Ways to improve the Kickstarter campaign, a community effort

[Axm]

I'm taking some ideas on how the Awesome Japan team can improve the Kickstarter for those of us who currently find it unsatisfactory. What are some of your ideas?

I really like the idea of having a 5-10 minute video interviewing a notable staff member on their vision for the game, the themes of the game, what they hope will make it stand out from the pack. I'd really like it if Awesome Japan conducted interviews with fans/backers to see why backed Shenmue III. Are they a Shenmue fan? Have they played the games? Why or why not? What are you hoping for in Shenmue III? Stuff like that. I'd like a Backer Spotlight that makes it feel more like a community of people who support this games existence and success.

Some other ideas?

I'm going to pitch these ideas to Awesome Japan. I realize if I want to change things I have to do so in a positive way.

[sand4fish]

I will throw you a bone here, as this will not cost much anyway for whatever they are already doing and will specially pique your interest Himuro. So basically the video team right now will run out of staff interview footage ideas, seeing that they just started doing that weird "what's your type of music?" thing with Yu, and I guess it will continue with other staff members. So how about replace all that with a segment like "What is Yu working on right now?" or "What is the team working on right now?". So they wouldn't have to show any footage per se, but just talk about their focus at the moment very briefly and maybe touch on a few concepts on paper at a minimal level (there's no chance that they would spill their entire development process and ideas to the public) How about that? It would take away the fans' insecurities towards the project and be a little substantial update every time no?

[Sappharad]

I don't think there's anything they need to do improve on what they're doing, other than giving us a more up-to-date schedule on when we should expect to see more.

But I think giving them ideas for future updates would be nice. I have two:
1. Have one of the character modelers show us work in creating new NPC's or characters for the game.
2. Ryan Payton was looking into Shenmue Saturn details earlier this year. If he ever finds anything, or if he finds details about things cut from the previous games like Miao Village, I think it would make a very neat update to have a behind the scenes info on the previous games. With all of the hacking we've done to dig stuff up, I think there would be interest in having an official look at some of the 'lost content' from the previous games.

[Himuro]

I will throw you a bone here, as this will not cost much anyway for whatever they are already doing and will specially pique your interest Himuro. So basically the video team right now will run out of staff interview footage ideas, seeing that they just started doing that weird "what's your type of music?" thing with Yu, and I guess it will continue with other staff members. So how about replace all that with a segment like "What is Yu working on right now?" or "What is the team working on right now?". So they wouldn't have to show any footage per se, but just talk about their focus at the moment very briefly and maybe touch on a few concepts on paper at a minimal level (there's no chance that they would spill their entire development process and ideas to the public) How about that? It would take away the fans' insecurities towards the project and be a little substantial update every time no?

I like that!

[sand4fish]

I like that!

As long as you don't threaten them if things don't go your way, you are welcome.

[Axm]

I'd love to have a discussion by the old team members about the differences in developing shenmue 1, 2, and now 3. They used an army last time. How does it compare to now? Do they feel restricted or limited? It's two completely different environments. Work flow must have changed so much.

[Himuro]

I'd like know that too.

[shredingskin]

Something that doublefine did was playing the old adventure games that schafer did before (and I think some other games), and make commentary about those.

It would be interesting seeing YS playing Shenmue again and seeing his comments on it (since we know there are copies there), sadly it would be kinda time consuming, would need a lot of edition, and translation.

A good topic would be how different is tech today, what are the benefits/cons, maybe show some of those slides about the inspiration for shenmue that most of us already saw, but others may have not (or what aspects of chinese culture that YS found engaging for making Shenmue) . The types of games that inspired Shenmue, and all that jazz.

For getting the people more involved they can do some shitty polls (basically which meaningless design you like most ?) or whatever, it could be quite inexpensive and not very time consuming.

I agree that some date-chart on what they're working on would be cool, and efficient way to reassure people that the project is well on track.

In my way of thinking, I don't really care that much about updates, I just want them focusing on the project. We pretty much know enough about YS and Shenmue.

[Yokosuka]

I don't understand the whole purpose of this. If you really want to improve the campaign to get more funds, you will barely earn enough money to hire two additional developers or one extra salary week. The game is over.
About those who are disappointed by the campaign, I feel sorry for them but the game is not released yet and the chances of finding a great game are still there. Apart from directly helping YSnet like KidNocon is doing, I can't see what we can do.
The whole campaign is a joke and the backers could have been better informed but at least, it allows YSnet to work with calm and serenity by being cut off from the rest of the world.

[iyapol]

I will throw you a bone here, as this will not cost much anyway for whatever they are already doing and will specially pique your interest Himuro. So basically the video team right now will run out of staff interview footage ideas, seeing that they just started doing that weird "what's your type of music?" thing with Yu, and I guess it will continue with other staff members. So how about replace all that with a segment like "What is Yu working on right now?" or "What is the team working on right now?". So they wouldn't have to show any footage per se, but just talk about their focus at the moment very briefly and maybe touch on a few concepts on paper at a minimal level (there's no chance that they would spill their entire development process and ideas to the public) How about that? It would take away the fans' insecurities towards the project and be a little substantial update every time no?

Wasn't this the whole idea of the updates in the first place? A brief update on where they are up to in development?

[sand4fish]

I don't understand the whole purpose of this. If you really want to improve the campaign to get more funds, you will barely earn enough money to hire two additional developers or one extra salary week. The game is over.
About those who are disappointed by the campaign, I feel sorry for them but the game is not released yet and the chances of finding a great game are still there. Apart from directly helping YSnet like KidNocon is doing, I can't see what we can do.
The whole campaign is a joke and the backers could have been better informed but at least, it allows YSnet to work with calm and serenity by being cut off from the rest of the world.

I couldn't agree with you more here. But the thing about being informed is, I really can't see any company or organization that I know of that would announce to entire the world: "I know that you all want more from us, but unfortunately this is all we can do at the moment because we are very tight on budget and can't afford any better. Please take pity at us." It just doesn't bid confidence to the public. And I can confidently say they are really tight for many reasons, even if people keep bringing up the $7 million to the discussion. There's simply no marketing department and I suspect Awesome Japan's job capacity is at only a post-Kickstarter support role level (e-mails, website maintenance and such). So those of the community who are able to spread the game through word of mouth (and pledge), twitters from TeamYu or the awesome videos like the ones done by Game Foundry Retro or Dreamcasters, they are like a Godsend help to the project. After all you don't see projects like Bloodstained posted on Billboards or being talked about on TV.

Wasn't this the whole idea of the updates in the first place? A brief update on where they are up to in development?

It is when people think of updates, but we don't know if Yu wants to keep most of the development under secrecy or wants to save these updates for later because it is still a long shot before we see this game on the shelves. So depending on how they respond to these suggestions, we might ended up getting some answers. Besides, a lot of people in the community seems restless if they don't do something or see results, so no harm in there doing this.

[Himuro]

Iga did a thing where he played SOTN for I think an hour? And it was translated. Maybe have Yu go do that.

[iyapol]

Iga did a thing where he played SOTN for I think an hour? And it was translated. Maybe have Yu go do that.

Yu doesn't play games, does he? I'm not even convinced he plays his own!

[Himuro]

I'm sure he does. Its common for a lot of people in the industry to not play a lot of games out of lack of time

[iyapol]

I'm sure he does. Its common for a lot of people in the industry to not play a lot of games out of lack of time

TOM: A while ago you mentioned that you don’t really play games. Is that true?

Suzuki: I really don’t play games (laughs). I want to express the things outside games that I find intriguing inside games. Since my job is making games, I import things from outside games that no one has expressed in a game before, and express it through cooking up my own cuisine in the world of the game. Once the subject is decided, I do a lot of research on it.

TOM: Why is it that you don’t play games?

Suzuki: For instance, when we go to a game parlor, my friends are always better than me. It’s no fun when you always go home as the loser. Although in a game parlor, I might be fifth out of five, but when it comes to driving a real car, I enjoy it because I’m the faster one (laughs). This factor makes up the basis of fun. You just won’t enjoy doing something you lose at all the time, which is why I enjoy driving a real car or bike more. It’s not like I don’t like games, but to me, there are many things I can have more fun with, so I use my time for those instead.

TOM: There are a variety of games in the world, aren’t you interested in them?

Suzuki: Not really. Not playing games isn’t a minus for me. Since I’m a creator, I put great importance on originality. And since I don’t check out other games, I won’t end up making something similar. However, when we included video productions in Shenmue, we were using real-time CG to create these cinematic presentations. In order to be able to do that, I would not only watch but thoroughly analyze one movie a day for a period even when times were tight.