Did Bloodstained get investors?

Yes. 90% of the development costs were footed by investors.

The Kickstarter page for Bloodstained says that you’ve already managed to procure partial funding for the game, and that Kickstarter funds will be used to elevate the game’s budget and manufacture backer rewards. Where did the initial funding come from?

After over a year of talking with just about every publisher and having them pass, we finally secured investment to cover 90% of the game, but it was conditional: We had to prove there was a market for another game like this. Now that we’ve cleared so many stretch goals we’ll be able to make a game with much more content than the one I’d hoped to make.

Source: http://www.siliconera.com/2015/06/10/koji-igarashi-tells-us-all-about-bloodstaineds-leading-lady-miriam/

Since it was conditional, if Shenmue 3 breaks the world record and surpasses Bloodstained, perhaps we'll see more investors willing to put money into S3.

Peter wrote:Pledges made within 24 hours of the deadline cannot be cancelled, and contact has to be made with the developer to do so.

I'm sure AJ will respond very quickly to cancel troll pledges. Very confident.

Joel Tess looks like he's ready to knock some trolls out!

Over 59,000 backers! It's steadily increasing all the time...

I smell blood... stained ;)

WE ARE STREAMING NOW!!!!

We will be streaming from now until late night and ALL of tomorrow until the Twitch stream.

We will be playing Shenmue 1 AND 2!

SPREAD THE WORD!

http://www.twitch.tv/shenmuedojo

Damn, this really IS fucking epic!!!!!

The next 24 hours is a fuck you to all Shenmue haters everywhere.

Despite a half assed ks campaign handled by morons, being FAR less known in gaming, HUNDREDS of articles spreading misinformation on why you shouldn't support Shenmue III kickstarter, it will go on to become the highest backed game kickstarter of all time and set a new record despite people telling us for over a decade that no one wants nor cares about Shenmue. Far more well known and celebrated franchises and creators have been surpassed and after tomorrow no one will be able to deny Shenmue, its fans, or continue to treat it like a meme despite being the great game franchise of all time.

Eat it.

I've got a question about the history. I remember years ago, there was a split or something here and some members left to found the Hazuki Dojo or whatever it was called. How did that start and what actually happened? I wish there was a good history page about this site. I'm sure the history of this place is just as fascinating as the games themselves. From what I remember reading on the forums at the time, the name of the site was up for grabs because Andy either forgot or there was a glitch in his bank account or something. In any case, the name was for sale and Hellraiser bought it and wouldn't give it back. Thus started the revolt and then the great exodus. Or at least that's how I remember it.

Let's go a little further back though, to the forumplanet days when I first joined. At the time I joined, there was some drama going on with a member name Dakki. Apparently she had two accounts on the board, and the second account was that of a male. Supposedly the ruse had gone on for some time. Eventually everyone found out and the jokes started flying that Dakki was a transexual. The board went really hard on her. I was just starting out there when that went down, and I talked to her once or twice over ICQ. She didn't seem so bad. I don't think she deserved the hate she recieved then.

A couple other things: A user called ShenmueII. Everyone hated that turd. He was a total ass to everyone. No exceptions. And lastly, whatever happened to comrades? That guy was awesome. If I remember right he was the first person to welcome me here.


In the new forums after forumplanet there's the time that I believe, Louis, nuked half the forums. I and Juanfran were about the only people logged into the site for awhile, while it was getting wrecked to shit. We just kind of watched it all burn to the ground around us. The junk forum was completely gone, the "what song are you listening to?" thread was gone. Which was a carryover from forumplanet and was absolutely massive at the time of it's deletion. Fucking shame that one. A lot of history there. He also turned on the word filter where "I" and a few other very common words was changed to something offensive, so everyone that still had access to the site, which wasn't a lot since he also banned a lot of people, had to improvise.Here's an example:
http://www.shenmuedojo.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=294128#p294128

So if you ever wondered, that's why.


Goddamn. That was a nice trip down memory lane. :lurk:

Forum Planet. Good times.

Lmfao I'm just messing when I say sony will donate $40M but I do think they'll contribute a hefty chunk privately. Imagine the meltdown this site would have if they did go public and dropped 5/6 mil on the project in the final few minutes, though. That would be the icing on the cake.

I seriously did have a dream about Sony donating $40M though, so who knows? Maybe I'm a prophet.

If Sony do decide to put anything towards development costs it won't be through the Kickstarter.

But, we've been given our answer regarding this already. Maybe they'll be nice though and throw some extra funding in some point down the line.

Who is in charge of pricing these reward tiers? Those busts should have been three times as much. There are people paying twice as much for a bag of knickknacks. The difference in that kind of money is somebody's salary on the development team.

It also caused a few backers to move away from the jacket and crystal memories reward. Such a dumb move! They should have given the name a vendor a big discount instead and moved the busts up to $4,500. ](*,)

Why do people keep bringing up Sony giving money for development when we established a month ago they are NOT doing that?

Anyways, I expect independent investors to take notice and help us get to 11 million.

They showed from the beginning that their position was hesitating about the publishing, why not the development ?

If they open up the possibility for increasing pledges after the Kickstarter I I'll definitely upping my total amount. My ego wants me to be prominently featured in the game, unfortunately my bank balance won't allow it at the minute.

Obviously I would be happy if it 10 million. The reality is I'm glad its at what its at. I really just wanted it to beat bloodstained to atleast show how important it is to the fans. I think its going to be over 6 million. They've said they have outside funds from the kickstarter so I think we get the game that Yu Suzuki envisions.

Plus, I think the success of the kickstarter can open up the possibility of receiving additional funding and/or additional investors.

Lan-Di just crapped his pants.

Thanks again to everyone for your endless support, passion and love. Breaking the 6 million barrier was more than i expected. At 5 million i already opened a virtual bottle of champaign (I prefer beer) because i REALLY wanted the character perspective system, i feel it will enhance replay value a lot. Now we have advanced battle mode and can be sure it will be one of the best fighting games ever, too. And with donations coming every second i have faith we reach even another goal. Thanks again to everyone for makingmy dream (and many peoples dream) come true.


Cheers!


And hell yeah, this image again... Feel like it...


http://i.imgur.com/Qs0vD72.jpg

I'm so thankful for the Shenmue fans who kept this alive for 14 years, who campaigned and kept it at the forefront of people's minds. While I lamented and felt deflated every E3 and never gave up hope, I never campaigned like others did and for that you people have my thanks... you have all made something I thought was impossible.. possible..

Is Shenmue 3 cursed or what? Is everything against Shenmue 3, even electricity? LOL
Next stretch goals revealed:
$6.7 Million so Yu can pay the electricity bill
$6.8 Million Power Generator
$6.9 Million Joel, the Fanta guy is back

http://www.twitch.tv/shenmue3official

I won't be happy until It's on a website with a money counter and stretch goal page for me to spend stupid amounts of time watching.

One thing that caught my attention during the Shenmue III Kickstarter twitch, was when Yu Suzuki was talking about Nocon Kid's HD Remaster videos of Shenmue I.

I got the impression from the live English translation that perhaps Nocon Kid would be joining the team or something, saying that Yu Suzuki and he "talked about some exciting things".

But looking at a more direct translation of what Yu Suzuki said, it doesn't sound like he was trying to reveal anything in particular:
I met Nocon Kid, who is Korean, when I was over in South Korea. He spoke very enthusiastically to me on various topics. Both he and I feel very strongly about Shenmue. Since he was speaking Korean, we had an interpreter translating after each sentence and so the conversation flow was a bit delayed - but it was an enjoyable meeting.
Still, if Yu Suzuki has actually met with Nocon Kid, then maybe there's a chance that he can be part of the official project.

mrandyk wrote: Your time and money will be better spent if you spread the word rather than buying an additional copy.

The two are not mutually exclusive.

I choose how my time and money is best spent incidentally.

I would rather have another unresolved cliffhanger or even no game at all than an attempt to fit the entire storyline to Shenmue III and the 3 villages that the game is set in.

Shenmue IV or bust. Anything less is a disgrace to the first 2 games and what the series was meant to be.

Maybe some people just want Shenmue and a conclusion no matter what. I think it's just going to be completely inorganic for the game to be further truncated. 5 or 6 games could reasonably be cut down to 4, but there's no way in hell that there's enough time to naturally conclude the story in a way that does it justice with what we've seen of the kickstarter project. It looks like a great game if it's an installment, but I'm not going to be very enthusiastic about the game if they try to make it carry more than its weight- it's already on a limited budget.

He seems like a hard worker, maybe he could learn Japanese. it's a completely different language, but Korea still has more exposure to Japanese stuff and has more Japanese people there (and JPN speakers) than most countries.

The vocabulary is completely different but at least the grammar is very similar to the point that a strictly word-for-word translation works more often than not. So I can imagine learning Japanese being, at the begining at least, much easier than learning English if his native langage is Korean.
At any rate, I really hope Nocon Kid can get on board, he's definitely earned it! =D>

According to nico nico interview Baisha is where most of the new ideas Yu Suzuki has will be implemented, while the other villages will host "filler" content.

Basically we got:

1) main systems (rapport+skill tree)
2) full story events + innovative quests
3) advanced battle system
4) minimum guaranteed quantity of filler activities

Ofc not the perfect outcome, but like 65-70% of Yu's vision for the game, the only important stuff missing is the other battle improvements.

For something that was less than a dead dream 40 days ago i would say it was an amazing result.

Cedric Biscay retweeted

Team Yu ‏@TeamYuNeedsYOU 9m9 minutes ago
Shenmue 1 & 2 HD = New fans buying @Shenmue_3 = Budget for Shenmue IV.

The thing I like about Nocon Kid's HD videos is how faithful they are to the original material. I wish he could join in the development team at some stage, at least to do some debugging and quality testing.

Here's a good interview with Nocon Kid, for those that haven't seen it:
http://teamyu.net/Shenmue.III?topic=189.0

I wonder if Yu Suzuki chose Unreal for part III after seeing Nocon Kid's work, it wouldn't surprise me.

And there is precedent for Sega hiring this guy, as they used fans to port the original Sonic to ios back in 2013:
http://www.cultofmac.com/313342/two-sonic-fans-brought-ageing-franchise-back-life-ios

Now the campaign is over I think it's fair for us to look back and evaluate the performance of AJ over the past 1 month. Many of us fans who pledged substantial sums of money had many legitimate concerns during the campaign and I saw forum posting which catalogued many of the errors which occurred.

Let's have a look:


- Project started without a description of what Shenmue is. Later featured a still somewhat crudely made fan video as a fix.
- The Kickstarter Trailer - even though in early production failed to communicate what the series was about or excite anyone that wasn't already fan
- The Kickstarter Trailer featured a main character that was unrecognizable to the fans.
- Banners used neon colored dropshadows and looked extremely crude.
- The Website (shenmue.info) is an unusable mess, without any significant content.
- The initial reward structure was heavily flawed (with huge gaps between significant pledge points.)
- The final reward structure is heavily flawed with far too many entries, which created more confusion in the end.
- Adding additional rewards using the same Kickstarter account was impossible to the end despite the community pleading for add-ons.
- None of the Kickstarter Goals ever got explained on Kickstarter - which again posed a problem for more casual backers.
- There was no communication regarding building momentum to reach a certain goal, and no communication congratulating the community on having reached a certain goals at times.
- Instead what we got as "information" we had to aggregate between a Famitsu interview, a Reddit AMA and a Faq - ourselves, project management didn't.
- The AMA on Reddit was botched with the management misplacing an account password, or not setting up analytics properly, or not authenticating the account with reddits AMA team (probably) and having to switch reddit threads mid conversation.
- After concentrated confusion about what the backing goals where the Kickstarter Team released the entire list as a whole - without contextualizing the goals.
- In the first few days they managed to produce the rumor, that the project was mainly funded by Sony, then did not react to it. The rumor then got picked up by internet media.
- When everyone was complaining about their lackluster reward structure, they added very limited high roller rewards as a reaction, which mostly sold out within a day - producing some resentment in the process.
- Funding goals sometimes got checked off hours after they were reached - without any comments.
- Produced video interviews, which first were hosted on Kickstarter - but then switched to youtube - hosting two versions of each and every one of them at all times - splitting the audience. We had to rey on the Dojo to provide is subtitled videos.
- The first twitch stream "for the fans" was a -likeable- disaster, featuring an odd mix of QVC presentation, scripted Q&A, reading out loud FAQ questions instead of posting them on the site, and failing to read a chat - also the video quality was abysmal - because they hadn't bothered testing the equipment
- Halfway through the Kickstarter they introduced a Poll for reward tiers - which went live with half the price brackets (which its main purpose in gauging the audience) missing.
- To get participation they bundled it with a "who is your favorite character" poll - which was so useless, they gladly featured it in a 30 Minute segment within the celebration stream - one week after they released the results to the public anyhow.
- The celebration stream began late "because of technical difficulties", then featured a 20 minute echo fest after one of the translators (one of which had a really hard time at producing english sentences), or one of the segment producers, presumably took off their headphones and turned on their speakers.
- The celebration stream then cut out because of a "power outage".
- The celebration stream then came back on late, because of a computer failure after the power outage.
- Once the celebration stream was back - they couldn't get the audio to play on both the fan reaction segment and the fan videos segment - but went through with them anyhow.
- During the celebration stream, which they said multiple times, was set in their "studio" - there was a nice interlude of construction site soundbits - while the video sound wasn't working for them, so at least there was some atmosphere they could talk over...
- They announced paypal in a half sentence somewhere in the last third of awful celebration Twitch stream - but made sure, that it WAS NOT UP , when all the "New video game record on Kickstarter" and "Shenmue Kickstarter finished" news articles went up. In fact it isn't even up as we speak.
- No updates reacting to the Kickstarter finishing. At all - much less in this record breaking way.

Now the campaign was successful in spite of AJ's all around awfulness. The fans stood up and got it done but no matter how proud I am of the community, as a huge Shenmue fan I want to see the series reach it's full potential. These errors ensured that money was left on the table and we were not able to maximize the momentum and goodwill of the fans.

Shenmue 3 is trending on Twitter right now. Are they capitalizing on this with post-funding Paypal options. NO! And we may not see an update until Tuesday. In the world of the internet this isn't acceptable.

Suzuki, Cedric and co do also need to take a share of the blame. After all they selected AJ and frankly should have held them to much higher standards.

paypal not being up immediately after the kickstarter ended was a huge opportunity missed.

the kickstarter was raising by 1000's even at the very end. at least some portion of those would have hopped straight onto paypal.

shenmue is trending huge on twitter today and there is still no paypal for people who might only be finding out about the kickstarter now.

Well, Cedric Biscay retweeted me, so...

Cedric Biscay retweeted you
6h: Fans backed Shenmue 3 to see YOUR vision Yu! @yu_suzuki_jp @CedricBiscay

Thank god for Cedric.

This gave me an idea:

We contact Cedric and ask him to suggest to Suzuki a Backer-Poll, the poll would ask something along these lines: "Do you prefer if I shape Shenmue 3's around the fans' ideas and feedback, or would you rather have me go with my original vision for the game?"

Should make Suzuki understand what the fans want from him... We want Suzuki's Shenmue 3.

It doesn't have to do with "fees" any middleware will take a cut from the money, it was about riding the wave of the KS record, so it could be on the news and get people that were hyped but haven't backed could get on the train.

It's just stupid, really bad management. What's the point of cutting momentum ? NONE.

shredingskin wrote:

NeoShredder wrote: Perhaps they're holding out until they've collected the money from this round?

For what ? Also most kickstarters have paypal even before finishing it.

Exactly. There's absolutely no reasonable excuse why this isn't available yet. Chalk up another blunder for a poorly run campaign.

That post made me went into meditation,

Like really deep.

Came from nirvana and still no paypal.

There is nothing worse than fan-service. I absolutely loathe it.

I'm a big proponent of the auteur theory and whether it matches our expectations I strongly believe Suzuki should follow his original vision and blue-print with Shenmue III. I do not want fans having input on the story, characters or narrative. Community input can be used in other elements but I hope Suzuki stays true to his intended designs and mechanics he wants to see.

Designing by community is always an awful idea in media entertainment and you get a watered down, middle of the road product. I would hate to see something similar with Shenmue III.

At this point I don't care. It's past (thank God!).
We've had the best kickstarter campaign and now we can focus on the actual game content and not some marketing campaign.

If they're in charge of sending out all the rewards do you really think people are getting the game on time? I can picture in a few years the game being available to buy and everyone who pledged will be without their copy. It will be a combination of shocking and hilarious to watch the meltdown.

If they're in charge of that stuff I seriously think we haven't seen the tip of the iceberg of hate for Awesome Japan.

People said AJ couldn't be trusted with charging us because they'd ruin things because they were "taking the weekend" off but they ended up charging us yesterday. The last Twitch stream was a success despite the power outage, AJ turned it around after the Twitch stream for the most part. Even I, one of AJ's biggest critics on this forum is giving them slack because they showed that they up to stepping up to the plate. Despite all of this evidence, you guys still are giving AJ a hard time. Get over it.

Uhh, no. The charging process is automatically handled by Kickstarter. AJ has nothing to do with this. They are taking the weekend off, again. They will write their 5 minute thank you message on Monday.

And although the second stream was a lot better, it did not make much sense to me to explain the rewards 20 minutes before the end (especially the busts that were priced way too low and were long gone). And presenting the poll results they already published in an update before? #-o

At this point I don't care. It's past (thank God!).
We've had the best kickstarter campaign and now we can focus on the actual game content and not some marketing campaign.

What if they get to run the long term funding through Paypal? It will be a disaster. The coming 6 months will be crucial for funding, while at the same time the development team will have little to show. Marketing and transparency in communication will continue to play an important role. Things AJ can't be trusted with.

Great post. I really hope they are able to build enough capacity within Ysnet to run this by themselves but I frankly don't expect communication to be a whole lot better. Getting a community manager to channel the passion and dedication of the fanbase would be a good start.

The last Twitch stream was a success despite the power outage, AJ turned it around after the Twitch stream for the most part. Even I, one of AJ's biggest critics on this forum is giving them slack because they showed that they up to stepping up to the plate.

What is your definition of success regarding the Twitch stream? The fact even after a catastrophic first Twitch stream they still had technical problems and there was echo for the first 10-15 minutes of the stream. The supposed power outage was magnified by a computer problem they had on their end. During fan segment the audio wasn't working. Instead of pitching the last few higher tier items they spent 30 minutes talking about a public poll they took, the results which were released weeks earlier.

You're a good poster but tell me how exactly did AJ step it up. Seriously what ideas did they implement (Which the community didn't pester and ask for repeatedly) did they include in the KS campaign?

The campaign was not good. PR was poor.

And yet, we will; still get Shenmue 3.

I don't know if the PR was poor, we did break records but I think it's very apparent the campaign didn't come close to realizing its full potential due to mismanagement.

If they wanted to play fast and loose with the authenticity of what machines you'd find in an arcade, not only do i think there should be a smaller range of time than a decade, but also that if that's what they wanted they would have done it in the beginning but that's not what they made, so to mess with it now would be jarring.

I'm sorry, i might be misinterpreting your point. Are you saying if they wanted, they would incorporate VF (i say VF because it's the most discussed game)? I'm a layman in everything programming and game development (i'm talking out of my ass so take everything i say with a pinch of salt), but i don't think they could have a VF inside Shenmue on the Dreamcast. But there's something else...

Part of the point of the game is to create a sort of emotional/nostalgic connection to the past.

There's also context. In this case, you're talking about a game releasing in 2018(?), taking place in 1988(?) that MIGHT include an arcade game from 1993. If Shenmue 3 was released in 2003 it would be a different case, VF wouldn't have that nostalgia factor associated, which i think it does now.

The arcades are a bigger part of the open world than chocolate bars. The arcade's visible, the machine's visible.

Are VF arcades different than the regular arcades?(honest question)
I think they are standard looking, i couldn't differentiate them without looking up close, so i don't understand how a VF arcade would stand out that much

To compare it to having Shenhua appear on drink cans, that's really kind of a wink to the players from the developers, on a drink can and a chocolate bar, but these weren't fundamentally ruining the experience.

Well, the "problem" lays there. For you, the Shenhua and VF posters in S1 don't break immersion, but VF arcade does. To other people, those same posters can be off putting... I guess it's in the eye of the beholder, so there's no way to ever please everybody

... it's an incredibly detailed time capsule.

... that features a Sega Saturn (and maybe other stuff that i'm missing). A lot of movies have tried to go for the most realistic approach in this regard, but there's always that little something that does'nt quite belong there.

My final thoughts on this whole VF affair is that's really kind of a wink to the creators legacy, and to the origin of Shenmue itself, so i'm pretty fine with it. (hell, we don't even know if it will really be included)

Anyone else picture the members of AJ slowly typing "what is paypal?" into their Bing search window as soon as the Twitch stream was over?

Deleted my previous post.
I have no idea what this guy is freaking out about at this point, or what points he was ever trying to make to begin with, if you watched the post mortem already and know the general story and chapter structure of the Shenmue series, and KNOW that the story portion is completed and has been for some time. I dont get what the fuss is about.
Just because the story is completed doesn't mean it's set in stone... For example, maybe Suzuki planned for Ren or a fan-favorite character to die in Shenmue 3, but after polling the backers he decided against that.

Do I think Suzuki will make a drastic move such as that? No, I don't.
But there is a chance he might, especially since he has gone out of his way to say that he will abandon his old design philosophy of strictly following his vision and not be influenced by what others think.

I thought he was saying that "the bomb" shouldn't be related to further funding.

Yeah, my point stands.
Just because there's a VF arcade game doesn't mean they have to go out of their way to explain why there are 3d games there- who cares? It's a mini game, it doesn't matter. It's exactly the same as Ryo possessing CDs in 87, and it's exactly the same as there being VF toy capsules (or Nights into Dreams, for that matter).
I'm not saying I want VF in there, I honestly don't care either way, and actually, I agree with the people who are saying that there shouldn't be any arcades in S3 due to the game's location.
But it's a bad argument to say that VF shouldn't be in the game BECAUSE they didn't have 3D games back then.

-