So awesome to see this get attention. This is only the beginning im sure. Here's hoping many years from now we all have DOA5 with every Shenmue character imported. Then we have an all out online slugfest.

Main Shenmue Scrolls Thread
viewtopic.php?f=37&t=48824

Took me at least 3 tries, and then I remembered reading something about a trick QTE in Shenmue 2 and the possibility dawned on me. Had I not been inadvertently tipped off, who knows how many more times would I have failed.

http://i.imgur.com/OR68l7n.png

Shenmue 3 Funding and Budget Statement
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ysnet/shenmue-3

There have been many questions concerning Shenmue 3’s budget and what outside sources will be added to the money collected through Kickstarter. I apologize for not having been more forthright in this area and would like to take this opportunity to help clarify the situation.

Ys Net and I have been putting in many long years trying to find a way to bring back a sequel that so many fans have waited so long for. After learning of Kickstarter, I knew it would be possible to get Shenmue 3 started. Wanting to make the best game possible, I also knew that I would have to look to more traditional means to obtain all the funds that would be needed to create the game I had envisioned.

Sony and Shibuya Productions have been wonderful partners because they believe in Shenmue and want to see the best for the fans and the game. Their investment in (and support of) Shenmue have helped to realize a sequel that will stand proud with its predecessors. While it is not business practice to discuss the specific details of such arrangements, I can say that with their assistance on the production and marketing end, and in Sony’s case with some publishing support as well, Ys Net is able to use more of the money we collect through Kickstarter purely for Shenmue 3’s development. It is also important to note that your funds are going strictly to Ys Net for development of Shenmue 3 – Sony and Shibuya Productions are not seeing a cent of your Kickstarter dollars.

The outpouring of support from all of you, the backers, has been so inspirational. I cannot thank you enough. Having reached our funding goal, I am excited to say that the Shenmue story will go on, and our journey with Ryo and Shenhua will continue. Fans will be able to enjoy the sequel they have waited so long for, and newcomers to the series will be introduced to a unique gaming experience.

Of course, like with any Kickstarter, additional funding will only help us make a better game. On top of everything Shenmue 3 will already bring, the Stretch Goals that I have laid out will add extra quests, events, and new gameplay systems that will make the game even more immersive and take the series to the next level. At the $5 million mark, there will be an all new gameplay feature I would be excited to be able to add to the Shenmue legacy. If we should make the $10 million Stretch Goal, a much larger, completely open world will be yours to explore.

Even if these Stretch Goals are not reached, Shenmue 3 will already be a sequel true to its name, and one we can all be proud of. It is my hope though, that together we can make this Shenmue just as revolutionary as the first two were.

I understand this statement may by late in coming. Going forward, we wish to be as open as possible concerning the game’s development. I would like to again ask for your cooperation and support in helping make Shenmue 3 the best that it can be.

Sincerely, Yu Suzuki


People think that Sony/Suzuki are using the Kickstarter to gauge interest, and after hitting 2 Million, Sony will step up and fund it. This is what many people believe (Thanks to misinformation from NeoGAF), and as a result, the Kickstarter pledges have slowed down considerably.

I imagine non-hardcore fans would be like " Why do I have to pledge more than $29 when Sony is going to fund it anyway? "

HOWEVER , it turns out Sony isn't really funding the game... They are just helping with the funding. In fact, Yu Suzuki has other sources of funding (Sony included) already secured, but he said he expect the majority of the budget to come from Kickstarter. Meaning Sony's not helping them by that much.

If we want to see a proper Shenmue 3, we must overfund the Kickstarter. And to do that, we should clear up this misunderstanding first so that non-fans would pledge.

Post this in whatever forum you frequent (Preferably NeoGAF, as it's quite influental on gaming media).

Sources:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2015-06-22-yu-suzuki-needs-usd10-million-to-make-a-truly-open-world-shenmue-3
http://i.imgur.com/2dYswc4.png

http://www.engadget.com/2015/06/17/an-intimate-chat-with-sony-playstation-shuhei-yoshida/ (Sony's Yoshida)
http://i.imgur.com/WhDkpyN.png

https://twitter.com/CedricBiscay/status/6125040776589230https://twitter.com/CedricBiscay/status/61250407765892300808

http://i.imgur.com/gTZFmLI.png

Kickstarter Money going to Developers. Not Sony. (Dan Hsu - Sony Employee)
https://twitter.com/DanShoeHsu/status/612461118326345728

Cedric Biscay Tweet (Sony only funding PS4 port from PC)
https://twitter.com/CedricBiscay/status/612352032851259392

- Adam Boyes says there providing "Some Funding"
- Yu Suzuki says the majority of investment will be from Kickstarter.
- Sony's john drake confirms that Sony are not the only ones providing additional funding (at 15:48)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dL198n2d0o -Adam Boyes explains Sony's role with Shenmue 3

Last but not least, a quote from Kickstarter campaign it self:

The more we can raise during this campaign, the more Shenmue 3 will come alive. Together, we can make it happen. Together, we can make a Shenmue that surpasses even the originals!

I've seen idiots posting the same thing about Sony footing the entire development cost on Eurogamer, IGN and even in the Kickstarter comments. I'm doing my best to try to convince them otherwise but it's not sinking in. :roll:
Naturally, anything that produces drama will stick around, even if it's debunked. But we gotta do our best, the clock is ticking!

- Yu Suzuki says the majority of investment will be from Kickstarter.

It takes a bit of imagination to infer this sentence from your source.





Adam Boyes has conveyed in two or three occasions that Sony is backing the project substantially.

We're getting behind it in a major way

^ I imagine through promotion and other types of support, not necessarily funding.

As I've said in a previous thread, the fact of the matter is, NONE OF US know exactly how much external funding this game is getting. It's all speculation at the moment, that's as much as we do know!

Until that time comes, all we have is the KickStarter, that's the only thing at the moment that is giving us real monetary values!

That's why we cannot assume that others are heavily funding this game until we know for sure. From the sounds of things we will never know for sure.

Therefore we MUST keep promoting the KickStarter and getting the word out there. That's the only option we have. We can't take the risk of making assumptions that others are behind this heavily!

As I've said in a precious thread, the fact of the matter is, NONE OF US know exactly how much external funding this game is getting. It's all speculation at the moment, that's as much as we do know!

Until that time comes, all we have is the KickStarter, that's the only thing at the moment that is giving us real monetary values! That's why we cannot assume that others are heavily funding this game until we know for sure. From the sounds of things we will never know for sure.

Therefore we MUST keep promoting the KickStarter and getting the word out there.
No matter how much you promote the Kickstarter, if the average gamer thinks a Multi-Billion corporation is footing the bill, why would he pledge? First we must clear this misunderstanding, then promote.

None of us know the exact amount of external funding, but we know Suzuki is expecting the majority of the budget to come from Kickstarter. This (and Sony executives comments) give clear indication that external funding isn't as much as people would like to believe.

Remember when we didn't have to worry about this shit and when Shenmue 3 wasn't being made? Man... those were the days... wondering if we'd ever get a game. Instead, the project has been funded and Yu Suzuki has full creative control on the project. But at what cost? .... at what cost?

i think sony will support the game but the degree to which they will do so is dependent on how well the kick starter does.

the kick starter is SUPER SUPER important. negotiations with other funders is by no means complete, so if the kickstarter does super well it will give potential investors more confidence to commit further funding.

In all honesty we need to keep donating what we can.

This is the only chance that we are going to get. It's time to put our money where our mouth is. If we raise a lot then I'm sure it will give a lot of confidence to Sony and the other backers.

Delayed double post? What's this?

C'mon people, I thought posting here I would find unconditional support, but all I see is cynicism...

You definitely do have support mate. I completely agree with you, we need to spread the message that we have no idea how much money Sony is actually putting into Shenmue III. We can't make assumptions that they are pumping millions into this because as you rightly said, that does not appear to be the case.

I have been trying for the last 2 days to try and make some awareness that Sony's funding is not as big as people think.
I created a thread on the Shenmue Subreddit, and luckily the Mod over there Bert306, contacted me and asked if he could sticky the post.

From this point on, I think we need to focus on getting the words Directly out of Yu's mouth. He has said in the Famistu interview that he expects the main funding to come from the Kickstarter, so we need to make he re-iterate that in today's Reddit AMA. More specifically, we know that he cannot comment on the amount of funding that he has secured from outside sources, but I feel that we might be able to get a number of out him that HE WANTS the kickstater to hit. If we can get that number, we can quote him and spread that news like wildfire. Even news sites like IGN, Kotaku etc will be interested in that.

We need to get this info and then need to get it out there. If Shenmue fans see that Yu wants (for example 12 Million), then we will get Yu 12 Million :P.

Today's AMA Goal:
Ask Yu Suzuki "Where does Yu-san expect most of the Funding to come from for Shenmue 3? And more importantly, how much does Yu-san want the Kickstater to reach in order for him to make the FULL vision for Shenmue 3?"

If we know the above information by the end of the day, we can flood news outlets with this and intern remove a lot of the miss-information regarding the outside funding.

The post on the Reddit that I talked about:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Shenmue/comments/3abv69/the_sony_funding_is_not_that_much_famistu_article/

I am going to be posting the thread on the kickstater every couple of hours. If people have accounts on Neogaf, or on Shenmue500k facebook, then please help spread the word so we can get these questions answered. Thank you!

Good grief...

http://boingboing.net/2015/06/19/sony-a ... mue-3.html

Ive started the effort of posting around various forums around the internet to drum up support like so.

http://www.gamespot.com/forums/games-di ... -32163813/

http://www.ign.com/…/t…/shenmue-3-needs-your-help.454505155/

I suggest you all do the same.

had a quick scan of reddit, seems we need to reach $10m to make a true shenmue3 game.

i like this question/answer on reddit.

synapticwave: Will there be forklift gameplay in Shenmue III?

Yu_Suzuki[S]: Look for it in the Stretch Goals!

He dodged the HD ports question. :(

It's SEGA's property.


I already know that but I was expecting him to encourges us to push SEGA to do it. We, the "hardcore" fans know what to do but maybe this way the press will write articles telling SEGA to do it or why is a good thing to have the HD ports, can't be bad.


Then it's your expectations letting you down, not Yu Suzuki.

http://i.imgur.com/BJRCaRH.jpg

A Shenmue 3 Kickstarter has just been announced at Sony's E3 press conference! Let's make Yu Suzuki's dream a reality! Shenmue 3 Kickstarter Info site: http://shenmue.link/

Kickstarter Links: Shenmue 3 Kickstarter | E3 Kickstarter Reveal | Kickstarter Promo
Shenmue Fan Communities: Shenmue 500k | NeoGAF | Yu Suzuki's Twitter

In regards to press we have two options:

- Stem false articles by contacting the writer or pressurizing through popular means.
- Encourage truthful accounts by contacting journalists, YouTubers and the like (the more popular the better) in order to reach wider audiences with the message that Sony is not funding it in a major way and Shenmue 3 actually needs $10 million. This should aid against the negative press. Hopefully, we can shame the click baiters and bad journalists who regurgitate information without real sources.

Everyone, start sending emails.

Im so proud that Dojo and I curated so many quality questions and we got most of them answered.

Thank you and to everyone & this thread for making Reddit comprehensible. It was a genuinely fascinating read.

I still don't see why Paypal is under consideration, I was expecting it upon signing up to KickStarter for this.

As neat was it is to hear of past ideas returning in Shenmue 3, some I am not so keen on. Forklift driving/racing was fun but I consider that a feature of Shenmue 1, I wan't a new mini-game/job feature which isn't identical to the previou games. Reading that got me all excited though, going to return to more Shenmue 1 right now :)

How on earth are we going to get to 10 million? I really hope it's possible.
I dunno if this will help ease your mind a bit. It's not necessarily SUPER accurate since things can change at any moment. But it's something.
http://www.kicktraq.com/projects/ysnet/shenmue-3/

Also.
This made me laugh.

Yu are my hero!
Shenmue is credited with introducing the QTE. Given the significant advances in gaming systems and technology over the last decade, are you confident that you can show the gaming world something we have not seen before?

YS: Thank you very much.

Th-thanks Mr. Suzuki.

Yeah yu allowing fans to get closely involved is a big mistake. Most shenmue fans I wonder how they manage to function during their daily lives.

Yeah yu allowing fans to get closely involved is a big mistake. Most shenmue fans I wonder how they manage to function during their daily lives.

Yeah, this.

People who created or are not fans but respect the source material are much preferred over megafans who are just gonna suggest the craziest of shit.

Hello fellow Shenmue enthusiasts. This idea may or may not work, but it's worth a shot.

I along with many others would LOVE and I mean LOVE to be an actual part of the Shenmue 3 experience. Think of it this way, if Suzuki used some of the fans as voice actors he could save money and actually use of the of the money he saved by making Shenmue 3 a better experience.

How would we go about proposing this to Yu Suzuki? Even if it meant we would have to fund our own plane ticket to a recording studio, pay for a hotel, etc I would be EXTREMELY interested in doing that if it meant being a part of the Shenmue legacy and helping Suzuki-San out with some help he may need. It is a long shot, but I believe it is an achievable goal especially if a lot of members of the community get behind this idea.

PLEASE SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON THIS TOPIC AND KEEP IT ALIVE, THIS IS A GOOD WAY TO SAVE MONEY ON THE SHENMUE 3 WE ALL WANT AND FOR FANS TO REALLY BE A PART OF THE EXPERIENCE

I could see this working for say, NPCs, but not main characters. Maybe a fan can do a video on Youtube and upload it showing the details of how it went?

C'mon guys this is a really good idea that would potentially change the size and nature of the game. People would up their pledges immediately if the option of being an extra in Shenmue 3 was there. Please, please keep this post alive and get as many supporters of this idea as possible.

Where's Megumi? This list is full of grandmas.

*waves* Hey guys :P
So yeah, life isn't too bad...sharing a house with the love of my life, still play games when I actually get the time, writing in my spare time with the hope of being a published author one day...could do without all the responsibilities and bills and shit, but all part of getting older I guess *grumble*. I've actually just realised I'll be 30 by the time Shenmue III comes out...now that is depressing...won't stop me squeeing like a little girl when I finally sit down and play it though.

Just donated $100!! Had to be done!

There are a lot of fans out there who are holding themselves from pledging more because of the lack of a PS4 physical copy as reward. We all know for certain that the PS4 physical copy will be coming out albeit only at retail, and not as a reward tier. How do I know that for sure? Actually I don't. But I do know they are not going to be offered throughout the campaign, so not a thing can be done about that.

Wouldn't Yu Suzuki already have done it by now if he could, instead of offering leather jackets?

http://s14.postimg.org/5ac0sh14x/Untitled.png

But you know what else is not a certainty? This game overall quality! I don't want to tell you what to do with your own money, but I want to try reasoning and appealing to you because you are fans. Would you really prefer a plastic disc over having the power to make this the best game ever? I never wanted Shenmue 3 go the Kickstarter route to begin with but now that the game is a reality, our hands are tied and we must make the best out of it. Getting a quality budget is an issue for Yu Suzuki (otherwise he wouldn't have waited 14 years), so I have no choice but abide and donate whatever I can, even at the cost of being exploited by giants like Sony. After all, the stretch goals are to add the extra immersion to the game, fulfilling Yu Suzuki's original vision and Sony could care less for those because the company can't gauge their effectiveness at getting people to buy the game at retail price. No one here wants to play Shenmue 3 version 0.1 right?

http://s14.postimg.org/jg3ify39d/Untitled.png

Excerpts from an interview with Yu Suzuki in this week's Famitsu:

“That said, 200 million yen is the minimum required amount in order to make the game. If we happen to collect more funds, then we’ll add more things that we’ve been wanting to add to it.”

Famitsu then ask what kind of open world one can expect to see in Shenmue III.

“Everyone must be thinking that we’ll expand the open world more, but I’ve been deeply questioning whether or not to do that instead,” says Suzuki. “If we were to have 100 characters and split the budget among them, we’d be limited in terms of what we could do with each one; however, if we were to split that budget among just 10 characters, we could do a lot more with them.”

He continues, “For example, we could set a parameter for Ling Shen Hua, then we could have it change her attitude depending on the conversations, or the way one proceeds through quests. Of course, that doesn’t mean that it won’t be an open world game. A stretch goal on Kickstarter will determine the expansion of the city.”

You guys are looking at this narrow minded. It is more than possible.

YSNet needs to enable PayPal donations for Shenmue III, as well as the ability to donate money after the Kickstarter ends so we can keep going.

This is how Star Citizen had over 84 million dollars donated towards it.

http://i.imgur.com/e3JLVcf.jpg

We need to keep pushing for those two things and we will make it.

Straight from my pay cheque for the next 6-12 months into Suzuki's bank. lol. I'd be willing to do that, honestly. Why should it be limited to only 30 days? It should be a constant funnel of funds and not everyone will have the funds ready for this Kickstarter...

Need more backers than under 50,000 people for that to be possible. There's only so much around 50,000 people can contribute to bring it up as much in just one month...where's the other 500,000 people who bought Shenmue 1/Shenmue 2 now?

Im gonna post a neogaf thread stating CLEARLY that the kickstarter needs 10 million

I strongly recommend we all message alphamomegasin, adam koralik, happy console gamer, etc to spread the word aswelll.

Unfortunetly, some gaming journalists and gamers are determined to fuk this up for us. This is are only chance to get Shenmue 3. We need to do everything we can to make it Happen.

Never in a million years is this Kickstarter going to get even close to that. Open up a PayPal and take donations afterwards and maybe it'll reach it in a few months with Shenmue fans donating a good portion of their fucking annual salary toward it.

It's a shame because if the Kickstarter was done properly I think it'd have had a decent chance of getting $10M by itself. I'm really annoyed by Awesome Japan - due to their complete and utter incompetence, they're now asking Shenmue fans to pledge far more than they can possibly afford, otherwise we get a bare-bones version of the game we've been waiting 14 years for.

Seriously, fuck these shit cunts.

Erm, this kind of attitude doesn't exactly help. Have you actually bothered messaging YS Net on kickstarter?

Guys this is the first few days of the campaign. We have all waited 14 years for this so why are you willing to give up so easily?

Lan Di-sama wrote: Call the police from one of the telephones in the game and you have your answer.

+1

I agree. Copied from earlier in the thread.

I'm sure come Monday the kickstarter campaign managers will sort things out. They have been very very busy.
The first announcement of the game crashed the site lol Think about how many questions they have to get through. Yes, we know they were unprepared, but they were still at E3, they had to fly home, get through all 8000 questions, and sort out and do the AMA. Now thats all out of the way I'm sure we will see some more activity coming soon.

A big youtuber has said he might do a playthrough of Shenmue 2.

Tweet at him to make sure he does it:

https://twitter.com/MattMcMuscles/statu ... 6174318592

Is this thing bugged? I've been watching it, and it was 3,481,166 a second ago, and now it's 3,470,912 again...lost another 10k for no apparent reason since the dinners are still the same, just the 1 remaining...it's pissing me off, it's going up so slow it's hurting my insides lol :S

Ahh okay overlooked the jacket tier, someone gave it up...

I wouldn't worry about it too much. We have 26 days, what happens with 23k in the middle doesn't really matter. Plus, we'll hopefully get a new update when we reach the new stretch goal !

Yu Suzuki just dropped this bombshell:

http://i.imgur.com/Zgf3BSh.png

So unless you guys want to play Shenmue 3-lite, then we gotta push this to $10 Million, in anyway we can. So I thought we could take advantage of the social media to help with that.

#10MillionToShenmue3

In this hashtag, we will focus on the following:

- Explain that Yu Suzuki needs at least $10M from Kickstarter funding to make Shenmue 3 the proper Open World experience we all knew and loved.

- Clear the misunderstanding that Sony is footing the bill for the project, more information here .

- Overall promote the Shenmue series so that it might catch the interest of non-fans.


What say you? Am I going to find some energy here? or just cynicism? If this hashtags catches on, I'll create graphics like Avatars and sigs to help promote it.

#10MillionToShenmue3

http://i.imgur.com/Uc2fJTu.png
http://i.imgur.com/XM4orE7.png
http://i.imgur.com/FM9zdNy.png

Great idea!

Nice to see members of this forum actively doing something to help promote the fact this KickStarter needs every penny it can get and to highlight that most of the funding will be coming from KickStarter.

How do you think we can try to combat this misunderstanding? It seems to be that all of the hardcore Shenmue fans know about it, but we need to get the message out to the masses and to the more casual shenmue fans / first-time players.

I was thinking about trying to contact gaming websites to see if they can try to correct themselves on what they've said? A lot of people are making a lot of assumptions purely because Sony said they would be 'getting behind Yu Suzuki'

As a big Shenmue fan myself, it's so frustrating to see the KickStarter total currently stalling and to feel powerless to change that!