Shenmue 3 Kickstarter

[BogusMeatFactory]

Good! Please do. Just take your time with it and let it seep into your soul.

The reality is that shenmue is a mind controlling brain parasite that we all have. Joooooiiiinnnn uuuusssss

[Reprise]

"Let's get sweaty"

[pierrot]

I've been pretty upset with a lot of the early reporting going on with the Shenmue III KS; and the increasingly stagnating funding, plus a lot of new information from the last two days is making me really worried about the final result.

Half decent Polygon article on Suzuki's thoughts concerning development costs.

To that point, Suzuki said he conceptualized the game in such a way that it’s scalable to different budgets. At the lower end of the spectrum, the game will focus more on its story, and at the upper end it will incorporate more open world elements. There will also be Kickstarter stretch goals along the way pointing to more specific features. And Suzuki said he will be bringing in various side activities and minigames similar to what players saw in Shenmue 2.

Clarification on Sony's role with regard to Shenmue III.

SONY will not get any money from the KS, they will help to finance the PS4 version and will also help for advertisement.

Adam Koralik video on the kickstarter and Sony. (Youtube)

I would love for Power Drift to make it into the game, but at this point, I doubt it will make that stretch goal.

I truly feel that logic and rhetoric should be required elements of any journalism curriculum. Also, game media is apparently worse than US news media, which is an "achievement" that I imagine requires actual work to accomplish.

[MrPopo]

I've been pretty upset with a lot of the early reporting going on with the Shenmue III KS; and the increasingly stagnating funding, plus a lot of new information from the last two days is making me really worried about the final result.

Don't stress about the stagnating funding; most KS's relying on a known pedigree have a huge surge at the beginning and end and a trickle for the rest of the time. This one has an even more pronounced start because by presenting at E3 they reached basically everyone who might be interested, so the people funding at this point were either waiting for paychecks or are thinking hard whether or not they actually want the game.

[BogusMeatFactory]

There are more pay tiers appearing a bit later to help encourage others who may not be interested in the current incentives. The AMA done on Reddit was very interesting and was telling about the direction the project was going and honestly, I am happy with the result.

P.S. Ryo's face is going to change!

[Reprise]

I'm upset that Sony was misquoted as allegedly saying they are funding it and this then turned into the gaming media to go into a frenzy and basically tell people not to back it. In actual fact, Sony said they were supporting it, by helping with marketing etc. There was never any mention of giving funding towards development costs.

This has been damaging to the campaign, I believe, which sucks. Especially as Yu Suzuki has said that all development costs are coming from the crowdfunding and the Kickstarter needs to make $10M in order for his full, true vision for Shenmue 3 to be realised.

I doubt it will make $10M (I'm estimating around 5 or 6 million), but I hope it does come close. And I hope they allow donations after the Kickstarter ends. I and many others will be willing to continue donating to try and help as much as we can.

[marurun]

I'm sure if Yu falls short he'll still get some private funds in to help. Further, I suspect modern dev tools and system capabilities will really reduce production costs. The first Shenmue was horribly expensive because open world games that looked that good were a real challenge on the hardware. That and that soundtrack.... Assuming they still have access to the original assets, that will help reduce costs as well.

[ninjainspandex]

Is this really Yu Suzuki answering these questions?

He sounds like such a cool and down to earth guy.

[BogusMeatFactory]

Is this really Yu Suzuki answering these questions?

He sounds like such a cool and down to earth guy.

It is indeed Yu Suzuki answering those questions...most likely with the help of a translator. It was a very fascinating AMA for sure!

Also, with people worried about the kickstarter. They raised 2 million in less than 24 hours and 4 days afterwards raised 1.5 million. I think they are doing ok.

[ninjainspandex]

Shenmue 1 completed, on to Shenmue 2 on the Xbox!