You backed the game last week and still haven't gotten any email from YS Net? Maybe you did, but it went into the spam mail folder for some reason?

I personally haven't done the Paypal thing yet, just Kickstarter, but this does sound odd to me. Maybe it didn't work? Has your Paypal account been charged yet? I think you should directly contact YS Net about it. [email protected]

You backed the game last week and still haven't gotten any email from YS Net? Maybe you did, but it went into the spam mail folder for some reason?

I personally haven't done the Paypal thing yet, just Kickstarter, but this does sound odd to me. Maybe it didn't work? Has your Paypal account been charged yet? I think you should directly contact YS Net about it. [email protected]


Hi, thank you for replying. Yes i still havent receive any official statement or acknowledgement form the Slacker backer paypal payment i made last week through their website. But only received paypal paymend made receipt.

my account has been charged. No problem in getting the money through but just that i did not receive like say a formal "we have received your order / or thank you for purchasing " sort of confirmation. So i am a bit worried. Some sort of order acknowledgement would have been nice and comforting.

Thank you. I just sent them an e-mail. Hopefully they will reply soon. Appreciate your help and for taking the time to write.

You're welcome. Hope it works out for you. I'll ask a friend who backed the Paypal about the confirmation.

Tried sending e-mail to all the related person including Kickstarter KS / YSnet and etc about a week ago, but still no reply from any one of them. There's not much I can do now than to hope they will respond maybe by end of this month or next. It would be great if paypal backers get the same if not similar response treatment to Kickstarter backers. So far no notification, no replies, no updates, just frozen in time.

I just find it very strange and odd that not a single auto generated e-mail was sent as a form of notification of payment received. Would have been nice to know or get at least some sort of auto generated " thank you , we received your payment and order " acknowledgement.

That's one of the problems to resolve at the moment. If we want the Paypal campaign to be a success, we need more reactivity coming from Awesome Japan. Why not more appealing rewards, works in progress etc. Interactivity with the fans, newcomers is a must and they have to work on it.

Tried sending e-mail to all the related person including Kickstarter KS / YSnet and etc about a week ago, but still no reply from any one of them. There's not much I can do now than to hope they will respond maybe by end of this month or next. It would be great if paypal backers get the same if not similar response treatment to Kickstarter backers. So far no notification, no replies, no updates, just frozen in time.

I just find it very strange and odd that not a single auto generated e-mail was sent as a form of notification of payment received. Would have been nice to know or get at least some sort of auto generated " thank you , we received your payment and order " acknowledgement.

That's one of the problems to resolve at the moment. If we want the Paypal campaign to be a success, we need more reactivity coming from Awesome Japan. Why not more appealing rewards, works in progress etc. Interactivity with the fans, newcomers is a must and they have to work on it.

If they pay for my flight for Japan I'll do it, I'll live on ramen for 3 months if it means getting awareness of the PayPal campaign out there! I'm a web developer and even at my basic skill level I know an auto-generated email isn't that hardest thing to do in the world.

I've been tweeting and retweeting over the past 5 hours and I even got a friend to donate a third pledge of $60 :)

Sega's twitter pages will be flooded by now (going by the live feed), with tweets that are honest and passionate about how much the HD releases are wanted.

I couldn't be more proud of the Shenmue community! =D>

Its so sad to hear the poll results and how they decided to make kickstarter as Exclusive backer rewards while those who pledge via paypal wont get those exclusive rewards kickstarter folks get. This is really sad. The poll results and how it was interpreted was a serious kick to the guts. I believe the poll was just a place holder for the pre determined Kickstarter to be exclusive Decision.

Some of my friends who I persuaded to back their projects and they did backed it via paypal cause of the rewards, are all very disappointed now and some of them just cancelled their pledge.

I even convinced 3 other friends to back it and now they dont want to do it. Im fine with which ever way happens since im only interested in the game but its sad when you try hard to bring in new fans to get into this franchise, and now they decided its Kickstarter exclusive, really makes you want to just give up finding anyone to increase the pledge or newcomers to back the project. Just my 2 cents.

I agree with your sentiments. Again, though, this can be fixed if they're smart about it. The question is: will they go through the trouble? And, if they don't, does this mean they got enough money now?

I am disgusted with everybody who voted No, and it's solely them I blame for this outcome, not Awesome Japan or Ys Net.

We can now see that the poll was run to get a clear idea of the percentage of Kickstarter backers who'd be upset with this going ahead, and even though it wasn't a majority, the fact that so many made their negative feelings known was enough to deter action.

It is a very discouraging reflection of the fanbase that it came to this. Shenmue may attract a more mature and mellowed audience on the whole, but when push comes to shove, gamers will be gamers, led by childish and ignorant motives.

It's ironic that this news comes right after the achievement of a new stretch goal, with which Kickstarter backers will explicitly benefit from an improved game at the hands of PayPal backers, despite the inequality in their treatment. Perhaps those who voted No would prefer a version of Shenmue 3 unaffected by these additional funds. Perhaps ragdoll reactions and any future stretch goals should be exclusive to slacker backers...

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.

Such a stupid idea lol I don't even understand how this decision could be made. They would have been better off just not asking in the first place, and just doing it. Noone would have had a problem with that as it would have just been normal.

Talk about just completely messing it up. The media is YET AGAIN going to run away with this. First article is up, luckily it is Dualshockers, and they aren't dicks like IGN/Kotaku/gamespot lol

http://www.dualshockers.com/2016/01/04/shenmue-iiis-kickstarter-exclusive-rewards-wont-be-available-for-paypal-backers/

They normally just state the facts, and don't have negative opinions on things so we are good here. Think I might just avoid the internet for the rest of the day because I don't wana read the comments about this lol.\

EDIT: Is the Shenmue site dead for anyone else?

ok , so let me get this straight , we had 2 polls, in both those polls , the "no" option came third....but we still do not get the rewards... i feel really disappointed right now.

MiTT3NZ wrote: You can bet your unborn daughter's virginity that it's down to "collectors" who want their rewards to have more value.

Ironically, voting No is the best way for their rewards to lose value as they lower the chance of raising the quality of the game.

What would anyone gain from voting 'no'? That's just selfish, and you've shot yourself in the foot by doing so. You've essentially stopped money from going into the game.

I don't really get all the hate for AJ. Sure, they're a bunch of tools in general, but here, in this specific situation?
No.
Those Kickstarter rewards were introduced as exclusive stuff, and that's what made a lot of people decide to support the campaign in the first place. "Give money, get exclusive stuff in return". That's a promise, it's a deal YS Net made with Shenmue fans. They can't just go "thanks for the money, but what we promised in return is now something else, it's no longer exclusive. Because 6000 people don't care". I think 4000 out of 15000 people being against the rewards going to Paypal backers is more than enough to not do it. It doesn't really matter if another 10000 people don't care or if those 4000 people are assholes or not - AJ's decision to not screw these guys over is legit.

The 10000 who voted "yes" or "don't care" are in no way screwed by this decision, while 4000 "no"-voters would have been screwed the other way round.

I fail to see how the KK backers will be screwed if the exclusive rewards goes to the paypal backers too. the kickstarer backers are still getting what they were promised, its not like they are loosing their rewards , and the rewards would have remained exclusive to the backers (PP and KK backers) , in my opinion the ones getting screwed are the paypal backers , because for the same amount of money they are getting less rewards. I would have said the same if the situation was the other way around (exclusive paypal rewards). We all have been waiting for 15 years , we all supported the shenmue 3 idea all those years , we all should get the same rewards. It does not matter if we choose paypal or KK to back the game. The paypal backers are still backers. They are not buying the game in a store in 2018, they are giving their money 2 years in advance just as the KK backers did.

Everyone should get the rewards regardless of kickstarter or paypal. If they want to make kickstarter exclusive, than they should include something similar value that is only exclusive to paypal as well. That way, everyone will be happy. Making it only kickstarter exclusive is disappointing to say the least. They should have just added other bonus that are only for paypal when they made paypal as a funding option.

Exactly, even out the playing field so that contributors don't feel cheated. If they can, again(!), be creative about it, a lot of the negative reactions will stop and goodwill for the series and the people behind it will be created.

EVERYONE ELSE: The points made about those who voted for the Kickstarter staying exclusive are legitimate. However, the people behind the slacker backer should have had something lined up as a compensatory mechanism to prevent the negative comments being made in the first place.

Exactly, even out the playing field so that contributors don't feel cheated. If they can, again(!), be creative about it, a lot of the negative reactions will stop and goodwill for the series and the people behind it will be created.

EVERYONE ELSE: The points made about those who voted for the Kickstarter staying exclusive are legitimate. However, the people behind the slacker backer should have had something lined up as a compensatory mechanism to prevent the negative comments being made in the first place.
I agree, giving the PayPal backers access to as many of the exclusive rewards as possible will certainly help to make the slack backer campaign feel worthwhile. Those who voted 'no' shouldn't feel cheated in anyway, this is all supposed to be about getting Shenmue 3 funded, any extra on top of the game itself is entirely incidental. I put forward my money towards the creation of Shenmue 3 itself, the fact that my Kickstarter tier entitles me to several exclusive rewards is beside the point - I would have pledged exactly the same amount of money even if all I got was a copy of Shenmue 3. Of course, I see no reason to deny exclusive rewards to those that want them. Which is why I wanted the rewards to continue for the PayPal backers; if physical scarcity isn't an issue then by all means keep the exclusive rewards available now.

Well, that's a disappointing turn of events (and unexpected as far as i'm concerned).
Are they going to propose the PC rewards or upgrades for KS backers at this point? I doubt it.

I'm starting to think that the sooner they close the Slacker Backer Campaign and concentrate their time ONLY on the development, the better it is.

The money is not enough? Well, they are free to keep searching for external funds or/and they can try to do their best with the money they have.

AJ have just been poor in general overall, I mean, look at the images they're using to promote the game, they look like copy and paste jobs using paint, all of the images apart from the original artwork are extremely over the top and poor. I bet the font for Shenmue 3 is something they chose aswell, it seems to be littered against everything they touch and if you notice anything that Yu Suzuki does to promote the game uses the original Shenmue font. I hate the new font, and I don't think it's licensing issues, I just think it's a straight up lazy job AJ are doing that they can't spare a few minutes to change all the images that they've already "produced". That happy new year cartoon animation is a joke...what have monkey heads got to do with anything? Just looks like they've grabbed random clip art images and added 2 or 3 frames of movement to them. The new website, imo looks worse than the old one, they are covering up "Shenmue 3" in the only cool looking part of the site - the oversized video - with the new column on the right handside (atleast on my browser) and also for today atleast, it's incredible slow. They always make spelling and grammatical errors, and i'm not saying that I never make errors, but i'm not being paid to write this post.

AJ have just been poor in general overall, I mean, look at the images they're using to promote the game, they look like copy and paste jobs using paint, all of the images apart from the original artwork are extremely over the top and poor. I bet the font for Shenmue 3 is something they chose aswell, it seems to be littered against everything they touch and if you notice anything that Yu Suzuki does to promote the game uses the original Shenmue font. I hate the new font, and I don't think it's licensing issues, I just think it's a straight up lazy job AJ are doing that they can't spare a few minutes to change all the images that they've already "produced". That happy new year cartoon animation is a joke...what have monkey heads got to do with anything? Just looks like they've grabbed random clip art images and added 2 or 3 frames of movement to them. The new website, imo looks worse than the old one, they are covering up "Shenmue 3" in the only cool looking part of the site - the oversized video - with the new column on the right handside (atleast on my browser) and also for today atleast, it's incredible slow. They always make spelling and grammatical errors, and i'm not saying that I never make errors, but i'm not being paid to write this post.

Do we want to talk about the gallery? (Hey, the Village Hut is back :D )

They should have used the non mirrored picture... or at least cut it.

http://i.imgur.com/nk9wP2v.jpg

I just have to keep telling myself that the AJ communications team is completely separate from the development team. I still truly believe that we will get a good game but it is genuinely shocking how badly project communication is being managed. I'm not even talking about not opening up the Kickstarter rewards. Obviously they were looking for an overwhelming response if they were going to open those back up (and that's fine even though I voted "yes") but the lack of polish, errors, and backtracking in these updates is unbelievable. I'm a communication professional and I would not have a job if I did work like this.

I find their interpretation of the poll results dumb, but what frustrates me the most is 90%+ of the time, they are the cause of the negativity surrounding Shenmue 3.

Im gonna go ahead and say it, something needs to be done about this company sooner rather than later. There's been too many mistakes and errors that have had a negative impact on Shenmue.

Im 100% certain the KS could have reached 7 - 8 million if AJ didn't continuously screw things up. I mean we've turned a blind eye several times to their nonsense and given them chance after chance, but lets be real, this will happen again and again, im certain of that.

Research past media reports and analysis videos and you'll see they are the cause of most of the problems.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1121020

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnvy0yzgVWc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwphQVMDJvY

These guys are getting paid good money to do a relatively easy and amazing job in its own right, but they still fuck up. They are responsible for media relations, communication and the campaign itself, yet they make no attempt to promote the campaign, no attempt to gather further support, no attempt to communicate or make exclusive deals with media outlets to gain further interest, etc, etc.

We, the fans have done everything since Shenmue 3 has been announced. We've promoted, we've used our youtube friends to spread the word, we've created new campaigns, made exclusive deals with companies such as first four figures, Corey Marshall, etc etc etc. Some of us have been keeping the dream alive over on other message boards and damage controlling like crazy to clear up doubts and confusion. Doubts and confusion that shouldn't have been there in the first place.

You have to ask yourself, why are we doing everything??? We all have jobs, study etc, yet we still find time to continuously push Shenmue 3 for the greater good, for free i might add. It comes from passion and Love. These guys dont do anything, and its their full time job????

Awesome Japan clearly have no real interest in the project. The sad fact is, they'll be able to take full credit for the most successful KS ever and they didnt do fuck all to help.

Maybe this situation is a lot more complex, but as a backer who has placed around $1000 into the project, im unhappy with the way things are going. Personally, if i was apart of the project in a more executive manner, like cedric or Sony, Id fire these guys as soon as possible, or pay their contract off, so that they could be replaced by a more competent team.

#SaveShenmuefromAwesomeJapan