Cynical article is cynical.

It isn't a con. This will likely help pay for all the technical resources to get it made. Then, Sony will likely provide a team of bodies in order to help with actual development. So Sony wanted to use a Kickstarter to gauge interest? So what? And let's not act like it's some Sony exclusive either... Remember, it's coming out for PC too and they haven't ruled out a possible Wii U or XBOne release just yet.

I say, if people want to keep on donating, then do! Let's reach those stretch goals and then some and make it the best game it can be :)

Also, I wish people would stop citing the 70 million! That was the cost for the time and effort and research put into the ENTIRE franchise and creating the engine from scratch. Let's not forget it also most likely included the cost of the original Saturn development, even from the days of it being a Virtua Fighter spin off. These days, a game like Shenmue wouldn't need anywhere near that much money to make. Especially with them utilizing the Unreal engine.

At some point in the last 14 years (I think it was 2004 or 2005), my girlfriend bought me Shenmue 2 for the Dreamcast, for my birthday. Last year, I married that girl.

I also finished school, college, university, have had multiple jobs, bought my own house with my wife etc etc.

I've also completed both Shenmue 1 and 2 probably more than a dozen times each.

Looking back on it, it seems incredible. It feels like only yesterday that the year was 2000, I was living with my parents and I received Shenmue on Christmas day for my glorious Dreamcast. That game blew my mind!

I just doubled my pledge ($60 reward to $120 reward). It's all I can afford. I don't know what else I can do other than get the word out there and promote it.

Unfortunately, the kickstarter is slowing down. It's too be expected, as more or less everyone who wanted Shenmue 3 and would have pledged, did so on the day the campaign launched. That's just how it works. More casual fans and those who haven't played the series (but might be curious), would be more reluctant about backing a kickstarter. Unfortunately, I don't think the cynical (and almost negative) press has helped at all! It's really quite infuriating, as it's created this idea amongst the general public that the kickstarter campaign is just a PR stunt and a way of gauging interest and that Sony and other investors will actually be footing the bill. This is obviously not true and funding is needed from the kickstarter.

Hopefully, by offering some new reward tiers, it will boost interest and offer an incentive to those who have already pledged, to up their pledge.

Shenmue has nothing cool going for it for new fans...Trailer sucked....They havn't shown the cool concepts of a life simulator, they havn't shown things that push the boundaries for games..

That's because Shenmue 3 isn't for new fans nor will it push the boundaries of games. Games have moved on in 14 years.

I'm sorry, but it will remain a niche game for niche audiences. And frankly, that's what I want. I want the game to be deep in Eastern culture, I want a game that allows me to partake in mundane and bizarre acts, like feeding kittens, wandering the streets (or countryside), engaging in random conversations with NPCs, collecting toy capsules, experiencing different weather transitions, having occasional fights with a deep combat mechanic etc.

If Shenmue was to appeal to anybody else but us, it would need to be Westernised, have loads more action, look like Skyrim and have a combat system that rips off the Batman Arkham series.

I think some people, for whatever reason, expected more. They thought that it would make millions and millions on kickstarter and the whole world would be throwing cash at it. So, now it's slowing down (despite being one of the most successful kickstarters of all time), those people are looking for something and someone to blame, e.g. "they're marketing it all wrong", "the advertising sucks", "there should be better reward tiers", "they should have asked for more money" etc.

I don't really get this line of thinking and I don't want to start any arguments, but it sounds really whiny and ungrateful to me.

Sorry mate, I was being a knob. I totally agree, I think announcing it at E3 was fantastic, and I'm delighted that Sony will be covering the marketing of Shenmue III.

However, the current Kickstarter campaign being run by Awesome Japan is shit . Off the top of my head, I can think of a few ways to immediately improve it massively:

1) Mark all current videos and images of Shenmue III clearly with "concept art/images" a la Bloodstained did.

2) Immediately tidy up the main Kickstarter page: clearly show the stretch goals at the top of the page, have relevant links to Shenmue history for new people to see what all the fuss is about, link the update videos on the main Kickstarter page so they're there for all to see clearly - I've been following the campaign religiously since the announcement, and I've only just stumbled upon the Shenmue III theme that was released a couple days ago by watching AdamKoralik's video. People are missing this stuff because the campaign is so badly laid out.

3) Put a huge, huge fucking header clearly stating that $10M is required to make the full Shenmue III that Yu Suzuki has envisioned. Make that abundantly clear to absolutely everyone, right away.

This is not to mention some of the cooler things like maybe ripping off the Bloodstained campaign even further, and adding "social media achievements" to it, unlocking new stretch goals for a certain amount of tweets, likes, views or whatever.

I appreciate the apology, thanks. Like I said, I'm not here to argue with anyone, so I apologise if my initial comments came across as confrontational. I should have worded it differently.

I can't say I disagree with any of that either. Those are some good ideas. Hopefully, we start to see some of those being implemented in the next few days. We definitely need to see this game reach as close to $10M as it can. If it doesn't, they better allow donations after the Kickstarter ends.

Then I spent all morning (and all lunch time and all after work) annoying her by going on and on about Shenmue 3 and how it's the greatest day of my life (second only to our wedding day) :P

Good for you you didn't forget about the second part of the best day remark. :D

Actually, I'm sorry to say she had to give me a very grumpy face and correct me on that :lol:

You're not the first person to say this, but unfortunately that's down to Sega. Sega have nothing to do with Shenmue 3, other than giving the licence to Yu Suzuki.

This is the same Sega that now concentrate more on mobile games. The same Sega that would rather give us Sonic Boom 2 (aka the worst Sonic game ever, both in terms of sales and fan and critical response). The same sega that we're still waiting on to give Western audiences Yakuza 5. The same Sega that refuse to give the west Phantasy Star Nova or Online 2.

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.

Well said guys.

Definitely not. Ryo being consumed by revenge has been central to his, admittedly rather bland, personality since the beginning. I don't think Ryo is capable at finding love or getting close to a girl at this point and I personally think it, possibly, could cheapen the overall story. Just look at how Hollywood films always have to force a love sub-plot into movies, it's not something I would personally like to see in Shenmue.

I think how love and Ryo's relationships have been handled so far has actually been perfect, with him getting so close to girls (Nozomi), caring deeply for them, yet also being so distant. He doesn't want to get too close to anyone, because he knows that those close to him could be hurt by his own quest for revenge.

just find it surprising that the dearest fans of the franchise is so down on the pricing of it.
...
if they continue to puff this KS along with nothing of significance then yes... 6 million would be my top end.


1. I don't know if we're being down so much as we're just trying to not get our hopes up. At least that's the case with me. I would love to see Shenmue 3 do really well. I just don't think it will do much more than $5 million.

2. Unfortunately, I can't see them doing much... I hope I'm wrong. The Twitch and last couple of updates were a great start, but I don't think we'll get much more. Hopefully they do add some awesome new tiers though that bring in more funding.

Edit: Also, you say about Shenmue 3 being different from most Kickstarters, but I think Castlevania and Mega Man are bigger franchises and they didn't reach anywhere near 10 million.

I'm indifferent to the other ones, but I wouldn't ask the first question; what's the point?

VIEWING it in a pre-movie-like thing, like with Shenmue II, sure. But there's no need to replay the beginning of 1, it feels redundant to me, IMO>

Off topic: Hey, aren't/weren't you from that certain fan forum for a 90s band I won't name here?..... :P

I'm really sorry, but all I saw was

Yes, Awesome Japan 3 will be shit. I don't know much about it yet and development hasn't even begun yet, but it will be shit, because reasons.

Also, why isn't the game being released on the Panasonic 3DO?

You can't spell ignorant without IGN... smh

I'll pledge an extra $30, but can't afford any more. I hope this campaign is successful and the Kickstarter is also updated to entice new backers.

I'll put down an extra 30. I hope we see a decent boom tomorrow. Hopefully the updates and new rewards we get on the kickstarter, our campaign, plus the Ask Yu thing on Twitter help raise a lot more funds.

Jackie Fhan wrote: Well, atleast now we can plan a physical campaign promotion for all of those that long forgotten about theKS, gotta get them converted

I've emailed IGN, Gamespot and Eurogamer. So far...

I don't think it is a coincidence that all of the campaign updates went up on the same day. They knew about the fan campaign and were designing their strategy to coincide with it. .

I agree, I think it was all, as a whole, planned very well.

Continuing the trend of the 3rd being the #SaveShenmue campaign was a great idea from both the fans and those involved with Shenmue 3 to have maximum impact on that day.

Unfortunately things will slow down again, but hopefully some more rewards and/or updates towards the campaign will see the usual 'end of campaign' surge that Kickstarters usually have.

This been bugging me but what does '50 Lucky Hit Tickets/20 Capsule Toy Tickets' even refer to? I mean, didn't we used to use money?

Yeah, it probably just means that you will receive in-game tickets to redeem those. I'm sure money will still be the main currency and used for Lucky Hit and Capsule Toys. It's just a standard pre-order bonus.

There's a very high chance that they will allow people to continue to fund (and select their reward - e.g. a copy of the game) AFTER the kickstarter ends, via Paypal. Most big projects do this, but it might take them a while (or, it might never happen, so don't get your hopes up).

Regardless, you will eventually be able to pre-order it I imagine. It depends if the game will be digital only, with the physical copies being exclusive to Kickstarter backers. We don't know yet what the status of the physical game is.

Fei Fong Wong wrote: I purchased ps4 for Shenmue 3

You might have wanted to wait until 2017 when the price of a PS4 will be much lower

I appreciate and enjoy what the GTA series has accomplished. My point, personally, was that I'm surprised that with the advancements in technology, we've never seen the ideas Yu Suzuki had for open world games explored and developed further. I'm also a little annoyed by it and that's a small part of the reason why I have craved Shenmue 3 so much.

MiTT3NZ wrote: Unlikely as it is, I'd buzz if we got to see Yamagishi-san again. Fuckin love that guy.

Haha I fucking love the miserable old bastard too. "Oh... It's you, Ryo."

Is there any word from passing on PAYPAL when the KS ends?

I doubt you'll hear any word on it. They want as many people as possible to fund the Kickstarter. If they announced that they'll accept donations and offer rewards after the KS ends, then they'd be no sense of urgency and it could put people off donating in the next 10 days.

They probably want to keep quiet on it so that those who haven't pledged yet will think "shit, I better donate before it's too late".

I'm not personally panicking. We're certainly close to the $5 million and the campaign is in top 10 most successful of all time (and second game only to Bloodstained). It's all good

Just hope we top the $5M mark. It could be close.

Yeah, i'm really going out of my way to get the $1500 for what I thought was going to be something so special and unqiue, and now they're using the same sort of idea and making rewards half the price. I don't know what to do now really, and it's not a good thing making us pick. Kickstarters usually the more you pay, you get everything below aswell. Now theirs too many individual tiers, that not only is it confusing to new backers, but it's proving hard to see where the real value is in what they are offering you. I want to stay with my photo in Choubo harbour, cause I still think that will have more impact than a cartoon drawing representation of myself on a capsule toy. They really need to just add the $1400 tier to the $1500 to stop people from dropping to these new lower tiers imo

Agreed. I think Awesome Japan have tried too hard to turn things around. To their credit, they had everyone calling them the worst names and practically running to their offices with pitchforks and they really have tried to do the best they can since and address people's criticisms. They were doing well. Were doing well.

Now it seems they've gone too far in the opposite direction and are just randomly throwing together as many random ass rewards together (and random tiers) as possible. It's confusing to new backers and existing backers. Some rewards are included in higher tiers and some aren't. It's also alienating to existing pledges who thought they had something special, but now it's been diluted by all the similar rewards that are less money. It'll probably make some people drop their pledges too.

In my opinion, they should have kept it simple, with each high tier reward including all the rewards below it.

I personally think I'll wait until development starts and we actually have, like, any details. We have no idea what they can and cannot do with the budget, nor what hits the game will take and whether it will be detrimental to the experience or not. We also don't know what new ideas Yu has (other than the few he has mentioned in the stretch goals) and how these could enhance (or not enhance) the experience.

In other words, let's wait and see.

pledge wise they are still coming in, but so many people are downgrading tiers to the new lower lost ones that the pledges totals are bearly moving. AJ strikes again..

No offence to the people here doing that, but could you, like, not? Are these shitty rewards really worth having a negative impact on the funding levels? Just stick with your original pledges. You really don't need your face on a crappy toy capsule or some exclusive technique scroll that, for all you know, could be worthless or whatever you're downgrading to.

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