Sonic Gather Battle

Soni

 is a fan game based on the Sonic the Hedgehog series, featuring characters from Super Mario Bros, Mega Man MD-X and Bleach. It was released in 2014. It uses the Little Fighter MD-2 game engine and is a mix of arcade beat-em-up and multiplayer game.

The game got a very positive reception, though in December 2017, after a game update, it was discovered to have a DRM with malware-like behaviors which has resulted in the game not being recommended for download.

Reception
The game got a mostly positive reception, but after the discovery of the DRM nobody likes it.

Post-DRM Controversy
The game has been largely avoided, and not recommended to anyone. The event has also resulted in the fan game being referred to as "Sonic Gather up all your information and @£%# your computer," something along those lines.

DRM Controversy
On December 10-11, after a December the 4th update, a post was made on Reddit about a very sketchy DRM system that had been discovered. The protection could be activated as easily as typing in keywords like "hack", "cheat" or "mod" into a browser whilst the game is running, and in doing so, the browser would close.

When the first level protection is activated, the stage background turns blue and black, the song "Fakery Way" from Sonic Adventure plays and ghosts that can kill the player spawn in the levels

When the second level protection is activated, the stage background turns red and black (ya know, like a Virtual Boy), a static noise would play along with the American boss theme from Sonic The Hedgehog CD, red eyes would appear across the screen and giant ghosts that kill the player instantly spawn, rendering the game completely unplayable.

While this is all happening, the game would locate your IP address and then send it to an online database. This way, the DRM would return if the fan game was reinstall. At this point, contacting the creator and convincing him to whitelist the computer is the only way to get out.

The DRM was most likely put in place due to the creator, Leemena, being over-protective with his sprites, sprites which were just minor modifications of ones that he did not create himself. After this incident, Leemena was banned from future Sonic Amateur Games Expos and people ripped off the sprites from the game and published it to MUGEN as a punishment.The future of this fan-game is currently unknown, though it could be re-released if the DRM is deactivated.

Sonia