Shenmue Dojo

The marketing for this KS is atrocious. The video tells nobody who doesn't know what Shenmue is anything about it or why it's special. It's just "here's Shenmue III, do you like it???" When it should be recapping the story of a boy driven by anger and revenge as he goes to extremes to find his fathers killer on an epic coming of age Kung fu story. But no, Yu talks about move scrolls instead. They could even go the "You know QTE's? Well Shenmue modernized it and every game you've played since that has had them since is jacking our shit without the quality. Suck on it" or how about "Shenmue was a game of ahead of its time that had unparalled attention to detail and tight, focused storytelling." It makes no sense.

It has been coasting on the goodwill of Shenmue fans and the interest of non-fans. It needs more than that and to articulate why such a game would make Huber act like an excited child and end up grasping his co-workers hands in tears. It needs to show WHY it's so special to us so it can be passed on to a new generation.

Even the Kickstarters aesthetic looks amateur.

You got all these interviews and stuff, and how many of them are in English? Please stop with the French stuff. The game will only be at Monaco? But not TGS or GDC or PAX? What is this foolishness? France isn't that special and doesn't have a monopoly on Shenmue fans. Try marketing this in China, for isntance.

The marketing for this KS is AWFUL and we as Shenmue fans can do better than them. Yu needs our help!

Make sure you let Ys Net know your opinion! Share your ideas with them!

At the bottom of the KickStarter page there is an ability to ask the team a question, let them know of your opinion on this! Hopefully they will listen.

I sent them a message / question with those very concerns and what they would do to address those.
The more people raise this as an issue, the more they will listen and therefore re-think how they are marketing this KickStarter campaign.

I can kind of see you point...a 'Shenmue History' video on the site would really help I think, with details about the development and release of the original games, as well as a brief recap of the story so far. Yeah there really does need to be that 'hook' to convince people who have never played the series that this game is worth their time...

Miles Prower wrote: I can kind of see you point...a 'Shenmue History' video on the site would really help I think, with details about the development and release of the original games, as well as a brief recap of the story so far. Yeah there really does need to be that 'hook' to convince people who have never played the series that this game is worth their time...

Definitely! That's a great idea and I think it would also draw in the more casual gamers who have perhaps not played Shenmue but are intrigued by it.

Perhaps pose that idea as a question to Ys Net on the KickStarter page?

Wouldn't that "A Gamer's Journey" documentary sort of fit this thing?

Not sure how the makers of that doc would feel about putting it into the kickstarter though, or if ys would be willing to take it.

Ah Himuro. I totally agree with you. It's not as good as it could be with it's marketing but along as it's there everything is all good. One thing amazing though are the stretch goals and our choice of donating which gives us exclusive offers. I think this is a good stunt to make this Kickstarter a bit more "deemable".

Oh actually looking through the new shenmue.link, there IS a history section - but this really needs to all be on the actual Kickstarter site as well imo:
http://shenmue.link/us-en/history.html

Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeessssssssss!!! We've reached the next Stretch Goal. Rapport System is coming. 3.2M and counting! Keep it coming, boys and girls!!!

Actually, the stretch goals have bad marketing too. Like, what the hell is rapport?

And it needs new tiers as well. If I remember, it goes from 500 straight to 10,000. It needs more than that.

Yes it really is. After backing Igarashi's Bloodstained I can see the difference, it's night and day. Bloodstained was how you do a kickstarter. They had had numerous level of pledge tiers and rewards, encouraged backers to participate in things like fan art and social media, had great stretch goals etc.

Koji Igarashi himself was everywhere promoting the game, doing an 8 hour kickoff stream and ending with a celebration stream. The Shenmue 3 kickstarter is extremely amateurish in comparison and Yu Suzuki needs to in the spotlight more doing promotional events and interviews. It's up to us to let the kickstarter people know though.

Are they reading fan sites like Dojo?

Haters gonna hate.....

Peter wrote: Haters gonna hate.....

You do realize that if this is not marketed well it WILL make less money, right? Use your brain! There is already controversy that says you should stop donating because of the Sony stuff. Stop being a blind fanboy and USE. YOUR. BRAIN, Peter!

Hyo Razuki wrote: Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeessssssssss!!! We've reached the next Stretch Goal. Rapport System is coming. 3.2M and counting! Keep it coming, boys and girls!!!

I was about to post about this, then saw it go backwards to $3,199,323... and was like WTF? Did someone remove their pledge or was it Kickstarters servers messing up. Seems to be just over the $3.2m mark again now though.