Unrealistic costs has me worried
Posted: Fri Jun 26, 2015 10:49 am
Ok first let me say I'm a huge Shenmue fan. It's what drove me to buy a DC back in 2000 even though I had been a die hard PS1 fan (Something I still don't regret). And I was as charged as anyone when the announcement came at E3. But something about this Kickstarter is really worrying me.
Fair enough we knew 2 million was just a signal of intent to be brokered as part of negotiations with possible investors. And I have no problem with companies adding extra stretch goals once it's been funded. But in this instance the goals just seem completely over estimated. Not to mention there seems to be a rather large chunk of the game essentially hinging on extra funding. This would make sense if the game was completely reliant of KS. But given KS is supposedly a "hype booster" and the core money is coming from elsewhere. How can entire area's of the game be solely the responsibility of KS?
One idea is the money the company thought they would have based on the 2 million raised didn't get finalized. Which in essence would kill the project anyway given the cost of previous titles (I know they don't have to build engine etc. But games and promo cost a hell of lot more today). Are at least force them to break the 11 chapter story into smaller chunks. Possibly using an episode based model.
This is also supported by the utterly nonsense goal cost set for foreign language subtitles. Take Portuguese for example.
$900,000 - Quoted
$0.15c - Exaggerated cost per word of translation - http://search.proz.com/employers/rates
350 words per page times exaggerated amount of pages 5000 (This is more that all 5 game of thrones books together)
So that's 350(w)*5000(p)=1,750,000(w)
Then $0.15*1,750,000=$262,500
That's nearly 3.5 times as much as a pretty liberal cost assessment. This really has me worried about either a)Do they really have a firm understanding of what this game will cost. And b)Do they really have anywhere near enough to make something on a scale a true sequel deserves. Honestly if this game gets cancelled I would be pretty hurt. Its most definitely rated in my top 5 all time franchises. But I would be equally hurt if they make a poor man's excuse for Shenmue III to just cash in on the hype.
What do you guys as hardcore fans of the series think? I'm I seeing something that isn't there?
Fair enough we knew 2 million was just a signal of intent to be brokered as part of negotiations with possible investors. And I have no problem with companies adding extra stretch goals once it's been funded. But in this instance the goals just seem completely over estimated. Not to mention there seems to be a rather large chunk of the game essentially hinging on extra funding. This would make sense if the game was completely reliant of KS. But given KS is supposedly a "hype booster" and the core money is coming from elsewhere. How can entire area's of the game be solely the responsibility of KS?
One idea is the money the company thought they would have based on the 2 million raised didn't get finalized. Which in essence would kill the project anyway given the cost of previous titles (I know they don't have to build engine etc. But games and promo cost a hell of lot more today). Are at least force them to break the 11 chapter story into smaller chunks. Possibly using an episode based model.
This is also supported by the utterly nonsense goal cost set for foreign language subtitles. Take Portuguese for example.
$900,000 - Quoted
$0.15c - Exaggerated cost per word of translation - http://search.proz.com/employers/rates
350 words per page times exaggerated amount of pages 5000 (This is more that all 5 game of thrones books together)
So that's 350(w)*5000(p)=1,750,000(w)
Then $0.15*1,750,000=$262,500
That's nearly 3.5 times as much as a pretty liberal cost assessment. This really has me worried about either a)Do they really have a firm understanding of what this game will cost. And b)Do they really have anywhere near enough to make something on a scale a true sequel deserves. Honestly if this game gets cancelled I would be pretty hurt. Its most definitely rated in my top 5 all time franchises. But I would be equally hurt if they make a poor man's excuse for Shenmue III to just cash in on the hype.
What do you guys as hardcore fans of the series think? I'm I seeing something that isn't there?