Don't forget people that most pay-days are at the end of the month; the kickstarter started in the middle of the month with e3 on the 15th- that's why the $30-on-the-3rd campaign might be very important, for newcomers and people to upgrade pledges

Yes it is the same Awesome Japan. The Kickstarter isn't over, they can still make up for it, but I wish there was a way for the fanbase to get directly in touch with them.

Im going to contribute and keep promoting the kickstarter, but tbh guys I dont think we have anything to worry about. I think whatever the fans dont contribute, sony, or some other able investor will pick up the rest of the slack and let Yu create the game that everyone and the hard core fans have been waiting for. I just dont see this game coming out half assed or half budgeted. A shit ton of people donated during the first few days and im expecting the last few days to be similar, I think the procrastinators will come out more once it gets closer to the dead line, im really not too worried about it, everything is going to be fine, they'll find a way.

Being an NPC would be awesome.


Just done the survey although a little disappointed it wasn't a better update....

I totally see your point. Every one of us would have preferred Sony or another big publisher to straight up foot the bill for the game without us having to go through Kickstarter. But please keep in mind that this is very likely to be our last shot. This is probably the last chance Shenmue will ever get.

A lot of Shenmue fans would also be willing to contribute like a montly $30 to Shenmue in order to at least ensure some steady influx of cash for Ys during the next two to three years, while developing S3. I think Ys will establish that option through Paypal sooner or later.

Especially since Ys probably won't be putting out any other games during that time span and don't have a lot of other sources of income, it will be a hell of an uphill battle they will have to fight. If we really want to see the saga concluded some day we will have to put in all we can. The only way to ever have a big publisher fund another Shenmue game is to make S3 the best we can and make it successful. If S3 turns out to make a good profit, Sega or Sony might very well jump in and fund number 4.

But for now, that's up to us because right now, the sad reality is that no publisher on this planet believes in the franchise enough to fully fund a game, even if Sony believes in it enough to give the Kickstarter some prime time at E3.

Hitting 10 million would be great. We all know it would improve the game. But if we hit 10 then it will be all about hitting 12 then 14 and so on.. the game would always be better with the more money it has.
So frankly, trust more in the development team, the tons of skill and experience they already have and take peace in that. I think we will get a good game regardless.

In saying that though, dont be complacent either. If you can muster raising your pledge then you know A. You are helping development and B. You get more collectables. Win win!

Sent from my SGP311 using Tapatalk

Sadly this campaign has experienced a lot of hurdles since it launched which cumulatively have probably resulted in at least a 25% decrease in potential backers. These include very poor management of the KS page, tons of misinformation about funding, and the fact that still a lot of people aren't aware Shenmue 3 was even announced. Ys Net is really going to have to step up their game if we are to reach 10-million by the end of the Kickstarter, which is still possible depending on what they decide to do from here on out.

One thing that a lot of people seem to be forgetting is that KS campaigns like this generate a huge portion of their overall funding in the last 48-hours of the campaign, sometimes as much as 30%. If we can get up to 5-million by the second to last day, I can see us ending the KS around 7-million, which presumably will be enough to get a lot of extra features crammed into the game.

I sincerely hope that Yu sets up paypal for donations after the campaign as well because I definitely would contribute monthly to it.

I understand your points guys and I pretty agree with some/all of them...

But, please, remember where we are coming from... Shenmue III is now a reality!

Like the world, nothing is perfect and things could have been greatly managed....


BUT let s get positive, not blind, but positive and fight until the kickstarter is over. Maybe for a reason things can flip around and create some huge hype on Shenmue III again.


We are gonna get it, we fought during years for that and maybe some people more than me so let s believe in it.

I know the money is important but what we want, in the end, is Shenmue III so lets focus on that and money will gather around the project.

Guys, this is really good numbers to the game. You keep comparing it to Bloodstained, but Bloodstained have much more fans. Who the hell never played Castlevania? And Shenmue is going very well to beat Bloodstained record. You just expect too much, kickstarter for videogame cant get 10m - its obvious and its not awesome japan problem. Just game is not really as popular as you may expect. Look, first pebble watches was around 10m and every major magazine give ads for them, articles was all over the place. And more then that - its a real product, not videogame. So 10m is impossible, but 5-6m will be a really good result for Shenmue.

I used to quite like these guys, they do a podcast called The Patch, which i've been listening to every week whilst working, but lost a lot of respect now, left this comment for them:

I listen to The Patch whilst working every Thursday, but really lost a lot of respect for these guys. Obviously i'm a massive Shenmue fan and biased, but even so, if this is just a 'let us know what you think in the comments below' discussion type of video, why label it so poorly and use the word Scam, and talk about Scam, and say Scam...especially when your own facts about Sony's involvement are incorrect. I don't understand why if you are interested in the game, are a fan of the first 2 and would be excited about a third and buy it in a shop, would you not spend $29 now...which is already rediculously cheap for a AAA game, essentially preordering it to help make it a better experience when it is actually released? Seems crazy to me.

this is not looking good at all. might not even break 5 million. it is now doing a lot worse on daily average than bloodstained did at the time. I can't believe how poorly yu suzuki is running his "dream" on kickstarter :(

Not looking good? He asked for two million and he'll probably reach more than double of that amount...
As I've stated on the Shenmue Kickstarter Estimation thread:



In my opinion it will get a little more than $4M and way less than $5M... Why do I say this? Because Shenmue is a special project on Kickstarter, as it's basically made for the fans, and almost all the fans already donated.

Some other projects have a surge at the beginning and another one at the end, but Shenmue had an huge surge at the beginning (all the fans donated), but at the end who is it going to donate, as almost all the fans will have already done so?

One has to understand that Shenmue III is a niche product. Outside of the fan base (like us), who is it going to be interested on playing it? You need to play both Shenmue I and II in order to get the full grasp of the story, and nowadays no one is going to pick it up from the third installment.

Regards.

And, by looks of it, my estimations were fairly accurate.
It's never going to make 10 million USD on Kickstater , and, to be frank, I really don't understand why Yu only asked for 2 million when, by his own admission, he needs at least 10 million to make his vision of the game come true...

Regards.

These figures don't look good - IF YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND KICKSTARTER at all.

Let's take the most successful game ever - Bloodstained. It also stalled after 2 or 3 very promising first days look looked pretty much like Shenmue now when it suddenly brought in another 1.5 million in the last 3 days. It's usually like this - that in the last 72 hours of a project many people jump the bandwagon who were undecided or had to save money and jump this train in the last minute.


Just check out the bllodstained process and compare with the Shenmue 3 data...


http://www.kicktraq.com/projects/iga/bloodstained-ritual-of-the-night/#chart-daily

If we're going to be negative, can we at least report actual facts? This type of thread lowers morale.

I agree with everything described in the above post, though. The fact they haven't even changed the layout of the main page is really annoying.

http://s12.postimg.org/88qwlziv1/Untitled.png

If we compare the Bloodstained Kickstarter to Shenmue 3's one side by side, Shenmue 3 already hit its lowest point with $31,704 early in the campaign period while Bloodstained hit $36,589 as its lowest around the half point period. One point to note though is that Bloodstained had from the very beginning a bigger "drawing power" to its name as it's at the same time a brand new IP and a familiar series, so it was easier to market to both old and new gamers.

But even having said that, there's no reason to be ENTIRELY negative about the current situation. If you look at the initial pledging days, you can see why Shenmue 3 broke all records. We are still in early stages of the campaign and Shenmue 3 managed to gather $3,591,739 within 9 days compared to $2,429,094 from Bloodstained in the same period. That's over a million! I attribute this to the fact we got to know Shenmue 3's ideal target ($10 Mil) and the relentless work done by all of us to help generate hype and gather funds, without the help from even the people behind the campaign (thanks Awesome Japan)! And we got YouTube celebrities like HappyConsoleGamer and Adam Koralik behind us too!

So if we keep this up, things will certainly turn around. Awesome Japan is already starting to listen to us, as they have implemented new stretch goals, reward tiers and finally built an official twitter page. It's still not the ideal, but we are certainly getting there. The Gods of Lucky Hit are with us!

I'm not trying to silence anyone, if a fellow Shenmue bro or sister wants to challenge the Awesome Japan guys to a MMA cage fight... (with attendance and ppv profits going directly into Shenmue III fund). Go ahead, but to me some of the negativity seems over the top. I guess you also have to allow others to be have negativity towards your negativity.

The negativity is just annoying honestly on all fronts whether here or in the comments of the Kickstarter. We're getting the game and the rest is just extra at this point. If they shot for 2 million then they clearly had a vision for that ahead of time. No clue why people are complaining. I'm ecstatic we are even getting it.

Megauap on NeoGAF stated that he just received a reply to his question (sent on the first day of the Kickstarter) about the PS4 physical copy:

Thank you very much for your message!
We understand there have been many requests; however there are currently no plans to produce a physical reward for the PS4.

As to why there are no current plans for a PS4 version, we are very sorry, but are unable to answer at this time. We know this may not be the answer you had hoped for, but please understand that indeed, your comments have been heard and passed on to Ys Net and Yu Suzuki.
Your feedback is what will make the this Kickstarter really succeed, and we cannot thank you enough. The day is come that we are finally able to enjoy what we have waited so long for with the return of Shenmue and we hope we can count on your continued support to bring back, and make Shenmue 3 the best game it can be.

K. Kitabayashi &
The Shenmue 3 Kickstarter Team

For the record, I would rather have no Shenmue III than a terrible Shenmue III, but Shenmue III is not out yet and we are not even one month into the Kickstarter campaign so all the dismissive pleadings comes off as cynical and extremely forced. We don't know how it's going to go. It go bad, it could go well. Let's just wait and see?

We are closer to 2 million because it's been a bloody week, mittenz. For a Shenmue fan, I'm utterly shocked by your lack of patience.

Riku Rose wrote: Brilliant idea.

It actually is. Will be great exposure.

I went up from $300 to $500 and then back to $300 (and now I'm back to $500) when i was having some second thoughts about how much I should pledge. I wasn't trying to make anyone upset, but I'm now back up to $500 and will consider adding more the closer we get to the deadline.

I do think Kickstarter should make it difficult to change your pledge or should verify you have funds when you go up to a certain amount. I think it'd be pretty difficult for a coordinated group of trolls to actively sabotage any Kickstarter. For one, most of them are probably 13 and don't have credit cards.

I

I don't think anyone is talking about a few hundred dollars here or there. There have been times when (particularly when approaching stretch goals), the funding has dropped by several thousands (or even tens of thousands) in succession. Those have got to be trolls.

For Christ's sake, could you please wait for the Kickstarter to finish, first? No offence here, but the panicking over here is starting to go over the top. Pour into the KS as much as you can, wait for it to finish. Await Ys Net's statement on it.

If, after July 18 you should still think we have made too little money, I reckon you will be warmly welcome to make your monthly contribution to Ys Net via Paypal.

Isn't Yu Suzuki like, totally detached from the gaming world? I'm pretty sure he's stated a few times he doesn't play or even have much interest in video games.

Yea. He even kinda got to where he is today by chance. In a interview it said he never wanted to be a game designer, just that he happened to get a job at Sega. Which is pretty amazing considering the contributions he's made to the industry.

I trust Yu Suzuki more than "game journalists". Let them have their soap box and sit on it. It's better just not to give those click baiters hits, ya know?

It won't. Yu Suzuki isn't backing down and the fans have made their voices heard - we've pledged and the game is funded and that's it. Whatever else any of these people that hate Shenmue who happen to write articles on game websites say will not change anything. Let's stay positive, since Suzuki's newest statements are very positive for us, the fans. To hell with the rest.

If they had it coming to xbox one it would be over 5 million by now , I hope sony are paying millions for this , if not im pretty annoyed on the lost out potential xbox user funds .

Microsoft had plenty of opportunities to revive the franchise and could have even done it in co-operation with Yu the same way Sony is doing it now with support and advertising; but ultimately, they decided not to. That's fine, but then nothing can be said when it doesn't come out on the Xbox One. Sony have given Yu the chance he deserves, not MS. Cut them some slack.

Another thread for this? Mods can we lock them up. This is getting out of hand. Clearly if the goal was 2 million then they had something in mind to be safe and mindful. Now they're playing catch up due to the interest! It's that simple.

The strech goals don't represent the actual costs of the features attached to them. Please keep this in mind.

They play on PC though, right? That's Shenmue 3's main platform.
Not really, it's honestly all lol. if you go to a computer place it will be like 90 percent lol. Some CF ( cross fire) that shit shooter... seriously bad I tried it once

A lot of the girls like those cute anime inspired girl games. China is a different culture as well, they are really mute tot he world more than most think. Only if your in bj , sh or a few other cities will they not be quite different culturally. You can't ask a chinese person how are you doing or what's up. If you say we should hang out, they will always say I'm busy now. Even though the ? isn't about now.... They don't understand western culture very well nor do they adapt to it very well.

There are a few more simple minnded gamers here and I know some that do play ps2, xbox , cod etc but that is a very lower number. I hardly ever meet anyone randomly that has a game system.

They are huge into iphones and phone games though.. Chinese people are use to being around hundreds of people, so they often need to be around others to go out and have a good time. It's a very pair up and go out culture. Ignore everone else around, they are as bad as you think when they have that strange by standard effect as well. I think they are like ants, just use to running around each other and ignoring one another.

Most of their games are on some sort of free to play system as wel, they don't buy movies either. I have only found legit movies from hk in book stores. Everything else is boot legs in the back room at the music stores.

Basicaly, they don't want to buy games , especially pc.

With that said, I'm not saying the game can't work here. But the ks has a better chance of hitting 10 million than me ever running into a person that knows what shenmue is.

Some of you are the ones who make me cringe. Awesome Japan asked nearly all the most prominent questions.
Yea the dude in red conducted himself immaturely - but when all is said and done he did his job. You guys need to put your energy into raising funds and stop all this whiny bullshit.

the dude in red is now legend status. Most of us have been waiting for this q&a half our lifetime and all you guys could do is fucking talk about the interviewer its pathetic.

That's exactly what I said. People care more about rewards than they do about some clown in a chat room. The Shenmue 3 Kickstarter has still managed to become one of the most successful Kickstarters of all time in spite of Awesome Japan. The Sony announcement was a masterstroke, and they're lucky they got it.
Yeah, the surprise announcement of Shenmue 3 at Sony's conference, back to back with FFVII, is going to be remembered as one of the greatest moments in E3's history. Even if the Kickstarter campaign itself has had its share of problem nobody can take away the glory of that moment, when Shenmue 3 was finally revealed.

In the years ahead we just need to make sure that people remember Shenmue 3 itself, the game once it's released; along with the wonder of Shenmue 3’s announcement. Any mistakes made along the way by Awesome Japan can simply remain buried in the past, unremarked upon and safely forgotten.

Practically all the new tiers have been filled up with only a few left within the $2000....even if it sucked they surged up quickly at least another $60,000 so it worked. Now lets get more rewards rolling because CLEARLY they are working.

People are being too harsh. Yes, it was unprofessional, but no, it hasn't and won't hurt the Kickstarter and it doesn't make the project look bad. I understand that it's Shenmue III and it's really important, but we need to stop looking for excuses and justifications for the slowing down of the KS - it's only natural.
Last night we found out some new information and got some new reward tiers which in result caused a funding boost. I don't see how anyone can think that is a bad thing. Perhaps they could have answered some more questions but it's still better than nothing.

Plus, Red Shirt was lovable.

One shot at Shenmue 3, and the budget is determined by this guy? Really puts a damper on everything when you have to wonder what could have been had a competent firm handled this campaign. It's hard to put into words how discontent I am over this. Shenmue 3 is announced and these guys have found a way to curb my elation. Unacceptable.

YS Net, please fire these clowns and hire a team that can still create enough hype to make this KS campaign as successful as it should be.
This. Literally anyone will do. Just grab someone off the streets.

Suzuki retweets fan stuff sometimes, so he must read his mentions occasionally, is it worth contacting him over this?

While Awesome Japan needs to be replaced, I fear with just under 3-weeks left in the campaign firing them and having another company come in and pick up the pieces might be more disastrous, however if things continue the way they have we might not have anything to lose. Hopefully new, non-limited finding tiers will go up this weekend and they will start putting in the same effort as the fans to get this KS campaign marketed and out there.

But yes, I think you should contact Ys Net and voice your opinion on this matter. I'm sure they are already aware of the fan's dissatisfaction with the campaign, but it wouldn't hurt.

I seriously called all of these animated gifs being made. The guy was really acting bizarre; I'm wondering what his situation with YsNet or the rest of Awesome Japan is after that stream.

Looking at it from a glass half full perspective though, at the very least all of the questions asked were relevant, even though we already knew the answers to some of them. I kind of wish more of the stretch goals were explained, but I really hope in the coming weeks, AJ steps their game up with the Q&A's, along with their kickstarter management.

I know someone put his twitter up, but lets try not to blast Joel Tess's twitter with insults. It might give you a good chuckle, but in the end it's ultimately counterproductive to running the campaign, and it makes us all look bad. Two fumbles don't make a right.

By the way though, what was up with the Fanta thing at the beginning? Are they a sponsor or something? I found that part to be very odd.

Sony's involvement was more than welcome for the sake of the campaign. The problem is that whenever bad publicity is on, Awesome Japan doesn't do much to try to address the issue on the spot.

I feel bad for Yu Suzuki, as Awesome Japan is his only avenue of communication and he can only depend on them to make this work.

It's unlikely to me that it's possible to change teams now (they could hire external help though if budget allows Yu to do so), otherwise we will just continue to do what we must do.

It was no kidding when Yu Suzuki said that the future of Shenmue 3 was in our hands, literally. :rotflmao:

I didn't really find any fault with the Twitch stream at all. I think maybe the red shirted man was nervous about having to answer to thousands of fans live, so it's understandable that he seemed a bit awkward. I honestly would be too. The blue shirted gentleman was patient and concise. All in all, Yu Suzuki was very polite and didn't seem at all bothered about the handling of his Q & A, so that's what's important to me.

In retrospect, some people may say that it could have been more polished, but I also find that in business it makes things easier to work with people who have similar rapport and do not make their colleagues or fan base uncomfortable. I wouldn't have enjoyed it if it were someone who didn't understand the gaming industry and were very stiff and parochial. I just chalk it up to a bad case of nerves for these folks.

As far as the questions go, I think perhaps they were addressing the topics that were being asked ad nauseum and were not clarified before. I'm really excited about Corey Marshall and the possibility of all the original voice-over actors. And it would make me very happy to see the HD releases, if possible. I give Yu Suzuki top marks for trying to make his fans happy... he genuinely cares about what we think and do. It's just a shame that some people cannot reciprocate the same respect for him and his team.

Moreover, in my opinion adding more rewards tiers at the going percentage rate (20-25%) could possibly be detrimental to the production cost, considering that the focus would be put toward producing merchandise rather than the actual game even at the ~72% budget schematic. I worry about that, as I see Suzuki and his team scrambling for more ideas in terms of rewards--- each product is going at a considerable markup to cover the ~25% budget set aside for it. But I also understand the consumer model and know that people would like to be aptly rewarded for their investments.

I truly appreciate Suzuki's incredible display of diplomacy and repose. I think between the immense burden of acquiring the rights, putting together a suitable development + financing + public relations team, and pleasing the prospective buyer, he appears verily composed.

Thanks mjq jazz bar for favouriting my tweet to Michael Huber suggesting he do a Skype Interview with Suzuki

https://twitter.com/resnate/status/614845858916474881

I really love how Corey Marshall is so involved with the Shenmue community. It's great!

I think Sega's worry is if they start promoting the Kickstarter, people will ask them the same questions Sony are being asked now, i.e. why aren't they fully funding this?

Well, we asked them that for 14 years and they gave zero shits.

In a perfect world this project would be funded by 3 parties. Backers, Sony, SEGA.

Awesome Japan have done a truly terrible job.

Firstly the campaign started at too low of a goal. If it had been, say, a 5m target, then we would have 5m+ raised right now. As soon as it hit 2m on the second day, all the urgency was gone. All the publicity was gone. The target had been reached and Shenmue III will be a reality. Yet a week later we find out that 10m is the real goal to aim towards, but who really cares other than us guys? Shenmue III is funded and the story is done and dusted for all the major press...

I'm not going to go into detail about all of the problems with the actual Kickstarter. We all know the video, poor rewards, lack of communication, lack of promotion, lack of description, lack of clarity regarding Sony's involvement etc. have held the project back massively. I actually had a decent level of optimism when I saw that they were doing a Reddit AMA and later a Twitch stream. 'Hey, they're actually promoting via relevant avenues!' I thought. But the AMA got off to a false start and the Twitch 'interview'...oh God...

And then when you realize that these guys, who are managing one of the biggest Kickstarters we're ever going to see, are taking the weekends off... Well all optimism has gone for the KS to reach a target we want. It is quite alarming how naive and incompetent they have been.

When we're sitting down to play Shenmue III and notice all those stretch goals we missed out on, all we'll be thinking is: "fuck you Awesome Japan."

Like... all they needed to do is literally just have 1 person to handle the page, 1 person to handle the rewards, and 1 translator for when Yu Suzuki needs to send a message to the community.

Make like a daily update talking about a different character every day (be it friend or foe, or just one of the funny characters) with some art or hd game screens and a brief presentation. In the last days of the campaign a random guy opens the page and sees a sweet presentation of the Shenmue world, messages from Yu Suzuki explaining the stretch goals, and a crap load of reward tiers he can choose from. Random guy is gonna pledge and tell a friend to check out the page, bingo.

But no, we get fucking 3 idiots that can't even reharse a stream before going live, can't act professionally, and can't even setup a backers only poll without screwing up. And there's still typos in the page, check the description for the 60$ reward, "exlusive".

:((((((