Himuro wrote:we always had similar tastes for alternative gaming styles (both Killer 7 fans for instance).

Nice namedrop on Killer 7. I love that game! It's one of my favourite games of the sixth generation.

There really isin't time for making videos and trying to get the attention of any new backers now. We need to solely focus on the final blow and the final week of the Kickstarter. Getting the attention of all who have pledged or any Shenmue fans apart, getting them to notice this last push to try and exceed high numbers and gain the highest total we can possibly achieve because at this rate we won't even beat Bloodstained when this game realisticly shits all over that in terms of epicness.

I disagree. Now is exactly the right time to try and gain new backers. There will be plenty of fence sitters and people who haven't pledged who will pledge at the last minute, with the right marketing.

Imo, appealing to the existing pledgers won't give the game the maximum push it needs. It's like preaching to the converted. Nearly everyone who really cares has already pledged the maximum they can. The 30 on the 3rd campaign probably already stretched backers as far as they are willing to go.

Incoming:

$560 tier - Become an author in the local library - find your book in the library and receive a special reward.

$833 tier - Have your name featured in a special pathway. Find your name and receive a 'winning can'

$971 tier (20 available) - Have your excrement featured in the game. When you've got to go, you've got to go! Each time Ryo has to do his business, a special backer's stinky poo will be featured in the game.

$2,245 tier (40 available) - Have your name featured within one of the many arcade machine's score board.

$2,390 tier (7 available) - Have your lucky underpants featured within the game. As Ryo awakes in the morning, you will have the choice of which special backer's underpants to wear. "Let' get sweaty".

$3,560 tier (5 available) - Have your photo featured on Shenhua's bedroom wall in an exclusive poster

$4,700 tier (1 available) - Have Ryo's penis designed after your own. When Ryo decides to "get sweaty" with Nozomi or Shenhua, your penis will be featured in an exclusive scene

$6,100 tier (1 available) - Have Ryo's outfit modeled and designed entirely by you. Choose Ryo's socks, shoes, pants, tshirt and jacket.

$8,200 tier (3 available) - Have your artwork featured in a special temple

I don't have a problem with Kickstarter. I've never been burned by them or publishers as I've never contributed before Shenmue 3. But I wouldn't put money into ANYTHING that I would lose sleep over if it never panned out. I really don't see PayPal bringing in very much money but I could be wrong. It would be contingent upon people getting the same rewards as Kickstarter backers get.

Kickstarter get 5% and it's fair enough, they're a business.

Sit in a darkened room, with plenty of fluids and food, stare at the Shenmue Dojo and press 'F5' or 'CTRL + R' every 5 seconds until something happens.

Nintendo. Dying since 1990.

I hate to be a cynical, factious bastard, but welcome to the real world.

That's just what happens. The second something happens and the request for money occurs, people go quiet. The thought of "well it's not like my money will really make a difference anyways" sets in.

but now we have to worry about getting a stripped-down version of the game due to lack of funding,

Did Yu Suzuki say that or are you just making an assumption there? Funny, because I could have sworn Yu Suzuki had said that even at $2M, Shenmue 3 would be a follow up worthy of its name :roll:

No one’s assuming anything: just take a look at the stretch goals to see what you’d be missing at only $2 million. :roll:

What do you mean look at the stretch goals? They're vague as fuck. Someone asked Yu if the 'Part Time Jobs' stretch goal wasn't met, would that meant we wouldn't get part time jobs in Shenmue 3 and he responded that we would get part time jobs regardless. What is "advanced free battle"? Someone asked Yu and he said it would make the battle system more developed than Shenmue 1 and 2. Does this mean that without it, the fighting would be on a par with Shenmue 1 and 2? If so, I don't really care. Or does it mean the free battles would suck and be stripped down? No one knows. And as for the areas being expanded, again, that is vague. What does the areas being expanded mean? Will it matter in the grand scheme of things? What size would they be without stretch goals? We have no context to make comparison.

You're just making assumptions.

Dudes, chill out.

Mass Effect 2 sold by the bucket load on PS3, despite the first being exclusive to the 360 (at the time). Just sayin'...

What would be cool, too, is if they gave you a choice of NTSC-U, NTSC-J and PAL cases and designs to choose from. The PAL cases would cost a little more to produce, unfortunately, but I would love a PAL case, since I'm from the UK and, despite their fragility, I love the PAL cases.

You are not authorised to read this forum.

I looked my bank account(s). Ugh, I really can't afford to pledge anymore. I threw an extra $6 as a token measure and because that other dude said if we all put in at least $6 each we'd get to $6million. It's worth doing all we can.

I wish I could have put in more money though. If this was a year ago, I would have put in thousands :cry:

I am lost for words... I don't even know what to type. SHENMUE 3!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

The_Intruder wrote:

TwiceFriedRice wrote:

redline wrote: wow Kickstarter is going into melt down. dare i say.... 7mil??

Not with 12 minutes to go.

Unless someone pledges 700k.

That might be difficult since the maximum you are allowed to pledge is 10K

With 6.3 in one month anything is possible within 2 years of on-going PayPal support, Shenmue fans always give it their all.

They won't leave Paypal open for 2 years. Usually games leave a late backer option open for a limited time. They need to know what amount of money they're working with. They can't suddenly start to decide expanding the game in two years time because a new stretch goal is met.

Bloodstained received 90% of its funds through private investment and openly admitted after the campaign ended that the Kickstarter was used to gauge interest, so I don't know why Shenmue 3 has gotten so much shit for it (especially as no one actually knows any of the facts and much of the speculation has been proven false).

But still, I would love if we got a lot of private investment. If this 20m is true, I will be happy. It would be awesome if it secured even more investment now that the KS was such a success and a record breaker.

Don't bother checking your banks. The payments don't show up instantly, nor will they show at the weekend. The money will leave the bank on Monday. Just check your emails to see if Kickstarter has processed your payment successfully.

Don't bother checking your banks. The payments don't show up instantly, nor will they show at the weekend. The money will leave the bank on Monday. Just check your emails to see if Kickstarter has processed your payment successfully.

Thank you for saving me the trouble of refreshing my online bank every 10 minutes.

You will be able to see if the bank has allocated the payment though. Just look to see if the "available balance" is lower than your "current balance".

If for example, your current balance says $3,200, you pledged $1,000 and your available balance show as $2,200, then you know your money is being processed.

This is what those people want to see:

I have shit loads of shirts, but they don't need washing after every wear. Not unless it's like at least 25 degrees out there.

I honestly don't know anyone who only wears clothes once. That's just weird.

I wouldn't worry about it. People are fucking morons.

To quote Peep Show; "people like Coldplay and voted for the Nazis. Don't trust people."

It's coming! Have some patience and decorum. No offence, but who the fuck cares? Some of you are going to miserable people to hang with over the next 2-3 years. Shenmue 3 is happening, after 14 years of waiting, we finally fucking did it! We're getting the game we thought we'd never ever see and here we are arguing over the most trivial of things.

Most games on Kickstarter don't have trailers. At best, they might have some concept art that, more often than not, doesn't show anything that will resemble actual gameplay.

It's to be expected when development hasn't even begun...

People are dumb though. They don't realise this or, more than likely, they do, but they just want to hate on something they don't get.

The amount of anger around this place will be hilarious when the reviews come in.

I think it will be fairly well received personally.

That's stretching things. Shenmue has always been divisive. If the game honors the series legacy, expect a lot of negative reviews.

Yup. Especially if it stays rigidly to its roots and fails to "modernise" enough.

It's fine. The physical PS4 version got announced later and, for legal reasons, they can't edit tiers once they have gone live and people have pledged. Every tier above 60 will allow you to choose a physical PS4 version if you wish.

We were aware of the situation in Greece a while before the campaign ended though. Greek fans shouldn't have even attempted to pledge (hopefully they didn't) or should have cancelled their pledges once it came out that money won't be leaving the country.

As for the taxes and foreign currency fees etc., everyone should have been aware of those expenses. It's standard practice.

Cool.

Am I the only one slightly annoyed by the lazy fucks who are like "Oh gee, my payment says it's declined, guess I'll just wait until Paypal is allowed"?

Yeah, or you could just get off your arse and phone your bank and sort it out! Or try another account.

Is Gamespot a good website for gaming? No. No, it isn't.

Sonic Boom: PC Edition incoming....

ConanTheKing wrote: I hope we get some Playstation capsule toys, but it might break immersion getting Sackboy and Nathan Drake in the 80s.

But getting Sonic, Amy Rose, Knuckles, NiGHTS, Virtual Fighters, Alex Kidd and Ryo owning a Sega Saturn didn't?

Joel Tess; what a freaking legend.

Haha the gaming media is actually laughable. Wow, a business offering to provide goods in exchange for consumer's cash? Those evil bastards! And sure, let's ignore the fact 'Slacker Backer' options are normal for nearly all Kickstarters... Idiots.

Just be prepared for the reviews guys.

IGN: "This is no COD" 5/10
Gamespot: "Not enough violence" 4/10

What if Shenmue 3 was exclusive to the Dreamcast instead?

How would you have felt if you went onto the Shenmue 3 Kickstarter page back in June and saw the below images?

In this hypothetical scenario, Shenmue 3 would have run on an improved version of the engine used in Shenmue 1 and 2. It would allow you to import your save files from Shenmue 1 and 2. It would be featured on 4 discs and be region free (although Kickstarter backers would have the choice of PAL, NTSC-U and NTSC-J designs in special "backer only" cases. It would contain a consistent 'feel' and translate all of the features Shenmue fans loved from the original two games.

To some of you who have moved on since the Dreamcast, this whole scenario would sound ridiculous. But to those of you who are still keen Dreamcast enthusiasts and retro gamers, you're probably aware that Indie developers are constantly still working on and releasing new Dreamcast games to this day, so you'll know it's not an entirely ridiculous proposal (apart from the fact, a couple of months ago, the idea of Shenmue 3 ever seeing the light of day seemed ridiculous).

So what do you think?

Edit: Please try and forget about financials and sales etc, and just discuss how you would have felt as a fan of the series.

Credit goes to who arranged the original artwork. It was not me, I saw it somewhere else and I just used it to make conceptual Dreamcast case artwork.

https://i.imgur.com/jnhnb3t.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/GNwkPhx.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/4bHxWGE.jpg

240p for that classic Youtube circa 2005 vibe

I'm sorry, but I see Yu not playing games and keeping up with trends as only a good thing.

I want Shenmue 3 to feel consistent with the style of the first 2 games. I agree with Yu that it's better to have your own vision and not let yourself become to heavily influenced by other games.

We should be positive and understand that every little helps.

I'm pretty sure they're busy working on the game and right now the Paypal campaign is not a huge concern. They have their funding to work with and they're treating anything extra now as icing on the cake.

There's really nothing inherently wrong with that... Reviving Shenmue is a big task and this is now an Indie project. Resources and time are limited and I'm sure Yu Suzuki and his team are working as hard as they can.

Thinking about new rewards and marketing ideas may seem like a good idea, but I'm sure Yu Suzuki wishes to put his time and energy into completing the best game he can, with the budget he has and not have to then worry about the manufacturing of other merchandise for backers.

It's best to accept the funding that has been raised and be happy that all our dreams of Shenmue 3 happening is now a reality. I don't think stewing and getting angry because you think raising more money would be a piece of cake (it wouldn't be) will help.

And for the record, I can't think of any Slacker Backer campaigns that had huge marketing campaigns, lots of new reward tiers and made loads of money. They're usually treated as an added extra there for people who missed out in the original campaign.

(This is not directed at you, Hyo. Just saying.)

The slacker backer campaign was never meant to bring in another $6.000.000, now was it? A few very loud people in the Kickstarter comments and on message boards/Youtube/Facebook were desperately screaming at the top of their lungs for the option to give money via Paypal, and they got that option. And that's all it was and is, another payment option for everyone being late to the party. The vast majority of people willing to give money to this did so during the 30 days of the Kickstarter campaign. It's really no big deal. Yu was willing to make the game with $2.000.000 from the crowd. Now he's doing it with almost $6.500.000. I don't get why people are shitting their pants over this.

Generally speaking I don't get why 90% of you guys are shitting their pants over pretty much everything that's happening or not happening. You keep worrying so much and asking for so much more than is reasonable to ask for, instead of simply being pleased for once. We have so much reason to be pleased, yet you somehow manage to see the worst in everything, again and again. Isn't that exhausting?

Well said. QFT. /thread

To be fair, who gives a fuck about the survey? I get why they feel the need to do it, but I couldn't give a shit whether Paypal backers get the same rewards or not.

The bastard in me would love it if those of us who weren't lazy bastards and actually backed the proper campaign get our 'Kickstarter exclusives', since, without us, there wouldn't even be a Shenmue 3 or a second campagin. But then the socialist hero in me says 'fuck it, let's give Shenmue awesomeness to all that pledge'.

But seriously, I don't care. Regardless, Shenmue 3 is fucking happening!

That's because, for most people, the campaign is over. It's time to for the game to enter development (which it has) and time for us to await the game. 99% of people who care enough about Shenmue 3, will have already pledged money and the massive amount of hyper created back in June cannot be maintained.

The Paypal slacker backer is good for those who are late to the party and it will allow some additional money to trickle in, but anyone who thought it would generate millions of dollars, even if there was a better marketing campaign behind it, is sadly mistaken.

Call me a heretic, but they definitely need to be changed if there's any hope for Shenmue IV. People aren't going to like a game with controls from 1999.

Using the trigger to sprint/run isn't exactly old-fashioned and archaic though, is it? They could use dual analogue stick control for movement and the left or right trigger for running. I can imagine it feeling fairly natural and modern. I seriously don't want Shenmue to implement an 'auto-run' system or anything.

The Kickstarter Exclusive Rewards only applies to rewards like the phone card, which were marketed as "Kickstarter Exclusive".

In their defence, do you know how much of a backlash some companies have faced when they've marketed something as "kickstarter exclusive" and then they turned around and offered it on Paypal or whatever? They want to avoid that...

Btw, why blame Awesome Japan? You really think they have that much power? This decision would have been made after a meeting/consultation between all the relevant parties involved in Shenmue 3. Don't be naive.

Oh boy.... when the media hears about this, they're gonna rip Shenmue 3 a new one.

''Shenmue III developers scam Paypal pledgers from giving them exclusive items''
Even if I have zero confidence in gaming press, that would stray into outright lying. Nobody got scammed, it's just Awesome Japan ignoring the democratic will of the backers in two polls because they are afraid of backlash from a higher than expected percentage of backers.

Exactly. All that has happened is... nothing has changed.

I agree, it's pretty shitty. They should have at least stated before the poll that if "yes" doesn't get at least 'x'% of the poll, that nothing would change. Announcing that 'yes' won, but because 'no' still got a lot of votes they're not going to add any of the Kickstarter exclusives, is pretty bad.