KS Update #32 - Capsule Blowout and more!

[shredingskin]

Fuck shenmue, back bitches.

That's How I roll.

[ElephantStone]

nothing there about "not being able to afford it".. just that you didn't like how its run and that's why.. so my comment on your response being disproportionate stands..

I can't justify it financially.

Reading is hard. :(

[RiGoRmOrTiS]

nothing there about "not being able to afford it".. just that you didn't like how its run and that's why.. so my comment on your response being disproportionate stands..

I can't justify it financially.

Reading is hard. :(

justify
verb
1. show or prove to be right or reasonable.

afford
verb
1. have enough money to pay for.

Justify means you can afford it but deemed it not worth your money (thus disproportionate reaction to the situation at hand, imo).. while "can't afford" means you don't have the money and shouldn't have pledged at $800 in the first place... Learn the English language... its fun!.

.. now didn't I say I didn't want to argue? I'm such a hypocrite, so I'll stop now.

[kanso]

I'm not dropping my pledge to "hurt" AJ, I don't care about AJ. I'm dropping it because they have devalued what I was pledging for to the point where I can't justify it financially.

Out of curiosity, ElephantStone, how was the $800 pledge devalued? I'm genuinely curious and not trying to argue/question your decision to reduce your pledge to $60 from $800.

The only thing I will mention/suggest in regards to your change of heart in your pledge (and please don't take this the wrong way) is that: is it worth reconsidering your decision and maybe adjusting your pledge between the $60 and $800—like to maybe a reward tier that seems to have higher value than the $800 tier? I say this, in a way, to look out for both the campaign and your opportunity to get properly credited as being a contributor for Shenmue in the game itself (in-game credits plus some bonus stuff like the calling card and technique scrolls at $80+ and $160+, respectively).

I personally understand a bit where you're coming from in terms of new tiers devaluing existing tiers. The tiers that standout in my mind that seem to suffer from this the most are the $1500 tier, $4000 tier, $5000 tier, and some of the $10,000 tiers. One could actually make the case that the tiers above $1400 have been devalued considerably since the last 2 sets of additional rewards.

Peep this chart from user "Ryo Hazuki" of the Shenmue III neogaf thread. You can start to see how the higher an individual pledges, the fewer items they get (in some cases), and that can be discouraging for the Shenmue fans who may not be "loaded" financially but are pulling out the stops to fund this the farthest they can due to them sticking by the "I'll do anything to make Shenmue III happen, regardless of..." sentiment. And I think Awesome Japan (or whoever is creating and approving the rewards) may not properly understand this.

I sent the Kickstarter team a message with some suggestions I have for them. (I can share them here, if the forum would like.) One of those suggestions was to clarify the rewards and to properly explain items like the technique scrolls, for example, so existing Shenmue fans and newcomers can get an idea why they should or should not care about exclusive backer-based and tier-based scrolls. Because up to this point, I do not believe a majority of us know exactly what these scrolls are, why they are a reward, and what makes them essential to the upcoming Shenmue 3 experience. I suspect they'll be very interesting and worth finding, collecting, purchasing, using, etc.

However, some newcomers (the people that this project has to reach to get more funds and support going forward) may look at said "technique scrolls" and be confused by it. They won't know if it is a silly thing, a fun thing, a serious thing, a thing crucial to Ryo's story, the adventure, etc. And that confusion should be avoided so people can make educated decisions based off their wants, needs, etc.

Anyway, so the Kickstarter team gave me a response that they will take a look at all my suggestions and do their best to make the Kickstarter page and campaign better. Now, I sent this to them during the late morning of July 8 (I'm located on the Central Timezone of USA). So hopefully they act fast to implement improvements.

[Reprise]

Right. But the first thing you said was this:

Yeah... sorry guys. I'll be dropping my pledge from $800 to $60 until AJ actually make things clearer, and sort out the higher tiers. No fucking way am I dropping that amount on something run so horrendously. If they take this weekend off as they have been doing, I can't even imagine how badly the KS is going to stall.

However, you explained it better when you said the $800 tier now felt devalued to you.

Still, there's no point arguing. If ElephantStone wants to drop his pledge then that's his business and not really anyone else's. I'm certainly not going to pledge any of those higher tiers either. So let's move on, yeah?

[ElephantStone]

justify
verb
1. show or prove to be right or reasonable.

afford
verb
1. have enough money to pay for.

Justify means you can afford it but deemed it not worth your money (thus disproportionate reaction to the situation at hand, imo).. while "can't afford" means you don't have the money and shouldn't have pledged at $800 in the first place... Learn the English language... its fun!.

.. now didn't I say I didn't want to argue? I'm such a hypocrite, so I'll stop now.

Having money doesn't mean you can afford to spend it as you please. I can't justify spending that amount of money because I can't afford to.

Again, reading is hard. :(

However, you explained it better when you said the $800 tier now felt devalued to you.

Still, there's no point arguing. If ElephantStone wants to drop his pledge then that's his business and not really anyone else's. I'm certainly not going to pledge any of those higher tiers either. So let's move on, yeah?

Yeah, in that original post I wrote what was relevant because I didn't expect to have to justify myself to a bunch of people that are upset about me realising I can't afford to dump a grand on a fucking computer game.

[itani]

I'm just grateful the game is being made. Couldn't care less if the kickstarter is run badly. As long as the game has a decent budget that's all I care about. I can only pledge 1800 dollars and might increase on the last day but I would like to say is think of this as more like a Shenmue 3 charity where what you get back doesn't really matter. The rewards for me are just a bonus.

[ElephantStone]

Out of curiosity, ElephantStone, how was the $800 pledge devalued? I'm genuinely curious and not trying to argue/question your decision to reduce your pledge to $60 from $800.

When they add a bunch of random rewards that amount to 250+ people having personal items/notes/pictures in the game, every one they add massively dilutes those rewards to the point where it's a bit of a slap in the face, especially when the higher tiers don't even include the previous ones, as is standard with 99.9% of kickstarters.

I love Shenmue, and I want Shenmue III to do well and I'll be pledging $60 for a copy of the game to do my part and hope I can turn off all the kickstarter content, as I think it's beyond a joke now and worry that Shenmue III is going to become a parody of its kickstarter.

[James Brown]

I'm just grateful the game is being made. Couldn't care less if the kickstarter is run badly. As long as the game has a decent budget that's all I care about. I can only pledge 1800 dollars and might increase on the last day but I would like to say is think of this as more like a Shenmue 3 charity where what you get back doesn't really matter. The rewards for me are just a bonus.

I have a similar point of view and sentiment for Kickstarter projects. I look at my pledge number as the max I can donate or contribute to make this happen. I do appreciate that they are offering me something in return like credits in the game and my name 1 or 2 places, but I also understand where backers can get confused and frustrated because it seems like the higher they donate, the fewer things they get credited or given back.

For example some of those new technique scroll tiers allow for the contributor to get exclusive (or seemingly exclusive) in-game content that someone pledging twice as much cannot get. Not only that but they also get to put their name in the hotel guest registry which was exclusive to the $1500 tier, $4000 tier, and some $10,000 tiers. Now, in terms of the $1500 tier, all that it has going for it is that those backers can have a signed photo of themselves in the game (nobody knows how that will look exactly). And the reasons why have not really been given or explained. And that's where it gets a bit murky and disheartening for backers that are pledging 4 figures for something that they deeply care about.

Most Kickstarter campaigns seem to keep things simple by using the logic that the more you pledge, the more cool stuff you get because "we, the people asking for your backing, appreciate that you're willing to throw that much of your hard earned money at us." And what I've observed is that if new tiers are added, they are usually focused on the lower end of the tier list, and that is probably to encourage the larger number of backers to bump up their pledges a bit. In the case of this Kickstarter, it seems that they are almost doing the opposite, they keep adding tiers on the high-middle and high-end of the list. And in the way they have shaped these newest tiers, it seems to have led to confusion across all backers at the various tier levels.

What would help is if we had better explanations and visuals for some of these items so the fans can see why they would want these / why they should have them as long-time fans of Suzuki-san's and co.'s work.

[kanso]

Out of curiosity, ElephantStone, how was the $800 pledge devalued? I'm genuinely curious and not trying to argue/question your decision to reduce your pledge to $60 from $800.

When they add a bunch of random rewards that amount to 250+ people having personal items/notes/pictures in the game, every one they add massively dilutes those rewards to the point where it's a bit of a slap in the face, especially when the higher tiers don't even include the previous ones, as is standard with 99.9% of kickstarters.

I love Shenmue, and I want Shenmue III to do well and I'll be pledging $60 for a copy of the game to do my part and hope I can turn off all the kickstarter content, as I think it's beyond a joke now and worry that Shenmue III is going to become a parody of its kickstarter.

Fair enough. One thing: I think we should be careful of is assuming that all the additions of names, photos, and toys will somehow make this game lower quality because they could be in your face and thus world or lore-breaking.

If anything, it could end up the opposite. All those items could be small and easter-egg-like and some fans may get frustrated because they cannot find their name or picture in the game without searching or playing several hours. We really do not know how these will be integrated or how they'll look. The rough Photoshop mockups of the items are not the best thing to make assumptions from despite them being our only references for said items.

[Reprise]

=
Fair enough. One thing: I think we should be careful of is assuming that all the additions of names, photos, and toys will somehow make this game lower quality because they could be in your face and thus world or lore-breaking.

If anything, it could end up the opposite. All those items could be small and easter-egg-like and some fans may get frustrated because they cannot find their name or picture in the game without searching or playing several hours. We really do not know how these will be integrated or how they'll look. The rough Photoshop mockups of the items are not the best thing to make assumptions from despite them being our only references for said items.

Agreed. I have trust in Yu Suzuki that he won't screw up his vision and make something so tacky.

[ElephantStone]

If anything, it could end up the opposite. All those items could be small and easter-egg-like and some fans may get frustrated because they cannot find their name or picture in the game without searching or playing several hours. We really do not know how these will be integrated or how they'll look. The rough Photoshop mockups of the items are not the best thing to make assumptions from despite them being our only references for said items.

That's a really good point, and actually a huge part of the problem. None of this is explained on the kickstarter at all, and they're asking people to front them multiple thousands of dollars without actually really knowing what they're getting.

[Aimless Gamer]

If anything, it could end up the opposite. All those items could be small and easter-egg-like and some fans may get frustrated because they cannot find their name or picture in the game without searching or playing several hours. We really do not know how these will be integrated or how they'll look. The rough Photoshop mockups of the items are not the best thing to make assumptions from despite them being our only references for said items.

That's a really good point, and actually a huge part of the problem. None of this is explained on the kickstarter at all, and they're asking people to front them multiple thousands of dollars without actually really knowing what they're getting.

I'm mad too man but just dont let anger ruin what you might regret. I would give my $300 just to help Yu. The stuff is just a bonus.

[shredingskin]

The names on temples and stuff is as common as it comes in reality it actually creates a "realer world", same with the gues book, the photos will be just in a place, could break immersion seeing "real photos" but it's just a come and go (probably most people will just look at it just to see the face of some backers and if it wasn't that way would just be a background with no much that interest).

The capsule toys are neat for backers, but it can go somewhere from "being a cool easter eggs" to "ok, I got this random dude again" depending on the ammount of people that have pledged.

The worst seems the lucky hit face.

It's nothing major in reality, I'm more concerned of not getting ingame content despite backing at a high tier.

Talking about "value" seems like the 175 tier is one of the most solid ones.

[Dragon St.]

I think the $250 or $300 are also very good value. The $500 one is more questionable as one toy capsule is only a additional $20 from the $100 tier. But for three more you need to pledge another $200 from the $300 tier.