To All The Donators of "Shenmue 3" worldwide: Roll Call!

[LeRoi]

Hello everyone,

with this message i want to particulary adress all the 73000 people who already donated, but of course the ones who didn't yet are also spoken to.

As you all know there is a bit less than 3,4 Million Dollars missing to make "Shenmue 3" a real Open-World-Game like the first 2 games. I don't know how you feel about this, but I guess we all don't want to end up with a halfassed game that feels rushed and unfulfilling. In my book it has to be as great and as legendary as the first two installments. We have been waiting 15 years now and its been way too long. Especially way too long for a third installment to be shitty. It has to give you the same chills and epicness the franchise has already given you over the last years. But this greatness can not be achieved if the game is not a fully Open-World-Game. Therefor the 10 Million Dollar mark has to be exceeded. And it first sounds like a Hard-To-Achieve-Goal, but it isn't. Really folks, it actually is pretty easy. Let me tell you why. We got less than 3,4 million missing right? Lets make this easy and lets say it is exactly 3,4 million. Then we have even over 73000 donators worldwide, that already proofed that they really want this game to be made so bad. Lets make this easy again and say 73000 donators. So what you get is this:

3400000 : 73000 = 46,575 $ per person

Just for the hell of it we make this easy again and say 47 Dollars. That is the amount of money all of us 73000 donators have to donate again to reach the final goal of 10 Million Dollars and make "Shenmue 3" legandary. Just 47 Bucks per Individual! Thats all it takes folks! Please I'm begging you! We have come so far already and this is just the last step. We can't let it drown now. And of course all the ones who havn't donated yet please donate too. You can donate even more if you like, the game will definatly benefit from it even if the 10 million mark already has been exceeded; the more the better. But I'm just saying you don't nessesarily have to donate a lot of money. 47 Dollars per person is enough to make this game legendary. But for that we all have to pull together to achieve this goal. Only if we act in concert we can accomplish something and make this third game as great (maybe even greater) as the first 2.

We all can make it! And I damn well know that we all don't want a "meh" Shenmue 3, we also dont want an average or a good Shenmue 3...We want a GREAT Shenmue 3. A LEGANDARY Shenmue 3. A Shenmue 3 that will finally conclude the Saga, that we have been waiting on to be concluded over a decade and a half. A Shenmue 3 that will give us the chills and make us sympathise with every character there is even with the bad guys.

So lets do it!
Please share this and make people aware of the fact that if we all work together its a piece of cake to make this game great!

[Kiske]

The biggest mistake made during the Kickstarter was throwing out that $10m figure on Reddit, as it's led so many people to assume the game won't pass muster without it. If not for that AMA response, everyone would be rightly thrilled at the project more than tripling its crowdfunding goal.

[FlagshipFighter]

I've been regularly donating $30 every month I'm able to (which isn't as often as I'd like due to medical bills and increased living expenses in the last year) for what it's worth, on top of my KS backing. I'm sure many here do similarly, or even more. Sadly, it's the huge mass of the rest of the backers that would have to participate to make this happen.

Still, I firmly believe the game can and will be awesome - if not EVERYTHING we hoped for SIII to be - without reaching that sum. If anyone knows how to frugally micromanage a budget, it's Yu.

[sand4fish]

The biggest mistake made during the Kickstarter was throwing out that $10m figure on Reddit, as it's led so many people to assume the game won't pass muster without it. If not for that AMA response, everyone would be rightly thrilled at the project more than tripling its crowdfunding goal.

Unfortunately that was the Reddit answer Yu gave out to a question I made to him. My real intention behind that question was to fire up every backer and fan to do more for the campaign back then. I was not expecting him to throw solid numbers, though I'm still happy to get to know what was his true aspirations for the game lie.

People just have weird assumptions. Every game company has a limited budget to work with. If given more money, even a game with a monstrous budget like GTA V could have been more in tune with its creators "true" vision for the game. This can actually can be seen with MGS V: Phantom Pain, where a lot of gamers felt that the final product was somehow incomplete even though it was critically acclaimed upon release. Any creator could do more if given more money, but that's not how the world works.

In short, Shenmue 3 will not be not be half baked. Besides having more than the minimum required budget, Yu has full control over the game development. Whatever shortcomings might come to Yu's way, he will make it up by being more creative. That's simply what videogame making is all about, and actually anything in this world that is of worth.

[LeRoi]

People just have weird assumptions. Every game company has a limited budget to work with. If given more money, even a game with a monstrous budget like GTA V could have been more in tune with its creators "true" vision for the game. This can actually can be seen with MGS V: Phantom Pain, where a lot of gamers felt that the final product was somehow incomplete even though it was critically acclaimed upon release. Any creator could do more if given more money, but that's not how the world works.

In short, Shenmue 3 will not be not be half baked. Besides having more than the minimum required budget, Yu has full control over the game development. Whatever shortcomings might come to Yu's way, he will make it up by being more creative. That's simply what videogame making is all about, and actually anything in this world that is of worth.




[/color]

This is the dumbest shit I have read in a while. What does that even has to do with anything? Of course you could do more with a gazilion dollars but thats not the issue here. Since you know so much about how the world works you know that everything in this world got a price right? Anything that is of worth huh? So the man said he needs 10 Million to make it an open world game. Thats the price (budget) he needs to pay for it. If he can't pay it there won't be an open world.And a Shenmue 3 without an open world will suck by default because thats basically what represents Shenmue (besides the story of course). And creativity has nothing to do with it. He can be as creative as he wants without the right amount of money he won't change anything. Thats like saying "I'm just driving a toyota but i will use my creativity to make it look like a buggati". If you aint got at least half a mill on deck there is no bugatti. You can try everything to dress it up but it just aint there.
We all waited way to long for this to resign ourselfs now to minimized standards. Thats why I said in my original post that it ain't hard to achieve this last mark. Only 47$ each.

[SMDzero]

Dude, Shenmue 3 will be just fine with 6.6 million.

5 million was the most important threshold to reach because that ensures us a solid version of the game with all the essential features that will make the game a unique experience.

Yes, Shenmue 3 won't have the features of an open world game by todays standards but then again neither did Shenmue 1 or 2.

[Spaghetti]

Nobody really knows what Yu meant by "truly open world", right?

On the face of what we know, the "open world" of Shenmue III doesn't seem particularly dissimilar to those of the original or II.

[sand4fish]

This is the dumbest shit I have read in a while. What does that even has to do with anything? Of course you could do more with a gazilion dollars but thats not the issue here. Since you know so much about how the world works you know that everything in this world got a price right? Anything that is of worth huh? So the man said he needs 10 Million to make it an open world game. Thats the price (budget) he needs to pay for it. If he can't pay it there won't be an open world.And a Shenmue 3 without an open world will suck by default because thats basically what represents Shenmue (besides the story of course). And creativity has nothing to do with it. He can be as creative as he wants without the right amount of money he won't change anything. Thats like saying "I'm just driving a toyota but i will use my creativity to make it look like a buggati". If you aint got at least half a mill on deck there is no bugatti. You can try everything to dress it up but it just aint there.
We all waited way to long for this to resign ourselfs now to minimized standards. Thats why I said in my original post that it ain't hard to achieve this last mark. Only 47$ each.

Really... So what's the issue again? That none of us knew that giving more money to the campaign will make it a better game and you just happen to enlighten us with your post?

First of all, where did Yu say Shenmue 3 would be a fully open world game if given $10 Million? Read carefully the AMA post. And what "open world" even entitles to? GTA style? Then Shenmue 1 & 2 must suck to you because it's not open world enough. And why would Yu even be willing to make a Shenmue 3 with a $2 million budget? You were expecting a visual novel? Lol. That's why I said people have weird assumptions, and you just proved that.

What if Yu gives a new public comment that Shenmue 3 would have ALL the features of an open world and some more (whatever that means) if he only had $20 million at his disposal? Are you going to ask everyone for ONLY $200 more?
You are scoffing at $47 as if every backer is financially able to give out any more than they already did. Of course, asking of others is easy when we don't have to show our own contribution to the cause after all.

PS. About making your old car looking like a Bugatti, here you go. You are welcome.

[Yokosuka]

Then we have even over 73000 donators worldwide, that already proofed that they really want this game to be made so bad.

Imo, 20 000 donators really dream of this game. If you take on the backers who gave 100 dollars at least, that's the figure you find. So 170 dollars per fan. That could have been worse but defo harder to convince the community which has already donated a lot of money.

[Suzuki Yu]

it's easy on paper..
but those who already participated are not necessarily ready to pay more unfortunately.
some of them is OK with the budget as it is. some of them love the game but not to the point that some of us would go for support. some of them don't even care about the franchise but they want to support the fans. or newcomers whom are interested in the franchise and payed the basic price to get the game.. etc

initially i donated about 2,600$ in kickstarter campaign and i wish if i could do more during that period.
when the Paypal campaign begins i had fantasized in my mind that with Paypal donors + 5000 to 10000 people whom are willing to continue the support after Kickstarter we could do miracles! (i mean 5000 X 50$ = 250,000$ per month just from existing backers!) so i continued my support in the first two months (100$ each) but unfortunately i overestimated the numbers and it was below below my expectations even though i tried to be realistic as possible as i could (there when i completely gave up on this)

[Shenmue_Music]

What if we get celebrities to donate? It may work (just an idea, don't flame me!).

[Spaghetti]

The big money funding period is over, no matter what. You would not be able to mobilise people in force to donate like the original Kickstarter reveal, period. The Slacker Backer campaign is the best we've got to continue a drip-drip-drip of funds, and still makes a respectable couple thousand on most weeks. We should accept that and move on from pie-in-the-sky donation efforts.

However, I don't particularly believe OP's concerns exist in the first place.

If $10 million was Yu's dream figure, coming $3.3 million short isn't as huge a deal as OP is making out. We blitzed all of the new gameplay feature stretch goals and the majority of the combat ones (the ones we didn't will probably get thrown in anyway), beat Cedric's secret $5 million target, and broke two Guinness World Records.

Favours are being called in, the money is being stretched as far as possible, and who knows if additional funding sources were made available after the Kickstarter was such a massive success. Writing the game off because Yu mentioned an arbitrary number in a Reddit AMA is dumb.

[Yokosuka]

What if we get celebrities to donate? It may work (just an idea, don't flame me!).

Shenmue already reached its quota of backer celebrities : the main charadesigner of Pokemon, the CEO of Razer, Kavinsky, M83, maybe Kojima (he's following Suzuki in Twitter).

[Kiske]

What if we get celebrities to donate? It may work (just an idea, don't flame me!).

Shenmue already reached its quota of backer celebrities : the main charadesigner of Pokemon, the CEO of Razer, Kavinsky, M83, maybe Kojima (he's following Suzuki in Twitter).

Them too?

[Yokosuka]

Pure assumption on my part hehe but I can't believe Anthony Gonzales gave nothing as the Shenmue fan he is.