Sonic X-treme beta auction

On September 13, 2005, an anonymous Sega employee put a proof-of-concept beta of Sonic X-Tream up for auction on ASSEMbler Games, using TheRedEye as a middleman and auctioneer. TheRedEye posted a notification thread about it on SWS2B. The seller wanted a four-figure sum for it, which immediately put almost every member of the Sonic community out of the running, at least on thier own. Because it was unlikely that it would be dumped and redistributed if a collector bought it, LocalH started a pot for a kind of communal purchase that would guarantee a dump. He had raised $2,365 before somebody threw a huge monkey wrench into the plan.

RatMan showed up on September 14, 2005, with a promise that he would buy the prototype at any cost. He initially bid $3,000 and said that he would raise any higher bids. Some community members were suspicious of this guy, since he gave two phoney AIM sceen names and had never been heard of before. However, donations to the pot stopped completely, as everybody thought he was legitimate.

The next day, after the auction ended, RatMan revealed that his bid was a diversion meant specifically to keep the Sonic community from getting the beta, and said that he was hired by the winning collector (according to him, hl7_18) to keep everybody else out. He also claimed that the entire auction was a show, and that TheRedEye knew of this from the start. All claims about TheRedEye's involvement are almost certainly false due to his reliability, and hl7_18 adamantly denies both being the buyer and having anything to do with RatMan. It is likely that RatMan is simply a disgruntled (ex-)member of the community who saw the thread on SWS2B and decided to troll it.

External Links

• ASSEMbler Games auction thread
• ASSEMbler Games after-auction thread
• SWS2B thread