nope... theres also no "BUT..." at the end of that.
I am not calling him a liar whatsoever. Its just something thats been playing on my mind.
Yu Suzuki isnt stupid. In fact, he is the opposite. A gaming innovator, a genius of producing and directing quality products that stand the test of time. Lets get that out of the way, and something we can (rarely) all agree on.
So, what if the magic $10,000,000 number is just a strategy. I mean, why that figure? A conveniently exact figure at that. We know a lot of stuff has and has not been made public, but oddly, the stretch goals have again, coincidently been rounded off nicely to exact amounts. Very nice. Very handy.
But could this all be a strategy? An embellishment on what is actually predicted to make the "full open world" that we expect Shenmue 3 to be? I hold my hand up, i am not a game developer, or have worked in the industry to know the entire process. But lets take the $47 million figure of the original game. Take away the research costs, which was a huge cost. The development across 2 consoles, which includes the development of 2 gaming engines. The manpower that went into that. The marketing. The development of new software techniques such as the data compression reinvention. I mean surely the research and engine alone would rack up a HUGE amount for that game, as well as the second.
With Shenmue 3, we have the kickstarter funding in the pot. I would hazard a guess that Yu Suzuki himself will be pumping some money into this also. Perhaps, YS.net employees may be in there too, as stakeholders? What about Shibuya Productions, surely they will have money put into this. Sony are covering marketing and distribution costs. Who are these independent investors?
So, with that in mind, what IF Yu had put a semi strategy into place where we are told $10 million is a target to cushion himself from an actual target. What if $7 million is the actual realistic target? I mean why set the bar so high with $10 million, when the record for a videogame Kickstarted before it was just over half of that target? It doesnt make sense in a way, coming from an experienced, intelligent man? Plus, we have a lot of the costs covered....
Maybe i am talking nonsense, but common sense must at least come into play at some point here. I honestly believe that if we dont hit $6.5 million for the "ragdoll reaction", then that doesnt mean that it wont be in the game. We just dont know. Just because we dont get to a strict 10,000,000, theres no need to freak out and refresh the Kickstarter page every 5 seconds until its over. No need to freak out, running around the internet screaming about campaigns, and we must do this and must do that. This is gonna be a great game, and i have no doubts that this is gonna be a full Shenmue 3. Not a crammed Baisha, and an empty Choubu and Baily Village. Its not gonna be over in 3 hours of gameplay. Oks, its going to be the size of Doubuita apparenty? Fine by me, the first game took me an age the first time i played, so bring that on again!