by MiTT3NZ » Fri Apr 18, 2014 8:00 pm
The thing is though, both the games you mentioned there capitalised on something that was popular at the time. Heavy Rain really went with the gritty, hard boiled bollocks that everyone loved watching on TV, whereas Beyond2Souls approached it from the "super-powered misfit on the run" angle.
Having never played either game, I may be wrong in the way I described them, but that's the impression I got from the way they were marketed, and they interested me. Shenmue though? Don't fuckin think so. I was never really interested in it until I read a tiny little summary of it in a gaming mag saying something along the lines of "it's as close to real life as you'll get in a game". That's what sold me on Shenmue and it's what sold me on the original Deus Ex.
If I'd been told of either games' premise beforehand I probably wouldn't have been interested. Okay, maybe slightly interested in Deus Ex, but Shenmue? Guy's dad gets killed, so he sets out for revenge by talking to people, driving forklifts, beating up sailors, drinking coke, and collecting toys... It's a bit of a hard sell.
I had this problem the other day attempting to describe Shenmue to someone at work.
"So it's an anime game?"
"Not really, no."
"So it's a sandbox game?"
"Nah, it wouldn't be classed as a sandbox game."
"Oh, it's fighting game with hubworlds?"
"No, there isn't really that much fighting in it."
"Detective game like LA Noire?"
"Those bits are all contextual, really."
"Interactive movie?"
"Nah, not at all."
"God, you're shit at describing games."
Shenmue is not commercially viable in the typical sense. It's accrued plenty of fans over the years because it's a game you need to play to "get". Or at least watch someone play it. This is one of the problems I reckon the game industry has. Games are typically advertised via a montage of cut-scenes, whether interactive or not. There should always be gameplay in there. But... would that work for Shenmue? Unfortunately, I don't think so.
It definitely can be successful, but it will never hit the heights of your GTAs, your Metal Gear Solids, Assassin's Creeds, etc., and no matter what, it will probably always be the "cult classic" type in the sense that you'll find it difficult to come across someone who's played it. It's easy to find someone who's played a Sonic game, FIFA, Splinter Cell, Elder Scrolls, whathaveya. Shenmue just doesn't have enough "pop".
It had fucking brilliant graphics at the time, but it wasn't visually striking. There were hidden/secret cut-scenes, but never any random events that were unique to you. It didn't excel in any particular area when it comes to "gaming skillz", so has never been a "go-to-game" in the sense that Virtua Fighter or Tekken or whatever could be seen as proving grounds for in-game fighting ability. The soundtrack was beautiful, but had little to offer for the "easy listening" crowd. The detail and the world itself was immense, but it was all mechanical, all glued down, you were essentially a ghost until the A button appeared on screen or you triggered a cut scene.
Shenmue, quite simply, lacks a lot of the qualities necessary to be commercially successful on a large scale. And an investment as huge as Shenmue's needs to at least have the potential for that to be "commercially viable". Plus, if it's to rely on the whole "OMG Shenmue III's been announced!!" hype generated by the gaming media, then it needs to be announced not long before the release date so that it can ride that wave. Otherwise, people will look and say "Wow, fifteen years? That's a long time to wait for a sequel!" before completely forgetting about it a week or two later.