The GHZ Forum

ever notice that dr.robotnik's name changed to dr.eggman?

He changed his name because Robotnik is a registered trademark of Vandelay Industries.

ok, thanks.....robotniks better

Curse that Art Vandelay! He couldn't keep his short, stocky, bald business in latex where it belongs!

Segaholic is actually greatly undermining the seriousness of the legal situation at the moment. Sega Corp. and Vandelay Industries are still in a fierce court battle over the posession of the name "Robotnik", and have been since 2001. People have attributed the hiring of lawyers for this case to their ever approaching bankruptcy, but Sega of America persist regardless.

You see, because the battle has been viewed as such heated debate in Japan, Sega of Japan couldn't even bare to use the name "Robotnik", even with the permission of Vandelay Industries, and had to resort to calling the Professor Gerald Robotnik character "Robotonik" instead. It's a nasty thing, really.

ps: eggman is better nyah nyah nyah

Do you thnk that maybe we should just be nice and actually tell him why they changed his name?

Well nobody really knows why for sure. The best you could do is make an(/n very educated) guess.

Suffice to say that "Eggman" is the name the Japanese have always associated with the "Robotnik" character and for whatever reason, Sonic Team has decided to promote the "Eggman" name in NA and Europe, probably for the sake of continuity, but that's almost laughable given the Sonic universe as a whole.

Esrever wrote:Do you thnk that maybe we should just be nice and actually tell him why they changed his name?

Jesus shitballing Christ, is this place turning into Niceyniceville?

We must love everyone and show respect on the internet, because relative anonymity and long distances are gifts that should not be abused.

Wow, you guys even fooled me. And I used to think I was clever.

Baba O'Reily wrote:We must love everyone and show respect on the internet, because relative anonymity and long distances are gifts that should not be abused.

Once again...

And I do my very best to represent that equation, thank you very much.

A source of a source told me that his name was changed to Eggman due to the fact that he was shaped like a banana.

Hey, 2+3 does equal cats!

And don't be a bastard, Protodude. His name was changed because of the enormous egg market boom in Japan in 1998. Don't lead on honest-to-goodness curious Sonic fans with your sick jokes.

Oyyyyy!

Shadowspast, Robotnik is called Eggman because that is what his name has always been in Japan. When the original Sonic games were released in North America, they changed his name to "Robotnik," probably to give him a name that sounded a little more menacing and less silly. This kind of thing was super common back in the 8 bit and 16 bit days... since a games "story" was contained almost entirely to the instruction manual, it was easy to alter it to appeal to the sensibilities of different regions.

However, as the Sonic games have become more complex and developed a larger in-game narrative component, Sega has been less inclined to fiddle with the details. Now that there is a stricter adherence to the original stories, details like Eggman's name have begun to revert back to the intended concepts.

For a time, Sonic Team considered changing Eggman's name to Robotnik in Japan. However, Yuji Naka was reluctant to do this. "Eggman" was actually the name of his real life son, who died of leukemia at the age of four, and Naka did not wish to remove the tribute to his lost child from the Sonic continuity. It would also cause confusion surrounding ELF, the Eggman Leukemia Foundation in Japan that has used Eggman as its mascott for years.

your right, i did some reasearch of my own and in japan his name really is Dr. Eggman

Esrever, you are my hero.

Esrever wrote:Oyyyyy!

Shadowspast, Robotnik is called Eggman because that is what his name has always been in Japan. When the original Sonic games were released in North America, they changed his name to "Robotnik," probably to give him a name that sounded a little more menacing and less silly. This kind of thing was super common back in the 8 bit and 16 bit days... since a games "story" was contained almost entirely to the instruction manual, it was easy to alter it to appeal to the sensibilities of different regions.

However, as the Sonic games have become more complex and developed a larger in-game narrative component, Sega has been less inclined to fiddle with the details. Now that there is a stricter adherence to the original stories, details like Eggman's name have begun to revert back to the intended concepts.

For a time, Sonic Team considered changing Eggman's name to Robotnik in Japan. However, Yuji Naka was reluctant to do this. "Eggman" was actually the name of his real life son, who died of leukemia at the age of four, and Naka did not wish to remove the tribute to his lost child from the Sonic continuity. It would also cause confusion surrounding ELF, the Eggman Leukemia Foundation in Japan that has used Eggman as its mascott for years.

... Wow.

Frieza2000 wrote:The last paragraph was a joke.

Yes, I know. It's just so freaking outlandish.

Frieza2000 wrote:The last paragraph was a joke.

No shit, thanks for ruining it.

A better question would be whatever happened to Robot Jones.

Man, I heard Robot Jones converted to Buddhism and went on to pursue life as a Robot Monk.

I only heard he got cancelled.