Yu Suzuki: I expect individual backers to provide the majority of funds for Shenmue
- Thread starter ShogunDarius
- Start date
publicpwnerer
Member
Yeah, but the damage is done. The Kickstarter has stopped to a crawl...moreso than usual.
This won't pass 4 million, and if it does...it'll be by a paltry sum.
Maybe they are being as open as possible?
They don't have anyone to blame but themselves. The only reason all of this has occurred is due to the fact that the kickstarter was opaque as fuck. It's a confusing mess. They've trickled out information regarding the project over the course of days, instead of just laying it all out from Day 1. People are only able to construct their viewpoints based on what's presented to them.
Pureauthor
Member
Logically why the hell would Sony be funding this at all beyond a token sum? It's an incredibly niche series that would end up being a loss for them.
actually it seems to have been quicker than usual today. at least to my eyes. i think keeping it in the news helps more than anything, but hollow thinkpieces are not the right kind of media it needs.
Yep, pretty much. Star Citizen is a good example.
10 miilion from Kickstarter alone will be impossible. 5 Million it's absolutely conceivable. Putting a KS finding goal of 10 M from the start would be its sentence. It would never got funded. The 10M goal it's for the uncompromising vision of Yu Suzuki for Shenmue 3. That would be awesome to get, but a good game, filled wit content, that gives closure to the second game while keeping the story open for sequels, is much better than nothing.
Tricky I Shadow
Banned
This will pass 4 million. Easily.
Besthelboy
Banned
Not being open truly hurt them and it's no surprise.
"Shenmue 3 is the true sequel to the classic open world action RPG games, Shenmue and Shenmue 2."
You expect a "true" sequel to a series where they're open world action RPG games, to be another open world action RPG game. They set the goal at $2 million, why not just put it at $10 from the get-go?
It's like if after 15 years after Halo 3 MS kickstarted Halo 4 and put the goal at $2m and said "oh well it won't be a linear game with campaign+multiplayer unless we hit $10m" a few days after.
"Shenmue 3 is the true sequel to the classic open world action RPG games, Shenmue and Shenmue 2."
You expect a "true" sequel to a series where they're open world action RPG games, to be another open world action RPG game. They set the goal at $2 million, why not just put it at $10 from the get-go?
It's like if after 15 years after Halo 3 MS kickstarted Halo 4 and put the goal at $2m and said "oh well it won't be a linear game with campaign+multiplayer unless we hit $10m" a few days after.
The KS stopped because that what usually happens around this time. Front loaded as hell and slow during majority of the days. It'll see a bump in the last 48 hours.
If anything they need to add a PS4 physical and more rewards
Is this your first kickstarter? I have to believe this is your first kickstarter.
Everyone is being so dramatic about everything.
Haha lol
people expecting this to be a big super ambitious AAA release are crazy. It'll be a fun little nostalgia romp at best.
Uno Venova
Banned
Not having the complete information means people get to make articles confirming what a shady mess this kickstarter is?
But it's not that simple.
We still don't have a clear answer about what Sonys stake in all this is. We don't really know how much of the funding will come from the kickstarter and how much will come from outside investors. It's *clearly* impossible to make a descent Shenmue sequel for 2-10 million, so where is the rest of the money coming from? Why is he stating that most of the funding will come from the kickstarter, when that seems totally impossible if Suzuki doesn't have some kind of wierd game dev sweatshop set up in a developing country somewhere?
In general, this whole ordeal needs way more transparency for me to be able to fund it with a clean conscience. I care about Shenmue, but care about not being mislead and/or milked for cash too.
Yeah, everything I've ks'd has followed the same path. Big announcement, big early returns. Lull in the middle, and another big upswell at the end
And no focused smear campaign by jaded fucks with their own agendas.
Thats just the way most kickstarter campaigns go it slows down very fast after the start
hows that? They should have known from the start that people will have conspiracy theory built up?
From the very beginning, Sony has said this is Suzuki's team game, not theirs. This was mentioned by everyone from Sony. And is completely different message then when Sony actually funds the game.
Besides, everyone did react pretty fast, this interview was done 3 days after KS started... Kaz said 2-3 days ago also that it is Suzuki's game, not theirs. It was also mentioned in original PS blog post if I remember correctly (or was it Adam who mentioned it in interview).
Absolutely. Kickstarter reach an halt point after the first few days of hype and then start t ramp up in the final 5-8 days of the campaign. Having reached 3.5 millions at this point is amazing! The 5 millions goal is easily reachable. 10 M impossible. And it was impossible right from the start.
I'm sorry. But this is the INTERNET, okay? Dramatic is how we do. Don't judge us. You judger.
publicpwnerer
Member
You mean the gaming press spun a narrative with zero evidence / based on the lack of current info, and the majority of idiots online lapped it up?
The one shot at seeing this game made, and now it has this dark cloud hanging over it. If you only read GAF, I can understand the sentiment, but go to any other gaming forum / site...and you'll the steaming pile of shit the press left.
I think they need to announce at least a digital port of the first two games,. To get more people interested in the series.
I'm very curious about this series, but I don't want to track down all the old hardware and discs necessary to play them. I'm sure there are many others that feel the same.
Yes, doesn't make sense. Probably they're not funding the game. Maybe helping with marketing and dev-kits, but that's it I think. The game would be probably exclusive if it was funded by Sony.
Real journalism should not base their work on rumors!
Nightengale
Member
Yup. Not every Kickstarter is like Bloodstained, where there's trinkets of new things every week.
There's some negative backlash, but once they make changes like new tiers, and have a bigger information sharing among other things, things will improve as per usual Kickstarter stuff.
Why do you need to know that? Detach yourself from all the noise and make the decision to fund or not a sequel to Shenmue in this day and age. Yu Suzuki is at the helm. Many of the original team members are included. The contractual details behind external third party sources are incidental.
I'm pretty surprised by the fact that most of the funds for Shenmue III are supposed to come from Kickstarter. It's a great funding source, but there's a strict limit to how much can be raised. This game might attract more attention than most, but was likely to top out at around $6M; maybe $7-8M at the very most. And if the game has to be made with limited funds, then it will have to be made with severe compromises. I do hope that Sony (or other financiers) will step up after the end of the Kickstarter and drop some big bucks on it.
A game relying on nostalgia as much as Shenmue was going to be a lot more front loaded than almost anything else. I imagine that most of the people willing to contribute have wanted to do so for a long time, so they weren't going to hesitate once given the opportunity.
Empyrean Heaven
Member
Nobody asked about a fucking physical release?
Reddit I am dissapoint!
More than usual!
Reddit I am dissapoint!
More than usual!
That's up to Sega, they still control the first 2 games.
There's no dark cloud. Let's examine the facts here:
1) 14 year old dead franchise sets a record for funding on Kickstarter
2) It's getting made
Here are some things working against it: the Kickstarter is not as well managed as Bloodstained's kickstarter. The tiering is poor. There is no physical PS4 version.
The kickstarter has slowed but so do all kick starters. Despite the impossibly evil revelation that Sony was involved (and then not really involved) yesterday, the game received 88k in donations yesterday. Bloodstained received 90k for the same time period during its funding cycle.
I think Yu needs to get some more tiers in there and I think he needs to bite the bullet on the PS4 version.
I do NOT think this has "ground to a halt". It ground to a halt off a ridiculously fast start. It may be more front loaded. It might not be.
What I do know is that absolutely embarrassing bullshit articles from EXTREMEGAMER are not contributing to a dark cloud hanging over the game. I wish everyone would stop being so insane about this. Contribute if you want to. Don't if you don't. Try and wait it out for better stretch goals and funding tiers if you prefer that.
Otherwise who gives a shit? I want to know what happens in this story and I'd pay $100 for a script. Most shenmue fans probably would too.
I would not fund it if I were you. You clearly have expectations for the final product as compared to others who just want ANY product. You are not being milked. That's embarrassing, don't say that shit. Jesus.
Adam Boyes (a little bit) explains Sony's role with Shenmue 3 : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dL198n2d0o
They did but I don't know if Yu replied.
They asked. He can't talk about it, most likely. Perhaps it's part of the Sony contract. Sony publishes the physical PS4 copies and gets a bigger portion of the revenue from those copies.
Having opaque messaging invites that type of stuff. When the flow of your announcement is someone at Sony's e3 conference introducing it with: "Now recently a developer told us they were bringing back a fan favorite Kickstarter to PC & PS4. Now this is very much their project, but we wanted to celebrate their announcement on our stage." And then later says: “We said ‘the only way this is gonna happen is if the fans speak up' We thought Kickstarter was the perfect place to do this. We set a goal of two million dollars, and if the fans come in and back it, then absolutely we’re going to make this a reality.” And now it's Sony simply threw them a bone, and much of the funding is still up to them/kickstarter to come up with.
A lot of narratives can be spun out of that over the course of A, B & C - especially since it unfolded over about a week. As I said before, if they were 100% transparent with the Kickstarter from Day 1 - a lot of the stuff that has occurred since it's announcement could have been avoided.
Cave Johnson
Member
I like how these concern troll articles use the budget strawman from previous games as the basis of their so-called controversy.
I thought these people are supposed to be aware that none of the kickstarter funding is and has been the full budget of the games they intend to release. And yet trying to isolate Shenmue like it has the production technology of the 90s. Good lord, at least Kuchera pointed out the advancement in today's technology to be factored in (makes me sick saying that).
I thought these people are supposed to be aware that none of the kickstarter funding is and has been the full budget of the games they intend to release. And yet trying to isolate Shenmue like it has the production technology of the 90s. Good lord, at least Kuchera pointed out the advancement in today's technology to be factored in (makes me sick saying that).
That would have been so much better.
But all of those things are true, and explicitly true. It is not their project. They are going to make it a reality (they are providing development and marketing support). YsNet reached their Kickstarter goal and the project is going to happen, with support from Sony as stated.
The only "narrative" now is regarding how MUCH game can be made on the budget they set. But that is something backers have to consider, not non-backers. If backers are comfortable with the project with the information they have, then this is not an issue of transparency. I have maintained this is an academic concern from the very beginning. The only real question for me was about risk transfer, but that is a different concern that I don't think anyone wants to talk about because it doesn't sound like "dark cloud" nonsense.
Everyone read into the "Sony is involved" nonsense three days ago and made up so much garbage regarding financing and risk that they do not understand or have details on. All of the details are out there.
What was stopping Suzuki from including a section on the kickstarter page letting people know that Sony wasn't giving them a huge amount of money and that kickstarter pledges were the majority of the funding? Then, you have the Sony guy coming out and making it sound like they were equal partners in the development of the game and just wanted to gauge interest before giving the money needed to make the best possible version of the game. If people want to get mad at anyone they need to get mad at Suzuki and Sony for not being clear on how the game was getting funded and Sony's role in the whole thing. And yeah, a lot of the backlash came from assumptions people were making but they invited those assumptions by not getting out in front and making things clear.
Better rewards and stretch goals will go a long way. Announcing a PS4 physical version would help alone.
alexandros
Banned
If this is true then I can't help but feel that Suzuki got screwed. He left out a platform, gave Sony console exclusivity and tons of goodwill by associating Shenmue 3 to the Playstation brand for what in the end sounds like a very small amount of funding, comparatively speaking.
This is what I don't understand, Sony is involved but they still want the majority of the funds to come from fans? Some posters were claiming that Sony was going to match whatever the kickstarter amount was. Are they only paying for exclusivity?
For the last 10 years everyone has blamed rising development costs for the death of many, many publishers and developers. Press and fan communities alike largely believe that every major 3D title has been more expensive than they were during the PS2 era. I think this is a relatively fair asumption, in most if not many cases. Just look at how the output on most Japanese franchises has slowed, and how the staff on most Western games has massively ballooned.
All of a sudden Shenmue comes along and everyone is like "Oh yeah, they can definitely make this game on a mere fraction of the original's budget!" I'm not really sure why this is. They will have a pre-made engine sure, but asset creation is still pretty massively expensive and the hallmark of the series tends to revolve around asset creation (open world & cinematics).
ShenmueNextGen
Neo Member
If Shenmue 3 is happening, then you know anything is possible!
And it will be possible if people who loves games keep being positive, support it monetarily as much as they can (because how great Shenmue 3 will be depends only on that), keep spreading the news around and encouraging fellows to support it.
We can do it!
And it will be possible if people who loves games keep being positive, support it monetarily as much as they can (because how great Shenmue 3 will be depends only on that), keep spreading the news around and encouraging fellows to support it.
We can do it!