PAYPAL SUPPORT FOR SHENMUE 3! PRE-ORDER FOR PS4/PC!

[Amir]

Looked up how much the Broken Age Slacker Backer campaign managed to raise: http://www.doublefine.com/dfapay/

$170,175 from 8,413 backers, plus an additional $13,708 from tips and selling prints for a total of $183,883.

So far the Shenmue III PayPal has raised $120,355 from 1402 backers. So it seems there's less Shenmue fans, but they're willing to part with far more cash. Hopefully we'll surpass the Broken Age Slacker Backer with Kickstarter Backer upgrades.

Interesting also to compare Broken Age Kickstarter with the Fig crowdfunding campaign for Psychonauts 2. Seems the disappointment regarding the final game has soured many as there are currently only 12,339 backers for Psychonauts 2 compared to the 30,000+ that Broken Age managed to get within its first 2 days alone. But again, it seems the Psychonauts 2 backers are willing to part with far more cash than for the Broken Age Kickstarter.

[Shenhua-Nani?]

24 days left and still no news about upgrades or pc version, they really didn't care about this second funding campaign lol

[Hyo Razuki]

Yeah, YS Net seem pretty indifferent about the Paypal campaign and Awesome Japan are doing a crappy job and getting away with it, it seems. They even failed to implement the upgrade option for Kickstarter backers which they had promised. At least they haven't done it until now and I doubt it's gonna happen. What a shame.

[FlagshipFighter]

This Slacker Backer campaign is a joke that was seemingly spawned from an afterthought.
Talk about wasted potential.

...and don't get me started on Awesome Japan.

[Shenhua-Nani?]

Luckily the funding phase is almost over guys, and thankfully we won't have to hear about Awesome Japan for about 2 years.

[Spaghetti]

Yeah, YS Net seem pretty indifferent about the Paypal campaign and Awesome Japan are doing a crappy job and getting away with it, it seems. They even failed to implement the upgrade option for Kickstarter backers which they had promised. At least they haven't done it until now and I doubt it's gonna happen. What a shame.

I think it's for the best YSnet didn't expect the moon. Slack Backer campaigns usually don't get much further than 150k anyway, and it was only likely to hit one more stretch goal on that basis.

But Awesome Japan have definitely sat on their hands in terms of making people aware of it. Yet again it seemed up to the fanbase to draw in new people and get them excited about Shenmue. I know it's kinda difficult to do that when there's no way to get those games on modern platforms (bar emulation on PC), but it felt like a repeat of the Kickstarter where they preached to the choir and had little effort to sell the game to new players.

I wouldn't say the add-ons/upgrades for KS backers are gone yet though. There's still plenty of time to implement that, though I'm sure we'd all rather have it now.

[Yokosuka]

The total pledged amount has raised from 6,399,999 to €6,464,568 today.

[Amir]

The total pledged amount has raised from 6,399,999 to €6,464,568 today.

Not quite, it was $6.459,999 on Friday to $6,464,568 today, so a $4,569 increase over the weekend.

[Yokosuka]

My bad lol, I thought it was not updated since ancient times.

Has someone a graphic or something else ?

[johnvivant]

i saw on eurogamer that star citizen just passed $100 million funding, which is just insane. they built up huge hype for their game by making more and more promises, ever increasing the games scope which seems to have encouraged ever more backers. i wonder if Cedric/ Ys Net have a similar plan? obviously it would never be at the level of star citizen, but it could possibly get a few additional million .

what if they start emphasizing the prospect of a living, breathing open world, create an amazing tech demo of one of the villages showing the world's possible depth and detail, with advanced npc schedules, dynamic interactions, all the time and weather simulations up and running. etc -

'greatest open world simulation ever' - kind of an angle... depth over size. insane detail.

would this be enough to attract new backers? there must be some angle they could find which would capture peoples imaginations and commit them to invest in the vision.

the problem is whether or not a fully realized Shenmue (imagine shemue 3 with a 60 million+ budget!) has any kind of general appeal, rather than just a niche appeal ( the fans of the originals). it could be that a spaceship mmo will always have more appeal.

there are problems with extending the funding campaign, like the increased likelihood of delays, but the game could be very much richer for it.

Yu Suzuki is an old school developer, so perhaps he would not relish the prospect of having to deal with constantly adjusting and adding to the game as the budget increases.

really curious as to whether the delays in the upgrades and absence of the pc version are because they want to extend the funding campaign. obviously it would be nice if its because they found investment from elsewhere, but its just a mystery at the moment.

Shenmue 3 is up and running now, so as more screenshots and footage is shown more people might want to jump on the bandwagon anyway, so leaving funding open for another year could be sensible.

also if s1 and s2 HD happen then the additional fans this could create might want to invest in shenmue 3 as well.

some interesting links about star citizen;
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2015- ... 0-launches
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/10 ... roversial/

[Yokosuka]

Shenmue III doesn't worth the comparaison with a MMO. What would be the equivalent of buyable spacecrafts in Shenmue ? Owning a house ?

[Amir]

Shenmue III doesn't worth the comparaison with a MMO. What would be the equivalent of buyable spacecrafts in Shenmue ? Owning a house ?

Yeah, there's no way a single-player driven game would raise that kind of money. Star Citizen is unique in that people pay for crafts AND they get to play components of the game during development. I doubt we'll see a predominantly single-player game raise as much as Shenmue III for at least a couple of years; other games have bigger fanbases but Shenmue fans were willing to part with a lot more cash after waiting 14 years.

[johnvivant]

Shenmue III doesn't worth the comparaison with a MMO. What would be the equivalent of buyable spacecrafts in Shenmue ? Owning a house ?

Your right, shenmue isn't the type of game that could sell in-game 'stuff' and nor would i want it to. If this is all that has made star citizen successful then there is not much that shenmue could to learn from it.

[SMDzero]

15 days and we need to raise $32,000 to meet the next stretch goal.

Time to take all that money you were going to donate to a worthy charity this christmas and support the paypal.

Also I suggest every Shenmue fan, instead of giving traditional xmas presents, give your friends and family notes saying "A donation of X$ has been made in your name to Shenmue 3'

[Hyo Razuki]

It's not even 15 days anymore. More like 11 or 12, considering it's Tokyo time which counts. Anyway, I bought a couple of those shirts to give away to family and friends.

If the upgrade option will still come, which I don't believe, I would be tempted to participate in that too, though. Well, I guess I'll have to consider it but I'll probably leave it at the shirts now. It's too late now, I think. They have missed their chance of implementing the upgrade option.