The Jimquisition- Shenmue 3: The Good, The Bad, And The Iffy

[The Sam]

"It was an undeniably strong E3 2015 last week, with little room for upset. Unless you're a Metroid fan, obviously. After days of strong representation, exciting new games, Final Fantasy VII, and a PC showcase that lasted seventeen hours, it's time to get back down to earth.

Let's chat about Shenmue 3, shall we? The game tore the roof off the place when it was unveiled, but questions about its Kickstarter lie in the wake. Is this a good or a bad thing? Should it even be? Is it simply inflating a soon-to-burst crowdfund bubble?

The Jimquisition discusses. Because that's what we do, son."

(LANGUAGE WARNING)

[AFN: Judge Shred]

"This video has been removed by the User".

[andrew8798]

Looks like he had to redo the video

New video rendering. Don't worry, it's nothing too major. I just removed the outdated stuff and provided a better explanation of Sony's involvement.

What the Shenmue Defense Force *won't* like is the fact that the fresh edit allowed me to rail on Suzuki's "actually guys, we reeeeally need ten million" development. It's not like I am unfair or linger on it too much, but I'm glad I got to add it.

[AFN: Judge Shred]

Yeah, I found the updated one almost immediately.

[A Platypus Rave]

I will state that I do buy a bunch of random smaller kickstarters after making an account for a bigger one.

also the we really need 10 million dollars shouldn't be too out of nowhere... I mean Shenmue is notorious for going massively overbudget... but yeah it's still pretty dodgy to only ask for 2 million.

Especially, when it sounds like the 10 million dollars would be for what people expect from a Shenmue game.

[bigjohnsons]

It's not gonna be very good



As soon as I seen kickstarted I laughed

You people expect a kickstarter Action/ Adventure game to be any good ?

[Raskovnik]

The thing that irritates me the most about this entire Shenmue backlash is how uniformed it is and how on a basic level it doesn't make much sense. People seriously think the Kickstarter is a scam, like development was going to continue on this highly niche title that has NEVER EVER EVER been a financial success regardless of whether or not the fans bankrolled the $2 million, which is paltry compared to the enormous budgets of the past two games. Seriously. Do I need to impress upon any of you how little sense that makes? Oh, they could secure funding from outside sources with the success of this Kickstarter. That's f***ing awesome. Hey, remember Bloodstained, which did literally the same exact thing and was absurdly successful in its funding anyways? Where was everyone bitching about that?

It all took something that made me really happy, me finally getting closure for something I've waited fifteen years for, and turned it into this ugly thing where people who don't know jack shit about the series nor care about it or the circumstances surrounding the campaign and still attack it anyways just because there wasn't anything else on the docket for gamers to attack this week. That's the worst thing about it for me. It's nothing but phony f***ing outrage from people this doesn't even affect and it's complete bullshit that there's a "scandal" in the first place. I spit on all of it.

[A Platypus Rave]

It was slightly different with Bloodstained.

Bloodstained up front stated that they had other funding but needed to prove that there was interest.

Shenmue asked for 2 million to show interest and wants 10 million to fully realize it's concept.

Bloodstained only wanted half a million to prove it and at it's biggest fully realized concept was like 2.75 million, .75 million more than Shenmue wanted just to be successfully funded.

Furthermore the most successful game on Kickstarter only received 8.7 million dollars, the highest video game was 5.5 million...

so going for the full Shenmue experience they'd need to be the fourth highest funded thing in Kickstarter history... and that's a stupidly lofty goal for something that while a lot of people want is still very much a niche product.

[Ganon83]

Meanwhile...
www.trustinplay.com/2015/06/22/project-cars-2-announced-11-million-crowdfunding/

[Raskovnik]

Jun 23, 2015 11:46:29 GMT -5 A Platypus Rave said:

It was slightly different with Bloodstained.

Bloodstained up front stated that they had other funding but needed to prove that there was interest.

Shenmue asked for 2 million to show interest and wants 10 million to fully realize it's concept.

Bloodstained only wanted half a million to prove it and at it's biggest fully realized concept was like 2.75 million, .75 million more than Shenmue wanted just to be successfully funded.

Furthermore the most successful game on Kickstarter only received 8.7 million dollars, the highest video game was 5.5 million...

so going for the full Shenmue experience they'd need to be the fourth highest funded thing in Kickstarter history... and that's a stupidly lofty goal for something that while a lot of people want is still very much a niche product.

Surely you understand that their required budgets are completely different due to the genre, as are the circumstances. Of course the amount they ask for would differ. They're never going to reach the ten million anyways, especially not with this ill-informed backlash casting a dark cloud over it. Development for this game is going to be very expensive if the previous two titles are any indication, and the series has always been a financial albatross. That part is the most critical to understand yet no one seems to know it. For example, the original Shenmue was such a money pit that in order for the game to turn a profit literally every single Dreamcast owner would have had to buy a copy twice. Now, knowing that, does it really seem like such a stretch that broke-ass Sony or any other publisher might be a bit hesitant to throw their hat into that ring? But with this Kickstarter and the fans tossing as much as they can towards it the opportunities for securing more outside funding grow and that is nothing but a good thing for someone like me who just wants CLOSURE and for the game to be as good as he can make it.

I'm just thankful that the Shenmue fans like myself, the people who this ostensibly affects more than anyone else, were given the opportunity to put their money where their mouth is and show that they don't just want to live in a world where Shenmue 3 exists, they're actually willing to pay to make it happen come hell or high water. Or whatever bullshit conspiracy people cook up since it's much more fun to believe there's a shadowy cabal that's giving Yu Suzuki tons of dough but they all want to scam us anyways because uh...somehow...uh....

I'm not trying to be hostile with anyone. This whole thing just really irritates me because not only do people not know what they're talking about, but it actually directly affects me getting the game I want because fact-checking and researching have never been truly relevant to the arena of gaming controversies. Not when there's something to point pitchforks at. And the most disturbing thing to me is that if people are spreading and readily believing this much misinformation, doing so little fact-checking and blindly believing whatever a gaming pundit or Reddit says because it's "more believable" or a better story over something as inconsequential in the grand scheme of things as a video game, imagine how they are with everything else.

[monstermike87]

Basically it's people bitching for no reason. Most video game kickstarters end up being partially funded by publishers at this point anyway and the kickstarter was just around to see if people wanted it. Hell, Sony said 2 years ago they wanted to get Shenmue 3 done. The problem with the game is that it's a money pit. Hence the kickstarter.

Useless internet rage at it's finest.

I can't wait for the change.org petition to cancel Shenmue 3. haha

[AFN: Judge Shred]

Jun 24, 2015 21:29:46 GMT -5 monstermike87 said:

Basically it's people bitching for no reason. Most video game kickstarters end up being partially funded by publishers at this point anyway and the kickstarter was just around to see if people wanted it. Hell, Sony said 2 years ago they wanted to get Shenmue 3 done. The problem with the game is that it's a money pit. Hence the kickstarter.

Useless internet rage at it's finest.

I can't wait for the change.org petition to cancel Shenmue 3. haha

There are a few groups trying to get people to pull their funding.

[Bo Rida]

I'm really not sure I would class Shenmue as a niche game.

It's problems came from the stupidly large budget, Sega's demise and the sequel moving consoles.
The first game still sold 1.2m copies which put it amongst the Dreamcast's top sellers.

With the reputation it's built up, Sony behind it and the larger install base of both the PS4 and PC I'm sure it would at least be comparable with the bottom half of the big PS3 sellers (many of which were of course multi-platform).

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_video_games#PlayStation_3

Of course I'm also assuming they'll do a better job of keeping the budget under control. It cost so much as it was almost uniquely ambitious back in the day but there are plenty of comparable modern day games.

[Jiren]

People complained about FREE Reptile

People just like to complain, I'm just stoked Shenmue 3 is coming out at long last (14 years dammit)