This is why buckling to the pressure as Paramount did is dangerous and the start of a slippery slope. Not only has Sonic the Hedgehog's release date been pushed, but it has also been reported that it cost $35 million to make the necessary changes to the movie. That victory also allowed groups to try and force Square Enix and Game Freak into doing what they wanted. Chances are Paramount and Sega won't make an extra $35 million from the movie just because Sonic looks different. We'd recommend taking a page out of Game Freak's book. Release the game or movie as intended, and if people want to see or play it, they will.