Lessons Shenmue III can take from recent indie game failures

[Let's Get Sweaty]

Sony is providing progress review meetings to help keep the project on target as well.

[Zoltor]

To Himuro: Shenmue 3 is not just any indie game, and you're a fool to think the modern day media, wouldn't hate the hell out of Shenmue 3, nomatter how aweome it ends up being.

The modern day media, do not rate a game by its own merits of the genre It's suppose to be in. I think it is a sure thing, that everyone of those bitches will be complaining about pacing, and worse of all, they "will" bitch about it not being a game that holds tour hand, and thus Isn't for "everyone". Hell, scumbags like IGN especially, have been well known to have someone review a game, who doesn't like the genre that the game they are reviewing, is in.

Yes, modern media will give a game strikes for not being for the lowest common denominator.


Now the good thing is, It's a adventure game, and such remarks certainly haven't effected other games of this genre or even offshoots of this genre.

I hate to use this game as a example yet again, but there's so much incommon with the two projects. Elite Dangerous is a prime example, have you watched reviews of such, well the reviews of Shenmue 3 are probally going to be very similar, minus the unforgiving part(It's slow, there's not much direction, It's not for everyone, ect), meaning Shenmue will be only slightly better off, yet to the actual gamers who would buy a space sim to begin with, it did smashingly well.


Shenmue 3 Isn't going to appeal to the media's sensibilities(not to mention anyone of them that may have been bought out by some AAA publisher, since I'm positive many of them are scared to death, of a game like Shenmue 3 succeeding as a indie game), but that's not going to get in the way of Shenmue 3 being a big success. If Elite Dangerous, a Space sim of all things can do it, Shenmue 3 definitely will do gang busters(Shenmue 3 has even more going for it, Adventure is not a nitche genre these days, where the off shoot that is the space sim, still is, it has a even bigger fanbase, and the creator is Yu Suzuki of all people, not that the creator of Elite Dangerous Isn't a legend as well, but more people know of Yu Suzuki, as he left a much more lasting mark on the industry).

[shredingskin]

The modern day media, do not rate a game by its own merits of the genre It's suppose to be in.
Yes, modern media will give a game strikes for not being for the lowest common denominator.

Yes, that fucking killed reviews of adventure games for me. People complaining about mechanics of a genre just because it's not what they like. In a shooter you shoot, in a fighting game you fight, in an adventure game you have puzzles, get over it. It may not be the most engaging mechanic ever, but that's part of why people like them.

I don't believe the adventure genre is reviving, it mutated to interactive fiction (something more similar to what shenmue is).

I don't really know how media will respond to Shenmue, they would praise broken age and tell tale games, and destroy games like tesla effect. I think a lot of them are just automatons that write by influence, if the first impressions of Shenmue III are "amazing, immersive, thoughtful experience, esoteric, novel" most of them will go with the flow, if the first ones are "slow, boring, too japanese, sexist, trivial" people will go that route.

I think there's some type of animosity still, of people just wanting to rate it low just to say "you waited that long for this?" , "another KS fiasco" some bullshit like that, some with intent and some just because "KS game it's ok/good" doesn't sell as much as "most funded KS game FAILS".

[fittersau]

Sony is providing progress review meetings to help keep the project on target as well.

They do.. but this is where the example of No Man's Sky could be used directly. NMS is/was a PS4 console exclusive much like Shenmue 3 is, so if Sony were involved with NMS then what is happening behind doors to help Shenmue stay on track?

Why did NMS have a June release date only to be suddenly changed to August, yet also shipped in a bad state? To me it sounds like marketing have schedules and generally should be adhered to because the supply chain is such a big piece of delivering a game. Does Sony pressure indies into shipping on time regardless of the state the game is in to ensure their investments are met? To me it certainly looked like the case for NMS. For Shenmue it may be different and they allow more lee way for Shenmue to ship later.

[fittersau]

I think there's some type of animosity still, of people just wanting to rate it low just to say "you waited that long for this?" , "another KS fiasco" some bullshit like that, some with intent and some just because "KS game it's ok/good" doesn't sell as much as "most funded KS game FAILS".

I think there is real danger for this to happen. Many people who don't get Shenmue will enjoy watching it fail. Especially since us hard core fans are so vocal. We saw this backlash already when tall poppy syndrome came out to chop us down for the success we had at Kickstarter.

This is also what happened to NMS, was hyped by a number of people, yet when it failed to meet the extraordinary expectations, often unrealistic, it was chopped down horrendously. The hate they got just for slipping release date, now the hate they are getting just because it's buggy, Indies barely survive like this. EA backed Battlefield, Activision backed Destiny, these games despite their similar issues of bad net code, ripped out features only to be paid as DLC later.. they can survive, but Indies and Shenmue.. it won't be pretty if it doesn't review well.

[shredingskin]

NMS is/was a PS4 console exclusive much like Shenmue 3 is, so if Sony were involved with NMS then what is happening behind doors to help Shenmue stay on track?

I thought the PC version of NMS was more botched than the ps4 release.

In NMS the problem was the concept, the most important thing was a procedural semi-infinite universe, and the survival aspect of it was rendered in second place (and this is what NMS is, a survival/resource game). Publishers can keep developers from getting in the going nowhere zone or ask for changes to make the game more mainstream, pressure them to give status/build, meet deadlines, trying to keep them on schedule, but they don't design the game.

I'm not going to be a pessimist thinking media will just hate on the game because of it's name and it's legacy, I just hope Shenmue will exceed our expectations, if it does it will have good reviews. It will be a polarizing game for sure though (like the first one is/was). But I cannot take my cynnicism out of thinking that most media has a herd thought, and they'll follow the lead of the first impressions.

At most they can blast the game all they want, if gamers like it enough reviews don't matter much (a lot of very positive reviews on steam is more important than a 0 of ign).

Let's just all hope that YS can pull another amazing game, we know he can, and we haven't seen anything worrying that could say otherwise. Heck even all the output we had has been pretty awesome.

We are a bunch of pussies worrying about pretend future bad reviews of a game that's more than a year away, I hope we could chill more, because if we continue this path the first bad review we'll make isis look like a buch of babies.

[Spaghetti]

We are a bunch of pussies worrying about pretend future bad reviews of a game that's more than a year away, I hope we could chill more, because if we continue this path the first bad review we'll make isis look like a buch of babies.

You have a point. Although the media perception deck is definitely stacked against Shenmue III, maybe we should... be a little more hopeful?

Then again, we go through this cycle all the time. Doubt, Kickstarter update, optimism, repeat.

[fittersau]

I thought the PC version of NMS was more botched than the ps4 release.

In NMS the problem was the concept, the most important thing was a procedural semi-infinite universe, and the survival aspect of it was rendered in second place (and this is what NMS is, a survival/resource game). Publishers can keep developers from getting in the going nowhere zone or ask for changes to make the game more mainstream, pressure them to give status/build, meet deadlines, trying to keep them on schedule, but they don't design the game.

Let's just all hope that YS can pull another amazing game, we know he can, and we haven't seen anything worrying that could say otherwise. Heck even all the output we had has been pretty awesome.

NMS has issues for both PC & PS4, but more so with PC. On PS4 so I've read the game freezes a lot.

Yeah I agree, they never highlighted the survival part, but really when you think about Hello Games' inspiration for making NMS, it was always from the 60s, 70s science fiction novels. A large part of those novels were about the loneliness of space and the demands to survive in it. So is it really a surprise or were people putting their expectations completely out of whack?

As far as I was concerned NMS was a space game where you could name stuff. That's about it. Does NMS do that? Yep it does, but it's also a survival game. People imprinted their own desires on the canvas of NMS regardless, thus the disappointment. In fact when you think about it, NMS succeed just like the books that inspired it, NMS allowed people to let their imaginations go wild and think about what it means to explore the universe. It was a thought experiment that succeeded inspiring people and it worked. As for the game, well it is what it is.

Yeah Publisher meetings can definitely help keep things on track. Given Suzuki's penchant for big budgets, lets hope he can curb his experimentation and pump out an amazing sequel.

[killthesagabeforeitkillsu]

First and foremost, don't lie to the community. This isn't a problem since Yu Suzuki is humble by nature and he might put some outlandish ideas out there but he never promised this game will have the same type of AAA finish the first two Shenmue titles had. So you might feel disappointed in the end of the day but you won't feel robbed.

Second, don't give a release date you can't meet. This could be a problem, I don't think 2017 is a realistic date given Yu Suzuki is still trying to hire former AM2 people and judging by recent screenshots, it's still very raw. The last thing we need is for YS to rush a game that is 15 years in the making.

Third, use your budget and your time responsibly. Don't start talking about spin offs or negotiating a Shenmue Anime, if there is something on your work schedule that isn't about Shenmue III... remove it.

[Spaghetti]

Second, don't give a release date you can't meet. This could be a problem, I don't think 2017 is a realistic date given Yu Suzuki is still trying to hire former AM2 people and judging by recent screenshots, it's still very raw. The last thing we need is for YS to rush a game that is 15 years in the making.

I agree with the rest of your post, but I don't think December 2017 is a rushed release date. It's achievable though obviously not ideal, and none of us really expect it to make it. Have to remember a lot of the pre-production for Shenmue III was already done, so that has shaved a not insignificant amount of development time off.

It's probably not a good idea to go off the screenshots either, as the most recent ones are, well, from February and all we've seen since are just glimpses using prototype and placeholder materials.

[Ziming]

If a delay does happen they need to at the same time show some significant progress in development. Otherwise this delay will be exploited into a negative click-bait by the gaming news media. They need a deterrent at the same time to offset negative publicity. Like say if YS could work something out with SEGA and announce HD ports at the moment they officially delay Shenmue 3.

[Spaghetti]

Yeah, that'd take the edge off. Although, I do think if the media get hysterical over one delay they'd be being very, very hypocritical. It seems almost every game that releases this generation is delayed at least once and they hardly make a meal out of it, although with Shenmue it does invite fluff, navel-gazing thinkpieces to try setting an agenda.

"DOES SHENMUE III BEING DELAYED MEAN THE GAME IS BAD?" "DOES SHENMUE III's DELAY MEAN THEY STOLE THE MONEY?"

Like, it doesn't matter what the content of the article is, the title does all the work, can be read at a glance and without much thought, and suggests something sinister without presenting the reader with any facts. Fucking game journalism. What a mess.

[Kintor]

Yeah, that'd take the edge off. Although, I do think if the media get hysterical over one delay they'd be being very, very hypocritical. It seems almost every game that releases this generation is delayed at least once and they hardly make a meal out of it, although with Shenmue it does invite fluff, navel-gazing thinkpieces to try setting an agenda.

"DOES SHENMUE III BEING DELAYED MEAN THE GAME IS BAD?" "DOES SHENMUE III's DELAY MEAN THEY STOLE THE MONEY?"

Like, it doesn't matter what the content of the article is, the title does all the work, can be read at a glance and without much thought, and suggests something sinister without presenting the reader with any facts. Fucking game journalism. What a mess.

It's difficult to say how the media would react in the event of a (hypothetical) delay in Shenmue 3's release date. Still, given how the media has behaved in the past I'd say there's a good chance they'd take a negative slant and run with it. I suppose at least it's fortunate that Gawker Media is being shut down and Kotaku has been bought by Univision, so that's probably one less enemy we have to worry about. Even so, there are a lot of clickbait websites still out there, any number of which would be eager to take a shot at Shenmue 3, seeing as slander against Kickstarter games has proven be such a popular topic.

So then, what is to be done about this potential problem?

In the old days, during the Dreamcast era, it used to be a lot easier. We used to have a whole host of Sega magazines and favoured websites to help get the message out. That might sound cynical, to match a positive bias against a negative bias, but I've always appreciated the value of some good old fashioned propaganda. Of course, that's not to say we are entirely out of friends in today's gaming media. For every voice keen to say something uniformed about Shenmue 3 there is also one will to hear Yu Suzuki out and support this vision for the game. It's just a matter making sure those positive voices are the ones that get heard the loudest in the end.

[Let's Get Sweaty]

After the many ways in which the media has tested us over this game, I think the one thing it's safe to say is that unlike No Man's Sky, reports of a delay wouldn't be met with death threats at least. If that was ever gonna happen it surely would have by now, and thankfully it hasn't.

[SMDzero]

After the many ways in which the media has tested us over this game, I think the one thing it's safe to say is that unlike No Man's Sky, reports of a delay wouldn't be met with death threats at least. If that was ever gonna happen it surely would have by now, and thankfully it hasn't.

Is there any reason to expect a delay at this point?

I know the original development schedule is nearly 1/2 over but the game was looking great 6 months ago @ Magic. I'm sure a ton of progress has been made at this point.

I'm willing to bet in a few months we'll really see something finalized and concrete with Shenmue 3 like a teaser.