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Shenmue III Kickstarter Q&A streaming on Twitch

lemmykoopa

Junior Member
Exactly.

They got +30K out of this lame-ass stream. Now imagine if we had a professionnal stream, more updates, and the right rewards. This community will get excited over anything related to this game. This situation would be a dream come true to anyone managing a KS.

We could end up with $8-10 Millions with a competent team. The way this is going, $6 Millios is the best we can hope for.

Ah come on, do you really think that a more flashy kickstarter page and more professional live streams would suddenly let 2 million dollars fall from the air? We should be happy with what was raised already instead of all the whining. Almost 4 million dollars raised for a 14 year old niche game franchise. Fantastic.
 
More money is always great, now I'd appreciate rewards for people who don't have money coming out their butts

Ah come on, do you really think that a more flashy kickstarter page and more professional live streams would suddenly let 2 million dollars fall from the air? We should be happy with what was raised already instead of all the whining. Almost 4 million dollars raised for a 14 year old niche game franchise. Fantastic.

We shouldn't strive to make sure the game is the best it can be ?

There are pretty easy solutions to achieve this.
 

Erevador

Member
You guys need to be positive.
I am immensely positive about the game itself and the passion of the fans for it. I wll do everything I can do help it be a roaring success.

I am not at all positive about Awesome Japan's amateurish handling of everything they've done. Ideally, they will be fired (or take a reduced role) and a more professional team might be brought in to manage the Kickstarter.
 

Crocodile

Member
Baring some huge scandal, there's no way this doesn't blow past 6 million, especially if they can secure those physical PS4 copies (which they should have tried to do before hand but better late than never). People shouldn't go into "sudoku" mode LOL. 11 million will be though with these guys in charge though. I feel baby steps worth of improvement are being made though.
 

master15

Member
I am immensely positive about the game itself and the passion of the fans for it. I wll do everything I can do help it be a roaring success.

I am not at all positive about Awesome Japan's amateurish handling of everything they've done. Ideally, they will be fired (or take a reduced role) and a more professional team might be brought in to manage the Kickstarter.

Fair enough, look for he first 20 minutes I couldn't quite believe what I was seeing. The more I thought about it, the more I was able to put this stream into context. This KS campaign needs more eyeballs particularly from non-Shenmue fans. Hopefully the ridiculousness, the mistakes and problems may make it a viral sensation and get non fans to check out the campaign.

I do concur long-term they shouldn't be involved in any future videos.
 
You guys need to be positive.
THIS. Please. After all the waiting, we finally are getting Shenmue 3 without a doubt and people are backing out because of a twitch stream? It wasn't showing gameplay, it wasn't showing some bizarre change in game mechanics, people are up in arms about some guy who was goofy on it. Sure it was odd but I trust You to make this game and I can't wait to play it.
 

Pyrrhus

Member
Fair enough, look for he first 20 minutes I couldn't quite believe what I was seeing. The more I thought about it, the more I was able to put this stream into context. This KS campaign needs more eyeballs particularly from non-Shenmue fans. Hopefully the ridiculousness, the mistakes and problems may make it a viral sensation and get non fans to check out the campaign.

I do concur long-term they shouldn't be involved in any future videos.

People don't generally watch slow motion train wrecks and then go buy stock in the company that owned the train, though. We need more eyeballs, but not for the purposes of ridicule. This guy going onto this stream high as a kite was unforgivable. It was disrespectful to his client, Mr. Suzuki and it was disrespectful to us in the audience. I believe in the product. I've put $185 of my own money toward it. But I do not believe this marketing company after seeing how the campaign has run thus far and this little display tonight.

That said, this did prove one thing. The community is still hungry for more reward tiers. If they could just get that PS4 physical copy or some other highly coveted thing, I think you'd see pledges pick up again.
 

Spaghetti

Member
That's kinda harsh considering his last game projects were basically phone games. My point is that you type ALL CAPS THERE IS NO RISK GUYS!!!11 but compared to the games I backed it feels this one is a bit more risky. I backed MN9 and Bloodstained because I trusted Inti Creates could ship a game since they had made similar games recently. IGA was also used to work with tight budget too and you could say Inafune knew the price and expenses associated with development. Pillars of Eternity was handled by Obsidian who knew how to make RPGs since they worked on many. I'm not even sure of this YS.net track record outside of the few stuff mentioned on their kickstarter page.

I find it to be fairly poor form to ask for millions of dollars and do such a poor job with this stream and the Kickstarter. 8-4 and Fan Gamers were much more professional than these idiots and it encouraged people to donate. He might be a 30 years veteran but tonight it showed he was a bit out of touch with marketing, streaming and kickstarter.
he was easily the one on that stream who was in control and knew what was actually happening with the campaign. i have no idea how you can equate the failings of awesome japan with him.

as for why awesome japan were hired, who knows. maybe they were cheap, maybe they were the only japan-based kickstarter team available for launch.

regardless, i'm not sure what exactly you want out of yu suzuki.

edit: other kickstarters from renowned game devs tend to ride on their legacy with little cynicism and scepticism. why is yu any different?
 

Coxy

Member
make physical lucky hit boards as a reward tier
play them on stream with people like the Gametrailers team
10m in the bag!
 

master15

Member
People don't generally watch slow motion train wrecks and then go buy stock in the company that owned the train, though. We need more eyeballs, but not for the purposes of ridicule. This guy going onto this stream high as a kite was unforgivable.

Except that analogy has no bearing on this because Awesome Japan are not the company developing or making Shenmue III.

I swear some of you are looking to conflate two very different issues at hand here.
 

Gen X

Trust no one. Eat steaks.
tK7hxkw.jpg

Pffft, what does a Shenmue fan have to do to get on the hype train round here?!!!???!!!!

:p
 
D

Deleted member 80556

Unconfirmed Member
From the podcast that was linked:

- Awesome Japan has "helped" 13 kickstarters prior to this (in a span of 11 months), only 7 were successful
- Only 1 videogame kickstarter ,Soul Knights (ex Nippon Ichi staff), barely met the goal of $60k with only 246 backers
- only 1550 backers and $170k for all their campaigns combined so far
- they had no native english speaker before this kickstarter apparently. All of their previous campaigns had significant spelling and translation mistakes


how did this happen

aky6aa.gif~c200


Jesus fucking Christ. The one project I wanted to be super successful. Well we're getting another Shenmue, but the alternative, where we could have reached a giant success just irritates me.

Why.jpg.

EDIT: On a more positive note, we're at 3.7M!
 
From the podcast that was linked:

- Awesome Japan has "helped" 13 kickstarters prior to this (in a span of 11 months), only 7 were successful
- Only 1 videogame kickstarter ,Soul Knights (ex Nippon Ichi staff), barely met the goal of $60k with only 246 backers
- only 1550 backers and $170k for all their campaigns combined so far
- they had no native english speaker before this kickstarter apparently. All of their previous campaigns had significant spelling and translation mistakes


how did this happen
Oh no...

This could be Suzuki's big mistake, assuming he either knows someone from AJ well enough to get a better deal (still not worth it) or a relative for him to go with AJ. Either way, oh no. I'm reminded of how (according to Blaustein) Suzuki used the services of a voice acting studio run by a family member in Japan, where supposedly he would be able to monitor progress yet the results in-game reflect how disorganized and slap-dash production was. They need to do a lot more to fix these bad vibes, get rewards up for the loaded backers, and hope they can pull off a final 48-hours-left push for $10 million.
 

Pyrrhus

Member
Except that analogy has no bearing on this because Awesome Japan are not the company developing or making Shenmue III.

I swear some of you are looking to conflate two very different issues at hand here.

They are the people running the campaign that will determine the budget of the game, and thus its scope and production value. They are Mr. Suzuki's line of communication to the West, where most of the money is to be raised. They have a direct effect on the game.

Further, it's the names Yu Suzuki and Ys Net you see listed on the Kickstarter page. Awesome Japan is essentially invisible to the casual observer and thus the shoddiness reflects on their client.

I'm not being negative because I enjoy the drama. I'm being negative because I care deeply about the project and what was intended to be a chance to clear the air and increase support for the game was badly marred by poor planning, poor production value, and a guy so high he couldn't read the chat stream of the video he was hosting.

The disinterested larger audience aren't going to talking about the actual substance of the video tomorrow. They're going to be posting gifs and clips of that guy flopping his head around and making faces and talking like he's been kicked in the head by a horse. We all deserve better.
 
Considering they'll be handling the rewards, I'd say there's plenty of room for concern. I have faith in Ys Net, but not his KS team.

Yep. I'll admit that I am absolutely just armchairing here, but given their professionalism so far, how on target do you guys think the folks running this kickstarter are about the portion of the funding that's going to need to go toward rewards. You'd like to think they've got a strategy and some numbers backing them up, but given what we saw tonight, it seems equally likely that someone just said "20...25% MAX, that should do it, right?". Out of control backer rewards can hurt a project just as easily a developer that's in over their head / promised too much with too little. It can spiral out of control super quickly.
 

master15

Member
The disinterested larger audience aren't going to talking about the actual substance of the video tomorrow. They're going to be posting gifs and clips of that guy flopping his head around and making faces and talking like he's been kicked in the head by a horse. We all deserve better.

I am a huge Shenmue fan and have been waiting for 13 years for a third title.

The fact is the larger audience do not care about Shenmue. So any exposure the campaign will get, it can't hurt because that audience is already tuned out.

With that said I do concur with some of your sentiments. I would want a much better run campaign but the fact is the only thing really driving money is new awards/gifts.
 

Trojan X

Banned
From the podcast that was linked:

- Awesome Japan has "helped" 13 kickstarters prior to this (in a span of 11 months), only 7 were successful
- Only 1 videogame kickstarter ,Soul Knights (ex Nippon Ichi staff), barely met the goal of $60k with only 246 backers
- only 1550 backers and $170k for all their campaigns combined so far
- they had no native english speaker before this kickstarter apparently. All of their previous campaigns had significant spelling and translation mistakes


how did this happen


SHIT. That explains a lot. Yu Suzuki needs help. The community's help. He need to reach out and select people but he needs someone who is in touch of the english community because he is not that fluent in English yet.
 

ZenTzen

Member
SHIT. That explains a lot. Yu Suzuki needs help. The community's help. He need to reach out and select people but he needs someone who is in touch of the english community because he is not that fluent in English yet.

maybe ben judd and DDM, they did an awesome job with Bloodstained, or Fangamer, arent they slightly involved with one of the pledges of the shenmue KS
 

TheYanger

Member
Except that analogy has no bearing on this because Awesome Japan are not the company developing or making Shenmue III.

I swear some of you are looking to conflate two very different issues at hand here.

It's telling when poor management decisions are being made as early as who to trust with the kickstarter campaign. It absolutely reflects upon the company and the production of the game, even moreso to the casual observer who isn't going to separate the two in the least.
 

benzy

Member
This looks better. The texture on the jacket looks a little off. It looks more like canvas than leather.

The jacket looks too new, where are all of the wrinkles? And his face still looks really crappy, the gaunt area, premaxillary, eyebrows, eyes, nose bridge all look off.

I wonder if they still have the 3D clay models, they should just 3D scan it since Sega has given access to Shenmue 1&2 materials.
 
You guys realize people don't work for free right? Like, I'm sure these guys would have to be paid, fired or not. Then asking someone else to take over will require tons of time and more people to pay. This all could have been handled better but you know Yu in the end wants to make his game that we've all been asking for. The fact that he's had to go this route to get the game funded shows how much he wants this. I don't care what they do as long as more updates and info comes our way. I'd be mad as hell if we've heard NOTHING but obviously these guys are doing something. Could be done better obviously but don't punish the game itself because of a bad campaign. If there's anything that Shenmue has, it's a strong, vocal community. Why not be positive about the game and spread word and interest instead of trying to get these guys fired or replaced? How bad do you think Yu will feel if everyone is more concerned about the KS instead of the new systems and areas he's trying to bring to the game?
 
There are 26k people on the $29 dollar, if they can figure out how to get a physical ps4 version with Sony as a kickstarter goal a good chunk of these people will upgrade.
 
From the podcast that was linked:

- Awesome Japan has "helped" 13 kickstarters prior to this (in a span of 11 months), only 7 were successful
- Only 1 videogame kickstarter ,Soul Knights (ex Nippon Ichi staff), barely met the goal of $60k with only 246 backers
- only 1550 backers and $170k for all their campaigns combined so far
- they had no native english speaker before this kickstarter apparently. All of their previous campaigns had significant spelling and translation mistakes


how did this happen

Holy shit, that's really concerning.
 

Haunted

Member
- Shenmue 3 wont finish the story

- Shenmue 3 wont finish the story
- Shenmue 3 wont finish the story
- Shenmue 3 wont finish the story
- Shenmue 3 wont finish the story
- Shenmue 3 wont finish the story
- Shenmue 3 wont finish the story
- Shenmue 3 wont finish the story
- Shenmue 3 wont finish the story
- Shenmue 3 wont finish the story

WAT

WHAT
WHHAAAATTTT
 

ElTorro

I wanted to dominate the living room. Then I took an ESRAM in the knee.
WAT

WHAT
WHHAAAATTTT

That was already known.

If I had my way, I'd hope that Shenmue adopts an episodic format in which every originally planned chapter is released as a small game. If Shenmue 3 is sufficiently successful, Suzuki could build on the team and assets for that.
 

Haunted

Member
You do realise shenmue was designed as a multi part series from the get go. Like they always planned for it to be more than 3 games long.
Of course I know. The first game covers the first of the eleven chapters, they skipped the second one and compressed 3-5 within the second game, so I had assumed they would go further in that direction with Shenmue 3 so they could actually use this final fucking chance, this half-miracle that it even will exist to actually finish the story. Get some fucking editors if you must. Chapter 2 was cut completely (Ryo's adventures on the ship while travelling to Hong Kong) and nothing of value was lost for the overall arc of the story. Surely, something similar must be possible for at least some elements in chapters 6-11 with a talented editor.


I don't know if I can take another "the story goes on" at the end of Shenmue 3.
 

Bl@de

Member
WAT

WHAT
WHHAAAATTTT

That's a good thing. It means we get more Shenmue. It would be terrible if they try to rush it now. It would destroy the pacing of the story. One of the greatest features of Shenmue.
I just hope that the wait is shorter for Shenmue 4^^
 
WAT

WHAT
WHHAAAATTTT

It might. With all of his problems with crowdfunding III, he might even just make IV a manga or stop at III.

TimelineToTheShenmueSaga-600x408.jpg


The following chapters of the story would release on the Dreamcast, with some games covering more than one chapter. Interestingly, while Suzuki initially mapped out 11 chapters, in later years it was revealed that the game had ballooned to 16 chapters, with the first Shenmue covering chapter 1, chapter 2 was covered in a manga chronicling Ryo’s journey to China, and Shenmue II covered chapters 3 through 5. The planned Shenmue III would cover an unknown number of additional chapters, leading to speculation of a Shenmue IV to follow, but in recent years Suzuki has stated that a third game would wrap up the series.

Source
 

Haunted

Member
It might. With all of his problems with crowdfunding III, he might even just make IV a manga or stop at III.

TimelineToTheShenmueSaga-600x408.jpg




Source
"but in recent years Suzuki has stated that a third game would wrap up the series."

FUCKING EXACTLY

This might be Suzuki's last fucking shot to properly finish the story in videogame form and he chooses not to, again?

crazypills.jpg
 
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