Shenmue III sales flopped

New Yorks Finest said:
There was no passion and love in poured this project..just a quick pieced together gm by students fresh off the arts school
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Sure... a game of that scope and detail made on a shoestring budget had no passion or love poured into it. I forgot UE4 had a make me a Shenmue blueprint in it. I am not impressed by threads trying to dance on a game's grave lol... the supposedly intended PC audience betrayed by having the game delivered on EGS instead of Steam, definition of overdone drama IMHO...
 
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The game is there for a certain demographic; people who want to have the authentic Shenmue experience and a continuation of the saga. It was never meant to attain mass appeal.
 
I love how everyone has such a big reaction to it, gets everyone worked up in list wars, and then doesn't buy or play the game when it releases.
 
I forgot I'd even backed the kickstarter for it, my download code is still sitting in my inbox, if I can stop being a lazy arse I might actually get round to installing it.

As for sales, no surprise really. Niche game overall, and let's face it the primary audience is I+II players, and how many people are going to be arsed to get the £24.99 re-releases to catch up? Not many I suspect.
 
They should have just resolved the story here, was it necessary to set up for a sequel for a game that's been dead for ~20 years?
 
Kagey K said:
I love how everyone has such a big reaction to it, gets everyone worked up in list wars, and then doesn't buy or play the game when it releases.
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Bought it as part of the Kickstarter, like many or most of the intended audience, and bought another copy at launch (alongside Shenmue I + Shenmue II) for my brother. Speak for yourself :P.
 
Panajev2001a said:
At least we will have a lot less complaints about it and excitement when people "re-discover" it on GamePass ;).
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Oh I know. It's always the same cycle.

Console timed exclusive comes out on PS first: certain people trash it.
Console exclusivity expires, Xbox port is announced (to the surprise of no one with a clue): certain people express sudden curiousity - "Oh, I might try it!"
Game comes out on Xbox: certain people act "pleasantly surprised", try to call it "a new launch, like it's a new game", probably because on their minds, that's how "it should have always been". And of course, now the game suddenly gained redeeming qualities and can be called "good".

See: No Man's Sky.
 
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A niche boring game for the 100 fans of the saga remained on the planet bombed??

giphy.gif
 
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What a stupid take.

The game was already successful years ago when it made its Kickstarter goal, and even more so as plenty more people pledged through the additional campaign.

Of course, its sales are going to be lower, since most of those who wanted the game already "purchased" it years ago.

The only "flop" I see here are poor "journalists" writing despicable clickbait while ignoring this simple fact.

GymWolf said:
A niche boring game for the 100 fans of the saga remained on the planet bombed??
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Your math is way off, apparently, just as your logic.
 
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Abriael_GN said:
What a stupid take.

The game was already successful years ago when he made its Kickstarter goal, and even more so as plenty more people pledged.

Of course, its sales are going to be lower, since most of those who wanted the game already "purchased" it years ago.



Your math is way off, apparently, just as your logic.
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Sorry, 101 fans with you included, my bad :lollipop_grinning_sweat:
 
Well duh, Shenmue fucking sucks. And I say this as someone who likes Shenmue.

There is almost nothing in the series that I can defend as appealing to the average gamer in 2019. It's tedious, repetitive, poorly-acted, unsatisfying, clichéd nonsense.

For a Sega/AM2/Yu Suzuki junkie like myself though, who can enjoy an autistically-detailed detective story only slightly mechanically deeper than the average visual novel, it's great. But I'm no doubt representing a very tiny fraction of gamers out there.
 
iconmaster iconmaster it's over. Dreams ain't coming out this year. If it did (and this didn't wasn't a wet fart) I might've stood a chance. Good game! We should try again for contenders for 2020, the other guys gave up.
 
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I would say the game is for the fans of the first 2 games and doesn't necessarily aim at new players. I think it is just a great fan service and I would assume the production value was pretty low.

If you consider that Shenmue back in the day was the most expensive game ever produced it is clear that Shenmue III will not be able to achieve what Shenmue did back in 1999.

PS: Did a quick search. Shenmue had a budget of $ 47 million in 1999 while Shenmue III budget was $ 20 million.
 
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Reading this thread it seems people is having great time and enjoying the fact that the games is floping, This is so sad...
 
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Keeping with the series tradition.

I'm glad longtime fans finally got their conclusion to the series, at least. Now please shut up about the game.
 
It's disappointing to see that he didn't even finish the story. Suzuki had one goddamn job with this.

Even a truncated sprint to the end would have been fine, because now the perspectives of ever seeing a Shenmue 4 are very low.
 
It's all too easy to hate on Shenmue 3 when you never played the first two. Maybe some of you even feel entitled to?
 
I called it a long time ago.

It's what I call, the Mirror's Edge effect. When a vocal minority makes something look more popular than it actually is.
 
This thread is exactly why I'm glad they took Epic's money, a bunch of poser Shenmue fans butthurt about the shift to EGS when they weren't going to buy the game anyway. The negativity almost had me thinking I wouldn't like the game.

Series was always going to have a niche audience. Biggest thing I'm sad about is that they didn't finish the story. Hopefully they have enough assets to continue the series with a smaller budget, and hopefully Sega allows them to finish.
 
Well, it's not surprising.
Shenmue was never a series that sells large volumes.
It's a niche product aimed at it's fans. Outside of them, it's hardly a game that will win over nbewcomers with it's dated mechanics, graphics and production.
And it had very low marketing budget. Realistically, you can't expect to rely on a couple of launch trailers, reviews and word of mouth to sell your game these days.
The same problem with marketing is with Yakuza series. They are extremely high quality games ruined by Sega's god awful marketing.
 
That's actually kinda sad. People were jumping up and down. Some looked like they could cry. I remember the days of ShenMue too and even I was kinda thrown back by how overly excited everyone was. All that money went to the Kickstarter and the game flopped on store shelves. Everyone likes to be involved in the feeling of nostalgia, but not everyone wants to pay for it.
 
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