What sort of indie staff can we expect ?

[Yokosuka]

Key figures :
$4 000 000 Kickstarter budget at least allowed to the development ($4.5m at most)
$100 000 average wage to pay ($4180 average monthly wage in Japan according the OCDE 2012 list x 24 months of development)

$4m/$0.1 = 40 permanent workers at the very least

Notes :
- I consider in my calculation that the private budget is intended to pay the potential extras like licensing, rentals, motion capture, dubbing, material, outsources, publishing, orchestra, etc.
- I consider that the Paypal budget is only a spare wheel to anticipate the possible delays as Yu seems not to care.
- It's a very rough & straight calculation, it acts like if the duration of contract would be 2 years for everyone. Infact, one programmer can work only 6 months while another can be involved during the whole 2-years project. So the number of 40 workers may increase rather easily.
- sub-teams expected : quests, events, free battle, mini games, scenario, planners, graphic design artists, music/sound artists + Sony support team

Reminder :
In comparison with Shenmue Dreamcast ( http://segaretro.org/Shenmue#Production_Credits )
- No Shenmue Saturn cost
- No Shenmue Passport cost
- No "Promotion & Publicity" team cost (role assigned to Sony)
- No R&D teams cost
- Mainly no artworks cost

Comparable projects :
The Vanishing of Ethan Carter
Kingdom Come: Deliverance

If you have some other interesting facts, please share or correct me.

[SMDzero]

I just hope Yu knows how to stay within a budget.

He is used to Sega giving him blanks checks for everything but now he has to pinch every penny.

6.33 Million

minus kickstarter fees & reward fulfillment = 4.5 million

minus federal, local, state, and corporate taxes = 1.8 Million

Unreal takes 50%. It's their engine. = $900,000

Minus office space rental for 2.5 years = $600,000

Minus computer hardware/software = $400,000

Minus Yu Suzuki's salary = N/A working for free

Minus employee salary 6 workers at 25k per annum for 2.5 years = $25,000

There you have it, 25k to actually spend on the game.

Spend wisely Yu.

[iyapol]

I very much doubt Yu will be working 'for free'.

[Kiske]

I just hope Yu knows how to stay within a budget.

He is used to Sega giving him blanks checks for everything but now he has to pinch every penny.

6.33 Million

minus kickstarter fees & reward fulfillment = 4.5 million

minus federal, local, state, and corporate taxes = 1.8 Million

Unreal takes 50%. It's their engine. = $900,000

Minus office space rental for 2.5 years = $600,000

Minus computer hardware/software = $400,000

Minus Yu Suzuki's salary = N/A working for free

Minus employee salary 6 workers at 25k per annum for 2.5 years = $25,000

There you have it, 25k to actually spend on the game.

Spend wisely Yu.

What are you getting at exactly?

Shenmue 3 could become real at 2M$ mark already. That means one thing for sure:
Core game development budget is secured.

[Yokosuka]

I very much doubt Yu will be working 'for free'.

I can see him taking a percentage on the sales and working for free during the development.

[Zoltor]

I very much doubt Yu will be working 'for free'.

I can see him taking a percentage on the sales and working for free during the development.

^this

Also while I'm not suggesting he not pay anyone, lets be real people, Yu could snap his fingers, and every developer in the entire industry would drop what they are doing/working on, to go to Yu(and that's just counting the people in the main industry, that's not counting people/fans who actually know how to code/create things in 3D/unreal 4, like the people making a HD version of Shenmue for free as is, since Sega Isn't, they recreated the Dojo in Unreal 4, in under a month, just to promote Shenmue 3. Yu really should recruit him, because damn it looks amazing).

People would kill just to beable to work on a project Yu is working on, to make matters even better, this is not just any project either, It's a Shenmue game(It's every developers dream come true to work on such a game), so um yea, somehow I doubt money needed to pay the rest of the staff, will be much of a issue.

[fittersau]

I very much doubt Yu will be working 'for free'.

Yu doesn't work for "free", he works for expensive dinners with plenty of alcohol with ex-gravure stars. ;)

$4m/$0.1 = 40 permanent workers at the very least

Comparable projects :
The Vanishing of Ethan Carter
Kingdom Come: Deliverance

If you have some other interesting facts, please share or correct me.

Good post, saved me from trying to do it. Yeah. The budget isn't big at all. But perhaps much of the set up outlay is absorbed by others. Putting together Development UE4 machines isn't cheap, around $2000 each for a 6-core i7 with 32GB ram, a decent GFX card and other parts. Equates to $80,000 alone in development hardware. This doesn't account for the extremely expensive 3D software.

I just hope Yu knows how to stay within a budget.

He is used to Sega giving him blanks checks for everything but now he has to pinch every penny.

6.33 Million

Spend wisely Yu.

Some of the best productions are made with a tight budget and some of the worst are made with an expansive budget. (Matrix 1 vs Matrix 2&3 come to mind)

lets be real people, Yu could snap his fingers, and every developer in the entire industry would drop what they are doing/working on, to go to Yu(and that's just counting the people in the main industry, that's not counting people/fans who actually know how to code/create things in 3D/unreal 4, like the people making a HD version of Shenmue for free as is, since Sega Isn't, they recreated the Dojo in Unreal 4, in under a month, just to promote Shenmue 3. Yu really should recruit him, because damn it looks amazing).[..]
I doubt money needed to pay the rest of the staff, will be much of a issue.

Not sure if sarcastic,.. Zoltor, but this is as far from reality as it could be. As much as we like to idealistically think Shenmue 3 is the next best thing to air. People still need to eat and pay the bills. Especially in Japan where while living expenses are considerably lower these days than in western countries, it's still not comparatively cheap to live there because wages basically suck over there.

You only have a handful of ultra fans with a bit of technical know how to create that UE4 demo. Even then if Noconkid joined the Shenmue 3 project, it would be unfair not to pay him anything. Good will can only get you so far.

[iyapol]

I very much doubt Yu will be working 'for free'.

I can see him taking a percentage on the sales and working for free during the development.

I'm not pretending I know anything about Yu's personal wealth, but it's 2015 - not many people work for free in 2015. Not even the richest of the rich.

To suggest Yu won't have an income for over 2 years is bonkers.

[Yokosuka]

Yu can take incomes from his two mobile games and all the outsourcing projects that run his company. And he's still a Sega adviser if I remember well.

Perhaps he continues to take some royalties for some of his licences as well.