Released for the Sega Dreamcast in 2001, Segagaga is a parody of the brief and rather one-sided rivalry between the Dreamcast and the PlayStation 2. While it's, at its core, an RPG and game company simulator, everything else about it is wacky and zany. Your grunt-level programmers resemble Moai statues and fuzzy monsters, the characters are real and do double-duty acting in the games and working for the company (with a few exceptions), and every game that Sega under Taro's leadership develops and publishes pokes fun at some other game on the market, such as Dalai Lama.
As the game goes on, DOGMA recognizes Sega as a financial threat, eventually taking the battle into space. That's the sort of game this is.
Contains examples of:
- Abandoned Mascot: The game features a rather poignant monologue
by Alex Kidd, where he tells us about how he ended up as a store clerk: His ill-fated stint as Sega's mascot came to an end after his games weren't as popular as the company hoped, and his replacement Sonic the Hedgehog proved to be superior to him in every way. Despite all this, he manages to be motivational and positive about all of it, inspiring Taro to never give up and not holding any resentment for Sonic becoming a successful mascot. - All Men Are Perverts: Taro can use pictures of pretty girls to manipulate his development teams.
- Benevolent Boss: Taro is kind to all his employees.
- Defeat Means Friendship: Taro has to physically fight each staff member in a turn-based Role-Playing Game battle before he can recruit them.
- Embarrassing Animal Suit: The Lead Programmer was forced into a ridiculous yellow bear suit as part of a game launch event. The following series of incidents caused him to lose his mind.
- Exposition Fairy: Alisa explains the game's premise and mechanics.
- Expy: DOGMA is clearly an amalgamated stand-in of both Sony (The main rival of Sega at that point due to its market domination) and Nintendo (The DOGMA Pyramid is the in-game counterpart to the Nintendo GameCube, both more powerful and more cost-efficient than Dreamcast, and both named after geometry shapes and shaped accordingly).
- Director Cool leads the American branch of Sega that has archived great success. Clearly, he's meant to be a expy of Tom Kalinske, the executive that put the Sega Genesis on the map across the Pacific.
- Grand Finale: Segagaga was released in Japan just 2 days before the Dreamcast was officially discontinued worldwide, and while it technically wouldn't be the last Dreamcast game officially published by Sega (that honor would go to Puyo Puyo Fever in 2004), or the last non-homebrew Dreamcast game, period (Karous in 2007), the game practically sends this era of Sega itself out with a bang, with a variety of cameos from Sega franchises old and (then) new, the surprise cameo of Alex Kidd, and the final battle on Earth brings a whole load of Sega characters into the fray, including The Reveal that Alisa, your assistant, and her associates, are actually the OG lead cast of Phantasy Star. The end credits even thank 'everyone who loves Sega' at the very end.
- Hannibal Lecture: Taro's greatest talent. He makes frequent use of them to get the staff members back to work when they become feral.
- Historical Villain Upgrade: Director Cool, revealed to be the real CEO of DOGMA, is clearly meant to be a send-up of Tom Kalinske, the man who made Sega a household name in America. The game parodies the events that lead to Kalinske's fallout with Sega of Japan and his subsequent departure from the company.
- Involuntary Shapeshifting: The reason why the programmers look so strange is because the high stress of making a game causes them to mutate into bizarre creatures.
- Last Stand: Sega is the only company in the game business that DOGMA hasn't eliminated. A conversation with Alex Kidd shows that Nintendo existed in this world; DOGMA has wiped it out too.
- Life Embellished: This game is the most insane autobiography ever made of a video game company.
- Most Gamers Are Male: All of the programmers, designers, and directors seem to be male.
- Multiple Endings: Endings are determined by how much money you've made for Sega by the end of the game.
- Mundane Made Awesome: Making video games is portrayed as truly epic.
- Parody Commercial: For the Dogma Pyramid.
- Pointy-Haired Boss: Taro at first, due to the nature of the Segagaga Project.
- Recruit Teenagers with Attitude: How the main character gets involved. How this was supposed to save Sega, nobody knows.
- Right Hand Versus Left Hand: The game portrays the relationship between programmers and designers in this way. In theory, both groups should work together in the development of games but in practice they're fighting each other over resources (read: memory) to the point of becoming fierce enemies, making any kind of cooperation between them nigh impossible. It's up to Taro Sega to parch things between the warring organizations. Easier said than done as the lead programmer lost his mind after an incident that involved a yellow bear suit, an unruly mob of customers and the guys from D. D. Crew and the lead designer became a tyrannical despot who rules over his underlings with an iron fist and executes anyone who dares to question his orders, like modeling a 200.000 polygon trashcan.
- Sequential Boss: The final boss of the final level is a Shoot 'Em Up section heavily inspired by Thunder Force. It has you fighting all forms of Sega's home console, complete with specifications as it introduced.
- Shout-Out:
- Daniel from The Karate Kid shows up for some reason.
- The final act of the game is a big one to Thunder Force.
- Some monsters fought at the Dogma HQ resemble warped, grotesque mockeries modeled after Nintendo characters, such as Kirby and Pikachu. Other bear likeness to a Pipo Ape, a monstrous PlayStation 2 and ghastly dualshock controllers.
- Several cutscenes about Sega's innermost secrets are shout-outs to Neon Genesis Evangelion.
- Simulation Game: The core of the gameplay, though it borrows from some other genres.
- Sliding Scale of Silliness vs. Seriousness: Totally silly!
- Time Marches On: Sega lost that 3% of the market share of game consoles not long after this game came out, let alone in 2025. On the other hand, Sega now has a share of game software market much greater than 3%, which is the focus of the game. One can only wait and see how Sega will do in 2025, assuming it survives until then.
- Tron Lines: The interiors of Sega Tower contains these.
- Video Game Cruelty Potential: You can deny your overworked employees vacation.
- Unexpected Gameplay Change: The game becomes a Thunder Force-inspired Shoot 'Em Up when DOGMA goes all-out against Sega.
