Applause for YSnet for their Kickstarter Effort and Work

[Jeff]

We need to do a topic congratulating YSnet and all those who helped put together the rewards, videos, daily updates (sometimes even more) the trailers and everything else. What an undertaking for 29 days. You can tell they brainstormed every day to create more buzz about Shenmue and what more they can offer to their backers. Good job!

[shredingskin]

Yu Suzuki is the man.

Can someone tweet Cedric about telling AJ to do a soundcheck before the stream ??

[Doom_Infinite]

I applaud them for not completely messing up and doing their best to make things better. It's not quite what the Bloodstained KS page managed in terms of hype and excitement but they deserve praise nevertheless.

[Benwah]

It's interesting that everyone says how amazing the Bloodstained Kickstarter was, but I hadn't even heard of it until the Shenmue Kickstarter was announced. I admit I haven't been hugely into games lately, but usually I would hear about something like that. Was it pushed as much as Shenmue was by the gaming press? If not hats off to them, because they managed to get a massive amount of money.

[Tomato Convenience Store]

I think the main thing we learned about kickstarter is people (or should I say "the average person") really just want to buy cool shit and get good value for what they pay for. I don't think a more masterful campaign and better social media presence would have made a huge difference. I believe the turnaround for the campaign was the inclusion of the PS4 physical copy.

[Peter]

You were slating them 3 ways to Sunday last week.

[tomboz]

I find it hard to applaud them when the campaign was run as poorly as it was.

Given the hype around the game it could have quite easily broken ten million - but as a result of failings on the part of YS net we're going to end up with a substandard game.

It's all well and good putting the blame on Awesome Japan; but who hired them in the first place? Add to that the pitiful campaign video (seriously - why on earth would somebody not already a fan of the series want to back the game off the back of that video?) and the Sony funding fiasco (which would have minimal effect had it been clearly explained from the start rather than practically putting donations to a standstill) and I fail to see a reason for applause.

I will offer some props to the dude who came in mid way through (Cedric?) - but all in all the Kickstarter campaign was a massive failure.

[Henry Spencer]

I find it hard to applaud them when the campaign was run as poorly as it was.

Given the hype around the game it could have quite easily broken ten million - but as a result of failings on the part of YS net we're going to end up with a substandard game.

It's all well and good putting the blame on Awesome Japan; but who hired them in the first place? Add to that the pitiful campaign video (seriously - why on earth would somebody not already a fan of the series want to back the game off the back of that video?) and the Sony funding fiasco (which would have minimal effect had it been clearly explained from the start rather than practically putting donations to a standstill) and I fail to see a reason for applause.

I will offer some props to the dude who came in mid way through (Cedric?) - but all in all the Kickstarter campaign was a massive failure.

Most funded Kickstarter video game ever, a massive failure. Yeah, okay.

[RiGoRmOrTiS]

I'll applaud YS Net, Shibuya's Cedric Biscay, Sony's Gio Corsi and the Shenmue fan base for keeping the dream alive for 14 years to even get us to this point.

Awesome Japan were given a golden goose but it was the fans that put the work in and enabled us to do this well, if AJ was better its entirely possible we may have gone higher, although its also possible the fans have done so much that AJ couldn't have topped it and have rode our coat tails to this success

regardless we appear to be getting an amazing result today

btw as I typed this we hit 6 million.. waiting for the trolls to strike now

[tomboz]

Most funded Kickstarter video game ever, a massive failure. Yeah, okay.

Can you honestly tell me that you believe that the video they launched with would have appealed to anybody not already a fan of the series? (Seriously - technique scrolls? broken faces?)

Can you honestly tell me that the Sony funding issue didn't massively alter funding patterns? ($3m in 3 days vs $6m in 30)

Can you honestly say that the way the page has been run was good?

$6m is a great amount for an independent game - but given that it's based on an IP which had $60m+ sunk into it, has the backing of the biggest console manufacturer in the world and had a massive amount of hype surrounding it for years - I would have expected it to have done much better. It could could and should have broken the $10m mark and the fact that it didn't means that YS can't make the Shenmue 3 that he wanted to make. To me, that's a failure bud.

[Henry Spencer]

You do realise there's outside investors as well as us on Kickstarter, right? And the 10 million was never going to happen. Anyway, we've already gone over your points a million times already for the past 3 weeks, if you just want to waltz back in and be a negative nancy when we are breaking Kickstarter records, be my guest.

[tomboz]

And the 10 million was never going to happen

If Star Citizen managed to hit $85m I can see no reason why Shenmue could not have hit $10m. That we were a third of the way towards that target 3 days into the 30 day campaign is a pretty clear indicator of that.

Don't get me wrong; I'm chuffed to bits that the game is getting made - but am in no need to congratulate a bunch of people who, in my eyes at least, have done a poor job. That we've even managed $6m is down entirely to the fans.

[shredingskin]

No they didn't

They sold dlc after their KS was over.

Their KS ended at 2 millions.

At these happy times I start to like the redshirt guy !!! Bring him to the titch

[sand4fish]

What... No love for Joel, the Fanta guy? He made the campaign so much fun. BTW Star Citizen did poorly on Kickstarter, so basically there's no comparison to Shenmue 3 until some other game project beats it. So all in all, Shenmue 3 is the most well planned project yet, until proven otherwise.