PAYPAL SUPPORT FOR SHENMUE 3! PRE-ORDER FOR PS4/PC!

[Kiske]

I understand the community's disappointment with the Slacker Backer, but Ys Net have still managed to raise an additional $100K because of it. That is a significant amount of money. We should be happy there are still two months left to fund the game. Star Citizen's post-Kickstarter success is unprecedented, and their model is much different than the traditional Slacker Backer. I don't think there are many other examples of extremely successful post-Kickstarter campaigns. How much has Bloodstained raised?

Awesome Japan has not done an excellent job and the negative articles haven't helped Ys Net, but I don't think either of these factors have affected Shenmue 3 as much as some of us would like to believe.

We are 36K$ away from the 100K$ mark.

Anyway, it's not about bashing the AJ campaign but trying in some way to keep the pressure on everybody involved (fans included) because the time to rise some more money is running (slowly but surely out) and asking for features and stretch goals will be over after december 31st.

Of course I'm happy about how the KS funding went and I'm aware of paypal campaign scores for previous Kickstarter games but we know and can all agree that some more money won't hurt the project.

[mjq jazz bar]

Close enough. I'm sure they'll hit $100K. I doubt they'll make another million like some had hoped, but it's more money than they ended the Kickstarter with. That's good enough.

[punkmanced]

You really shouldn’t compare Shenmue to other Slacker Backer campaigns; the potential for something incredible (i.e. Star Citizen) has always been there, and in a sense, was proven with the KS campaign, which literally raised money on its own.

Sadly, that potential is being wasted by an incompetent marketing team, and a nonexistent PR department.

Like someone said in another thread, one of our biggest wishes would be for Biscay & Co to be able to concentrate on their respective jobs without always having to fix/ cover for other people’s mistakes.

[mjq jazz bar]

Do you really believe there are another 60-70,000 fans that'd double the amount already collected? I honestly believe Shenmue 3 hit a ceiling. They'd see a significant positive change if they announced funding/pre-orders for Shenmue 1/2 HD, but that isn't happening as far as I can tell.

Star Citizen has offered countless upgrades to the in-game experience. That model does not work for Shenmue 3. How many people on here whined when Awesome Japan/Ys Net started adding dozens of options to see your face in the game?

[avens]

I think that as a whole the KS campaign wasn't badly ran, except for one key aspect.

Considering Yu Suzuki said the bare minimum to make a proper Shenmue game was 5 million, with 10 million being a more reasonable amount for that, then why did they set the funding goal at only 2 million? Now at 6 million people don't have much of a reason to donate, as they see that's the triple of what was needed, but in actuality Shenmue 3 really could use having way more.

On that note, a good ~35% of what's already collected will go into paying fees and fulfilling rewards, as we know from the pie chart presented in the official live stream http://i.imgur.com/JtmE4vg.png .That means with 6.4m collected in actuality Shenmue 3 will be made with a budget of 4.3m, so less than the bare minimum.

[mjq jazz bar]

Things would be much worse today if they had set the goal to $10 million, almost twice what the most successful gaming Kickstarter at the time had raised, and not succeeded. This forum would be a lot more depressing right now.

[punkmanced]

Well, I agree with you in the sense that, as things currently stand, we’ve hit an insurmountable wall. Had they opted for a more aggressive/ pro-active attitude months ago (e.g. hire a publicist; look into digital marketing initiatives; lobby Sega for HD ports), I’m certain we wouldn’t be having this conversation right now.

Problem is time is being wasted in maintaining the current, passive, course.
Wasted potential.

[mjq jazz bar]

I agree they've done nearly everything wrong. They somehow succeeded in spite of themselves. The E3 announcement was the one incredible moment that made the campaign so successful. It makes me laugh when people argue otherwise.

[avens]

Things would be much worse today if they had set the goal to $10 million, almost twice what the most successful gaming Kickstarter at the time had raised, and not succeeded. This forum would be a lot more depressing right now.

Since the unrealistic KS goal of $2m was reached in a couple of days, then the non-insiders that hadn't pledged yet had little to no reason to donate, especially now that the campaign has already gathered three times that. I can't stress this point enough.

Also, there really is no point in starting a crowdfunding campaign with a substantially lower goal than what's actually needed, as with that amount still the project would be unrealistic to complete as intended.

I do know there was no way to achieve $10m no matter what, actually in my post I never suggested nor implied that to be the goal, but the bar should have been set in between an achievable amount and what the team really needed as the bare minimum.

The facts are that:
- The KS goal of $2m really wasn't nearly enough to make the game, especially after the 35% hit due to fees and rewards fulfillment (so, $1.3m going to development).
- The bare minimum to make the game was $5m, that after fees.
- Going by the presented pie chart percentages, then to receive $5m they needed to get about $7.7m from the KS campaign.
- The $7.7m sum already reached the point of not being achievable, since it was higher than what any other game had gathered via KS.
- The $10m dream was not going to happen, especially after fees ($13.5m).

So with that said, I think the KS goal should have been set at $5m, which is $3.25m after fees.

Really, common sense and a calculator would have done wonders to this campaign

Funnily enough, we are still short from the actual goal. Counting the 35% hit, with the current $6.4m sum we are $1.3m away from Yu's goal of $5m of funding for developing the game. Open up your wallets.


edit: My intention is not to criticize the team in charge of the crowdfunding, for the sake of criticizing. That's childish. Instead, the approach is to acknowledge there's a problem -consisting of that the campaign still needs your money despite not looking like that's the case-, and then solve it. For that the PayPal campaign must be advertised a lot more by us, the team in charge should add donation rewards targeted to KS backers (give me a $200 figure [without including the game] and I'll buy it), and we could donate some more too
TBH I was just thinking that this topic of the funding goal still not being reached could have been a good topic for an Adam Koralic video, but on second thought I don't think it'd be. Very few people would watch the whole video explaining the problem, with the vast majority going for the sensationalist headline, so he would get bad press.

[mjq jazz bar]

None of us really know how much money they still need to make the best game possible. Yu Suzuki has made some vague comments that the media has blown out of proportion and/or willfully misinterpreted. As far as I can tell, Ys Net is still hiring people and currently working on the game, with funding from Kickstarter and other outside investors whose total investments we are not privy to. Everything else is speculation.

They clearly saw the point in setting the goal at $2 million. Again, no one here has any idea what's going on behind the scenes. The Paypal isn't a plea for extra funding because they think the project is under-funded. It was set up due to popular demand and in keeping with tradition set by other successful Kickstarters. Like Yu Suzuki said, sure, he could use more money. Who couldn't? He's still working on making an awesome game.

[FlagshipFighter]

Combined with other funding, $2m through Kickstarter would have enabled them to make a game that would progress the story of Shenmue. That, more than anything else, is what fans have been waiting 14 years for. Not action scenes, not mini-games, not bleeding edge graphics. People were begging Suzuki to deliver what happens next in Ryo's story of revenge and discovery upon leaving the cave, and a crowdfunding target of $2m would have secured that much, if nothing else.

Of course everybody would prefer a game with more interaction, more exploration, more exciting gameplay. And that's what stretch goals are for. But if they'd set that as the minimum target and failed to reach it, then they wouldn't have been able to make Shenmue III at all, not even the "$2m" version. You don't get a second chance to make the kind of splash they made with this announcement, so they had to make sure that even if they didn't raise enough for a fully featured game, they'd be able to lock in at least enough to continue the story in some kind of video game form. That was priority number one, and I believe Yu felt an obligation to protect that opportunity and not gamble with it in the pursuit of ever shinier, ever more distant rewards.

In his position at the time, not knowing how well the Kickstarter would be received, I'd say he made the sensible choice.

[Anonymous81]

Yeah, I suspect the choice really was between:

1) Shoot for the moon and risk not even getting funded.

2) Shoot for the bare minimum and then if we don't get a fuller game experience, at least we can continue to tell this story.

I also feel the KS campaign was very hurriedly convened, due to the fortuitous timing of E3. So almost from the word "Go!" they were playing catch up with PR, perception, and winging it without a firm marketing plan in place. I also think, based on comments by AJ reps and others, that there are some complicating factors going on behind the scenes that limit their agility and effectiveness in terms of PR as a whole.

So while I'm all for "acknowledging that there's a problem," I don't know that much can be done about it. We have no power over what they do other than making polite requests and hoping their hands aren't too tied to listen. And raising awareness, as always.

[SMDzero]

Didn't Yu say that at the 2 million level Shenmue 3 would still "stand proud with it's predecessors"?

Wouldn't that mean it' still would be of similar quality as the previous 2 games?

[punkmanced]

Didn't Yu say that at the 2 million level Shenmue 3 would still "stand proud with it's predecessors"?

Wouldn't that mean it' still would be of similar quality as the previous 2 games?

i.e. those QTEs would’ve been rockin’ ;)

[Yokosuka]

Didn't Yu say that at the 2 million level Shenmue 3 would still "stand proud with it's predecessors"?

Wouldn't that mean it' still would be of similar quality as the previous 2 games?

Yeah Yu often contradicts himself on this point, his last interviews have dampen my enthusiasm a bit. I think he simply talked about spirit (and he's right, this game will be made with heart).