SEGAbits Shenmue III Hype Train! Update: Funded but lets go further!

[Tad]

Heheh

Also, some good news: Corey Marshall 1 hr ago on shenmue 500k facebook
"If there is anything at all that I can do to help push the Kickstarter campaign to $10million, please let me know. I would be more than happy to make a video asking for pledges. If you have a list of high-profile folks who you know are Shenmue fans and who may be able to pledge significant amounts, if you can get me their contact info, I would be more than happy to email or call them. More than just being the English voice of Ryo, as a gamer, I also happen to consider Shenmue the best game ever made. No other game I've played has the "heart" that Shenmue does, and the world deserves to have the Shenmue 3 that Yu Suzuki envisions."

[MadeManG74]

Hmmm, who do we know of in terms of celebrities who are also massive nerds?
I wonder if we can pester them somehow to get behind the campaign.

Vin Diesel
Snoop Dogg
Dorito's Pope

That's all I got for now, anyone know any other big names that might be keen to be a part of it?

BTW, we are at 3.5m now, meaning we get Skill Trees. Half a million more and we get Mini-Games, awwww yiss.

[Moody]

Jack Black might be willing. I take him for a Shenmue guy (I mean he liked Psychonauts enough to be in Double Fine's next game, so why not?).

[Tad]

Has anyone tried Stephen Fry and Dara O'briain on twitter? I know they're big gamers...

They might be too young to care, but has anyone tried the youtube "celebs" like pewdiepie etc?

[pirovash88]

I'm confused if this Kickstarter was created to gauge interest. Why can't Sony fund the rest of this game?

[Moody]

The reason Sony isn't fully funding it is because no publisher in their right mind would take that chance. It's the reason Shenmue 3 took so long to get going in the first place, and the reason they went to Kickstarter at all.

[pirovash88]

So they don't have faith in th product? Hmm.. Strange.

[Tad]

It's in a weird situation. SEGA still own the IP, but are happy to let Suzuki use it. I wonder if that's part of the problem?

If Sony were to use it, SEGA may ask for them to cough up some notes. Where as if it's Suzuki with funding from multiple small pots to form a big one, they might just be happy with their cut as license holders.

[Moody]

It's not that, it's just remember how the other games bombed? That makes publishers terrified, and even if they have faith in the project, most of them don't want to pour the money into a probable failure. With various investors pitching in small amounts together, it adds up, on top of the money made off Kickstarter. A publisher like Sony putting in the $10-$20 million for a game like this would just be crazy of them, there's too many risks and not enough guarantee of a success.+

[pirovash88]

It's in a weird situation. SEGA still own the IP, but are happy to let Suzuki use it. I wonder if that's part of the problem?

Well I'm sure there's a deal there, Sega wouldn't just let em use the IP if they weren't making some money. It's not as simple as "just asking" like we're being told.

[Tad]

It's not that, it's just remember how the other games bombed? That makes publishers terrified, and even if they have faith in the project, most of them don't want to pour the money into a probable failure. With various investors pitching in small amounts together, it adds up, on top of the money made off Kickstarter. A publisher like Sony putting in the $10-$20 million for a game like this would just be crazy of them, there's too many risks and not enough guarantee of a success.+

I'm not sure how much Slll will cost of course, but I don't think it will be that much more then the 10. The Uncharted games each costed 20 million for example and we're not looking at that sort of level of detail really. Suzuki himself has already said assets will be used again.

[Aki-at]

I'm confused if this Kickstarter was created to gauge interest. Why can't Sony fund the rest of this game?

This Kickstarter was not created to gauge interest.

This Kickstarter was created to get funding for Shenmue 3, so far we have three particular goals Suzuki himself has states.

$2 million - Met, this would deliver more story focused Shenmue 3 experience.
$5 million - A new idea Suzuki has wanted to implement will be achieved.
$10 million - The full Shenmue experience.

The media have been pretty bad at reporting this Kickstarter sadly.

It's in a weird situation. SEGA still own the IP, but are happy to let Suzuki use it. I wonder if that's part of the problem?

If Sony were to use it, SEGA may ask for them to cough up some notes. Where as if it's Suzuki with funding from multiple small pots to form a big one, they might just be happy with their cut as license holders.

They didn't ask Nintendo to cough up big notes for Bayonetta 2.

[Tad]

Very true!

[George]

Once Sony starts investing a bigger portion of the money, the more control their higher ups have on said project. Honestly think when Adam said 'some funding' I don't think he meant much outside of initial funding, Playstation 4 dev kits and advertising.

I think the conspiracy that Sony is going to fund the whole thing is a nice wish, if they aren't publisher to them its a indie game. Its like asking them to go in and publish No Man Skies or something. I'm pretty sure they want it to be as indie as their fanbases (see: Give Yu the Shenmue License) want it to be.

Fans have been clamoring that they want a kickstarter and that it can do '20 million' easy. Now some people want Sony to fund it for them? Cool.

[max_cady]

I just thought of something that I found a little weird: So if the Kickstarter gets 10 million+ (which probably will), Yu Suzuki might deliver a fully open world experience (aka the full Shenmue experience).

Shenmue in the past has never been a fully open world, it's mainly a story-driven adventure, it's not like Saint's Row where you can complete a series of story related missions in which any order you choose them to complete. Very rarely it strayed away from the main plot. You "stumbled upon" most of these quests (Fangmei's subplot and Shenhua's herb pickup) that is you can very much pass by them 'n' ever once notice or "trigger" them.

In Shenmue, you don't actually leave a location until you've done everything plot-related to get the next clue that will take you to the next place. You don't go to Kowloon until you complete the main story mission in Hong Kong.




Just thought I'd throw it out there.