
Sony reaches $2m Shenmue III game target on Kickstarter within hours - tpatke
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-33144515
======
wodenokoto
They got a fair amount of time to promote this at Sony's E3 event, so I
imagine that the value of the marketing already put into Shenmue III is worth
more than those 2 million, which begs the question. If Sony is willing to
promote this so much, why aren't they willing to invest?

Or to put it bluntly: it fucking sucks when studios use Kickstarter when they
are in no need of crowdfunding.

~~~
rtpg
Why does it suck that they use Kickstarter? It's validating the idea, and
helps to confirm that the market exists.

Despite Shenmue's critical acclaim, it's not certain that the market exists.
For comparison , Yakuza 1 and 2 (Yakuza is basically a spiritual successor to
Shenmue in many ways) only sold 30k and 50k in the US market.

~~~
kayoone
So this now reached it's funding goal with 30k bakers, why does that confirm
the market exists when Yakuza selling 50k copies is considered a failure ?

~~~
TheCoreh
30,000 people are willing to "buy" this game 2+ years before it even gets
released within just 10 hours of it's "announcement". There are still 31 days
to go on the kickstarter campaign, and a lot of people who didn't watch Sony's
E3 presentation yesterday are waking up to the news of this right now.

That means once the game is released, has an actual marketing/advertising
budget, and word of mouth spreads, it's probably going to sell significantly
more than that. They are also certainly going to port Shenmue 1 and 2, (since
a lot of people will want to play the originals) so those should also sell
reasonably well.

~~~
thirdtruck
This is why, even as a very indie Kickstarter creator myself, I don't begrudge
the big studio's use of Kickstarter this way.

I'd rather see a shift toward creators getting paid for the work they do,
which they put in one way or another, and away from absolute dependence on the
market for post-hoc validation. Not a 100% shift ("real artists ship"), but
toward an economic model that doesn't leave creators so beholden to such
narrow sources of capital as a single publisher.

------
roneesh
I am beyond excited! I never thought Shenmue 3 would be released. I remember
when Shenmue 1 came out, it was billed as Yu Suzuki's opus, and at the time
the world's most expensive game at 70 million USD. To leave your opus
unfinished must be hard, so I'm glad he's getting to finish it up properly
(or, given the success, continue it).

For a certain generation of gamer, Shenmue isn't just a game, it's an event.
It's a game I've often thought of over the years, to me it felt like a truly
adult gaming experience. And to this day I still feel like it's one of the
best examples of using gaming as a storytelling medium. I thought I would have
to go my whole life not knowing if Ryo Hazuki would get revenge on Lan Di, and
now, finally I'll get some closure.

~~~
drzaiusapelord
Any idea of the English versions do it credit or if a lot is lost in
translation?

~~~
roneesh
I've actually never compared the two versions to see if one is much better
than the other. At the time it was released, it was kind of a fact that the
translations lost some/major nuance, however I played them in English and
enjoyed them greatly nonetheless. I'd say treat it as translated literature:
the translation perhaps isn't enough to do scholarly work on, but for
enjoyment's sake it's probably just fine.

------
jraedisch
You can find it on Kickstarter here:

[https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ysnet/shenmue-3](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ysnet/shenmue-3)

I didn't see the link in the article.

------
AdmiralAsshat
Shenmue I was the most expensive game ever created at the time, costing around
$70 million, on Dreamcast hardware. It took five years to develop.

Realistically, how is $2 million going to be enough to fund a PS4-era sequel,
presumably with completely new technology (based on the trailer)?

~~~
PostOnce
Nobody said kickstarter is the only funding.

Sony is paying something for the exclusivity, I imagine. They might also be
matching 2:1 or something. Who knows?

The kickstarter is only a day old, this amount of press will grow that $2M.

Plus they're using UE4, saving a lot vs the custom engine of Shenmue I.

We only have one piece of the financial puzzle, here.

~~~
rodeoclown
This is from their kickstarter page:

"The real challenge now is to deliver a sequel that we will all be satisfied
with after 14 years of waiting. After much research and planning, we set the
funding goal at this level believing it will make possible a fulfilling
Shenmue experience."

------
bovermyer
I never played any of the Shenmue games. I know a couple people that are big
fans, though, so I'm happy for them.

As a devops guy, I was more entertained by the effect of Shenmue 3's
announcement on the Kickstarter servers. Props to them for the quick recovery!

~~~
DaFranker
There was a lot of that going around yesterday. For me the most amusing was
Twitch.

------
SCHiM
Does it bother anyone else when a company that does not need a kick starter
uses it? That's not really what it was meant for you know :s

~~~
ianstallings
But then they simply wouldn't do it because the risk is too large. This gives
them hard data on traction before they've even talked to distributors. So it
works out well for people. Unlike a traditional pre-sale, these contributors
_should_ understand that the game might not ever be released.

------
xwintermutex
What excited me most in that article is the line "The press event also saw
Sony announce that long-awaited game The Last Guardian would soon be
released."

------
serve_yay
I played one of the original two games and really don't understand the appeal.
All I remember is walking around slowly and tediously, talking to shopkeeps
and playing pachinko or whatever. Pretty heady stuff.

------
minimaxir
For those asking "Why was this announced at the Sony event?", note that
according to the rewards, Shenmue 3 will be a PlayStation 4 exclusive for
consoles:
[https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ysnet/shenmue-3](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ysnet/shenmue-3)

~~~
joshuapants
Could just be a timed exclusive because in the FAQ they said that they haven't
decided on plans for other consoles.

I think it should be relatively trivial to port, at least to Xbox One and
other PC platforms. The Wii U might take some extra effort to work within the
constraints of the hardware, but I'm not sure.

~~~
minimaxir
It's _definitely_ not getting ported to the Wii U.

------
escaped_hn
why is a billion dollar company using kickstarter?

~~~
thrillgore
Because the BBC apparently stopped fact checking. It's a separate studio, not
a part of Sony.

------
drKarl
$100k per language subtitules? Really?

~~~
bryanlarsen
1\. stretch goals are just sales goals, there's no reason they have to
correspond to actual costs.

2\. that's gross, not net. Subtract 5% for kickstarter, 3% for the credit
cards, royalties for game shipments and reward costs, and you're probably
looking at less than $50K

3\. good professional translation costs ~$30K per man-month if you use an
agency. I wouldn't be surprised if Shenmue contains more than a novel's worth
of text.

~~~
babuskov
As per 2. I fail to see how number of supported languages directly increases
cost of game shipments (per unit)?

I'd say that just put arbitrary numbers in there since the project will
require much more than $2 mil. to complete.

You are right about points 1. and 3. though.

~~~
Lancey
Point 2 is referring to fulfillment of Kickstarter costs, not translation.
Backers on Kickstarter receive rewards with their pledges, which someone has
to pay for, including shipping on not just games but also t-shirts, art books,
and other novelties (most likely internationally). Part of the money earned
will go towards that.

