06-16-2015, 06:36 AM | #1 |
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Shenmue III
Two hours ago, Yu Suzuki & team launched the Kickstarter for Shenmue 3. Seeking a whopping $2,000,000 in funding, the project has already been funded -- $2,000,000 inside of 2 hours! -- and still has about a month to go before the Kickstarter funding phase ends on July 17, 2015. The game is to be released on both PC and PS4. Thus the burning question inside of every fan's heart: "which version do I go for?" I plan to be doing a lot of research into this matter over the next few weeks. I'll be sure to keep you guys posted. Some of you are so young you weren't even in kindergarten by the time Shenmue 2 saw its North American release fourteen years ago. You may be asking yourselves what all the fuss is about, why you should care about this game, etc. For you, I have kindly provided the short versions and the long versions! The short version: Shenmue and Shenmue II articles on WikipediaThe series is much beloved for its (then) revolutionary graphics, remarkable cinematic score, and above all else its truly epic plot, a rich story featuring a steel-strong cast of main and supporting characters. It was one of the earliest games in what would later become known as "sandbox games," games which allow the player to fully explore an actual city block, right down to desk drawers and refrigerators inside of random apartments. It combined elements of RPGs, adventure games, and even fighting games. You played as Ryo Hazuki, the son of a karate dojo sensei from the port city of Yokosuka, Japan, and in your quest for vengeance you would often find yourself involved in brawls with thugs and members of organized crime. So imagine playing GTA4 ... and Virtua Fighter at the same time. It was kind of like that. But then toss in the RPG element of, "Certain button combos won't do anything special at first. But once you find a scroll in-game that teaches Ryo the move, the button combo will from now on activate an awesome special move." It was amazing. Now's our chance to be a part of history, and relive the magic once more. Help fund Shenmue 3! Let's help Suzuki-sensei make it the best possible game it can be!
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06-16-2015, 05:03 PM | #2 |
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Well, you're a little off - the kickstarter was actually launched last night during Sony's E3 conference and it crashed the Kickstarter website, but being funded $2M in just 12 hours is still a monumental feat. The announcement was totally out of left field, I don't think anyone saw it coming, much less immediately following the announcement there was going to be a FFVII remake, which was announced just after The Lastr Guardian, no less. Some people couldn't handle the announcement even on live stream.
My only issue with it was that Sony offered to give them the announcement but they were essentially asking fans to foot the bill, almost like saying to the developer "we don't feel comfortable enough funding this ourselves because we don't trust it will sell", though being a PS4 and PC exclusive I imagine Sony will probably invest into it somewhat especially after seeing the mind blowing Kickstarter funding. |
06-16-2015, 05:33 PM | #3 | ||
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But yeah, "screwed the pooch" is far too dramatic, I think. There'll be tons of people who hear about the hype from the Internet, already own a PS4, and will flock to the retail stores like Best Buy on launch day to get a physical copy of the game. I haven't kickfunded it yet but only because:
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06-16-2015, 05:47 PM | #4 | |
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06-16-2015, 06:27 PM | #5 | |
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This Forbes guy raises concerns that Suzuki can't produce the Shenmue game fans want on a budget of only $2,000,000 when the original Shenmue cost between $49 million and $70 million to produce. He seems very confident that, behind the scenes, Sony and Suzuki have reached an agreement where Sony will fund the production of Shenmue III provided the Kickstarter succeeds. Given that the Kickstarter succeeded in under half a day (of 31 allotted), it's likely that if what the Forbes guy thinks is true really has happened, then Sony will surely offer Suzuki the funding he needs to make Shenmue III an instant classic for the PS4. ... Which brings us full circle, I suppose, to whether it's better to own Shenmue III for PC or for PS4. Will Sony, after having invested so heavily in Shenmue III's success (if Forbes Guy is right), really be so willing to see all of the love settle down on the PC version and to watch as the PS4 version gathers dust just as its predecessors did? There's no way that Sony is willing to allow themselves to become the next Sega. So what, then, will they do to ensure that that doesn't happen? Only time will tell, I suppose.
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06-16-2015, 07:35 PM | #6 |
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So yeah, PikaGod was right, Sony have come out and said they're funding part if it now after the success of the Kickstarter...
Talon, you're 100% right in being unsure of which system to go with. I personally think your argument about having the lasting longevity of having the PC version with guaranteed "backwards compatibility" so to speak for a much longer time than PS4 will most likely be offered way down the road from now - so eventually in 20 or 30 years, one would hope, being able to play your original Kickstarter edition of Shenmue 3 will be covered by your physical copy and likely tie to a Steam account (I would imagine) means you won't have to worry about not having a "digital only version" - not to mention even if it were supported on a future PlayStation system, you'd probably have to buy it all over again (though who knows if the future will phase out such archaic practices or not). If you see yourself playing some games in the future so long as they aren't console exclusive, I'd say go for the PC. For just 1.5x the price of a PS4 you can pretty easily build system that will run games better than a console can, though you'll be losing the comfort level a console has in portability. Other than that the security of never worrying about backwards compatibility or not is great, and upgrading your system comes in bits in pieces every few years instead of one large purchase at a time every 5-8 years. Of course you already know this, but it's nice to get the pros and cons out in the open for consideration. Perhaps they will offer stretch goals of a physical edition for the PS4 though some point soon, it wouldn't surprise me. |
06-16-2015, 10:06 PM | #7 |
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2 of my gaming dreaming came true yesterday an this is one of 'em! Looooooved the Shenmue games since forever! I reallllly hope this is a continuation and not a hastily forced together conclusion! These games are super special an not like any other, so we need more of 'em! I wanna explore much much more of the Shenmue world!
I'm sure hoping so cause having to save for both a PS4 and a PC would totally kill me x_x |
06-20-2015, 05:17 PM | #8 |
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Wonderful AMA with Yu Suzuki.
Still haven't donated but probably will soon. Going to go for the physical PC copy of the game. I'm not big into PC gaming but it's simply undeniable that the possibilities with PC gaming are far more robust than they are for console. (One example that someone in the AMA brings up is the use of VR goggles to explore the world of Shenmue III. Fans can make it happen on PC whether Yu does or doesn't, but on PS4 fans will be at the mercy of Team Ys Net's whims.) A lot of people, including that Forbes guy, are clamoring for fans to quit donating to this kickstarter because they see it as a scam given Sony's now well-publicized involvement in funding Shenmue III. But what I don't think these people realize is, $60 that nets you a pre-ordered copy of the game, possibly with limited/collector's edition box art, is no scam at all to Shenmue fans. Why not pre-order two years in advance if it means funding development on the game? This thing is too big to fail to be completed. (Fail to satisfy, maybe, easily. But fail to even give us a finished product in some form, hell no.) I'm not scared I'll never see my money again on this investment and I don't think anyone else needs to be scared either. Suzuki-sensei says some things in the AMA that really make me go all "". I'm most excited about: Spoiler: show
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06-26-2015, 11:18 PM | #9 | ||
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In the past week, there's been a lot of intrigue surrounding the Kickstarter.
Within hours of the Kickstarter's launch, there were several journalists who were skeptical about the feasibility of producing a Shenmue 3 that fans could be satisfied with on a shoestring budget of only $2 million. One of the most vocal was that one Forbes editor, who ended up penning several articles on the topic within the first 48 hours. (We'll get back to him in a second.) In the wake of these questions, the Kickstarter page was updated on June 17, announcing that it was true -- Shenmue III cannot be produced on $2 million alone. Ys Net had secured the promise of additional funding from secret backers, but due to contractual obligations could not reveal whose these backers were nor how much they were willing to fund the project. As the word spread that Shenmue III wasn't being entirely financed by the fans, journalists like the Forbes guy began to sound the claxon -- "QUIT DONATING TO SHENMUE III! THEY'RE STEALING YOUR MONEY!" Without giving Suzuki any benefit of the doubt or calling him for questions, 21st century e-journalists decided that the likeliest situation of all was one where Sony had agreed to fund the entirety (or near entirety) of Shenmue III once Suzuki could prove that fan interest was there by at least hitting the meager goalpost of $2 million. (I say "meager" since $2 million, at $50 a game, only translates to 40,000 copies sold. Even Shenmue II sold more copies than that. ^^; ) Well, then Shenmue apologists took to YouTube and started excoriating these journalists for spreading false information and more or less gutting the Kickstarter of any and all momentum it had enjoyed in its opening days. They claimed that Shenmue III was being 100% funded by the fans on Kickstarter ... despite the fact that the Kickstarter page itself said that Ys Net was indeed receiving funds from other parties and that there was no way they could make a game on $2 million alone. On June 24, the Kickstarter page was updated again. Now the identities of the secret sponsors had been revealed: Sony (shocker ) and Shibuya Productions (who? ). The update stressed that Sony and Shibuya's funding was only helping with non-developmental costs: costs related to production, marketing, and publishing. So basically, Sony (and this Shibuya group) are paying for the physical costs of the discs and digital download servers, the costs of advertising, etc, while the Kickstarter is meant to fund the development team's efforts on coding the game proper. So it's implied, anyway. Quote:
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Which brings us full circle back to the original cynicism posed by the e-journalists: is Suzuki trying to pull a fast one over on longtime fans? Or is cynicism blinding us to the truth and poisoning our one chance to get the Shenmue III we've all been dreaming of for fourteen years? As of this writing, the Kickstarter fund sits at $3,705,255. It is still growing, but barely: while it reached $3 million within the first few days of its life, it has languished in between the $3 and $4 million marks for almost an entire week now. At the current rate, the Kickstarter will not reach $5 million before July 17, never mind $10 million. If Suzuki truly does need every penny from the fans in order to fund this game, then it seems like two things ultimately poisoned this Kickstarter: 1) stupid journalists and 2) Ys Net setting the bar way, way too low at $2 million. Let this be a lesson, I guess, to any other Yu Suzukis out there. Don't set the bar so goddamn low next time and give would-be donors a sense of safety, a sense of "I don't need to donate to this Kickstarter because it's already good." If the bar had been set at $5 million, I'm fairly certain we'd be looking at $6,705,255 right now instead of its $3 million counterpart. Me? I have yet to donate. But I have set the money aside on one of my credit cards already, ready to charge once I get off my lazy butt and register an account with Kickstarter. I'm a little apprehensive about this, but I trust Yu Suzuki with my hard-earned money. He has always seemed like such a great, genuine guy and he's given me one of my favorite experiences of all time. I look forward to owning the collector's edition on PC. As for you, I hope that you'll donate if you haven't already. It would be a shame if the e-journalists cried wolf and caused this game to look like a PS2-era piece of shit and all because Suzuki only had $4 million to work with. I'm really, really hoping that he can make this game what it has always been -- GTA's older, better brother. But to match Rockstar's graphics, Suzuki is likely going to require Rockstar's budget. And that ain't cheap. If it's true that Sony is only footing the costs of advertising and publishing, then Ys Net is going to need every penny it can get from the fans if they don't want this game to be an embarrassment.
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06-27-2015, 07:26 AM | #10 |
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E-journalists are a fucking plague to honest game devs anyway. I would also never listen to anything Forbes spews: they're funded by crooks and thus would be considered propaganda.
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07-01-2015, 12:34 AM | #11 |
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Byeeeeeeee, But YAY, SHENMUE III!
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07-03-2015, 11:56 AM | #12 |
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Fourteen days remain until the Shenmue III Kickstarter comes to a close. We're currently standing at $3.8 million. This is enough to get the game made, but if Ys Net & Co. is to be believed about Sony not offering the development team a dime for development costs, then it is a far, far cry from the amount of money necessary to make Shenmue III as good for 2017 as Shenmue I was for 1999. (For comparison, development costs for The Witcher 3 alone were $32 million. :\ So asking for $10 million is like nothing. And we only have $3.8 million right now. orz. :'D)
There's good news though! Ys Net finally persuaded Sony to allow for a physical PS4 collector's edition game as one of the $60 donation options. (The $100 donation tier has not yet been revised, which in turn impacts higher donation tiers, but it's assumed that it will be updated shortly.) At the time I started to write this post, the physical PS4 option had over 100 donors. Now, it has over 247. About $6,000 in literally just a few minutes. Hopefully this provides just the steam necessary to convert most of the $30 donation tier donors ($30 got you a DDL for PS4 or PC) into $60 donation tier donors. If it can convert even 10,000 of them -- there are 27,536 of them currently -- into $60 donors, that'd be a net gain of $30 x 10,000 or $300,000. Still not enough to get us to $10 million, obviously ^^; , but a nice step in the right direction. Would push us over the $4 million hump and make it that much more likely that we'll reach $5 million before the end of the Kickstarter. Wow, just refreshed and it's now 347 backers for the PS4 physical, while the PS4 digital ($30) keeps on dropping. It's happening! ron_paul.gif EDIT: Was 347 when I finished this paragraph. On submitting the post, now it's 590 donors for the PS4 physical copy! \o/ Keep those conversions comin'! I made a language post about the Four Wude in the Japanese language thread earlier today. If you're a Shenmue fan with a passing interest in etymology, or maybe you just want to know a little bit more about the Four Wude, I'd encourage you to check it out! Today has apparently been scheduled as an international #saveshenmue day on Twitter by Yu Suzuki and long-time fans over at Shenmue Dojo. You can also ask Yu Suzuki questions directly via Twitter today by simply including the hashtag #YouaskYu in your tweets.
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07-03-2015, 01:23 PM | #13 |
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Oh my godddd
I can't believe this is actually a thing Shenmue 2 was amazing and I seriously did not expect a 3 any time soon, or ever really, but just so much yestoo bad I don't have a PS4 but PC releases yay |
07-03-2015, 01:41 PM | #14 | |
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From Suzuki-sensei's Twitter. 「シェンファインプルーブ計画」 he writes, or "The Improve Shenhua Plan." The image is photoshopped, not rendered in-engine, as you can appreciate from the mannequin's Amish face on the far right. But if they can get the character model to look like this, then this is a massive improvement over the Shenhua seen in the original Shenmue III trailer (seen on the left). Quote:
I can't believe some regulars on UPN still don't know! Yeah, this happened at E3, man! Yu Suzuki announced his plans to fund Shenmue III via Kickstarter and the rest is history in the making! If you haven't donated yet, I think you should definitely check out the Kickstarter. They have a lot of great deals for long-time Shenmue fans, including $30 for a digital download (PC or PS4), $60 for a physical copy in a collector's edition box (PC or PS4), $100 to get your name in the credits, $250 for extra goodies and a physical copy of the OST, and more. And in other news ... We just broke $4 million! At the time of this writing, 47,828 backers have put forward $4,001,383 to make Shenmue III a reality.
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07-04-2015, 07:20 AM | #15 |
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Yesterday was #YouaskYu Day on Twitter, with Yu Suzuki answering questions around 7pm PDT on Twitter. Some of the Q&As:
Q: Can you please explain why there are two different statements about how many chapters (11 / 16) Shenmue has? A: It is 11 chapters, but with branched story line, it will be more than 11 Shenmue 1 was Chapter 1. Shenmue 2 was Chapters 3, 4, 5, and possibly 6.Q: Is there any chance we can carry on Pledging after the Kickstarter date has closed? A: Thanks for the question, we will look into it. This will prove important if Shenmue 3 is to be saved from a fate of mediocrity caused by too little donation money. (See below.)Q: At $5 million, exactly HOW open world will Shenmue 3 be, compared to Shenmue 1/2? A: I'm expecting something similar to Dobuita in terms of scale. That one's particularly disappointing. :\ Dobuita is one district of Yokosuka, and Yokosuka was the only city in Shenmue 1. Shenmue 2, on the other hand, boasted three different cities, two of which dwarfed Yokosuka in scale. To hear that $5 million will only give us a fraction of one past city is very disappointing. It also indicates that the journalists have gutted what chance we had for a great trequel by scaring away potential investors. Goddammit.Q: Now that we know Shenmue 3 will not end the Story, do you have a backup plan if it won´t succeed to tell the end? A: Gonna have to find a successor I think. I don't understand what he means. Find a successor developer to develop the tale in his stead? Unlikely. Find a successor franchise to get emotionally attached to? Depressing. (Why do you refuse to novelize the story should it come to that!?) Hmm.Q: Would love to hear Mandarin voice acting alongside Japanese in #Shenmue3, could we make it stretch goal? A: Thank you, it is under consideration. This would be fantastic. But to be perfectly honest, Cantonese would be better given the setting. If the Kickstarter offered Cantonese voice acting for Shenhua & Co. and if it offered a Japanese man speaking in Cantonese as a second language for Ryo, that would be perfect.Q: Will u research latest tech in AI so u can include it in shenmue 3 to make it a pioneering game like its predecessors? A: Yes. I would like to take on some new challenge in terms of technology. Hmm ... :oQ: Can we expect epic fights like in Kowloon in Shenmue 2 and a similar battle fight system? A: There is "Battle System Expanded" Stretch Goal. It will enhance the battles, better than Shenmue 2 Good. Because to be perfectly honest, the fighting engine was regrettably never one of Shenmue's stronger points. And it ought to be, given fighting's prominent role in the story.Q: Where did Ryo got his band aid? A: It didn't appear in Chp.1, but there was a martial arts event. The scar is from the final match :o That's all for now 'cause I gotta get going. I'll share more Q&As later probably, but until then you can read them all yourself by checking out Yu Suzuki's Twitter account, @yu_suzuki_jp, and scanning the tweets from around 7pm PDT.
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07-05-2015, 03:30 PM | #16 |
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I'm super happy over the physical PS4 version. Now I don't gotta save for a new PC!
In a world where Mighty No.9, Bit.Trip, Journey, BttF, TWD, Shovel Knight, Ducktales, and so many other originally digital-only games get retail releases on consoles, it was worrying ta think SHENFREAKINGMUE might not! An also INSANE seeing people defending why it couldn't/shouldn't @_@ |
07-06-2015, 04:34 PM | #17 | |
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Alright, so, the Kickstarter mailed out a newsletter today that contains all of the Q&As from Twitter ... in both English and Japanese. This is delightfully helpful as it allows us to see Yuu's answers as he truly intended them. Jumping straight ahead to that Dobuita Q&A ...
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07-06-2015, 06:00 PM | #18 | ||
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07-06-2015, 06:34 PM | #19 |
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That one actually annoyed me. ^^; I feel like there are really easy, really classy ways of addressing this specific to Shenmue:
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07-06-2015, 06:55 PM | #20 |
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It don't bother me here just like it don't bother me in anime/anything else where everyone just happens ta speak the same language/understand one another. Besides what if China isn't Ryo's last stop? Should we expect him to know indian, korean, etc. too?
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07-07-2015, 02:28 PM | #21 |
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The Kickstarter updated today with two new reward tiers.
At the $80 level, you gain access to an in-game international phone card which will allow Ryo to place phone calls to select characters. (Listed in spoiler box because possibly a spoiler about who will and won't make a return appearance in Shenmue 3.) Spoiler: show At the $800 level, Yu Suzuki will ask you for your name and will transcribe it into Chinese characters as necessary. He will then feature your Chinese-ified name at one of the temples in Choubu Village. Spoiler tagging the rest. No spoilers. Spoiler: show Anyway, all that aside, the Kickstarter hasn't really budged since yesterday. It's still only at $4.4 million -- although it should break $4.5 by day's end in North America -- and I'm not really seeing any way for the Kickstarter organizers to convince more people to donate (and/or for people to donate more money). Hardcore fans were sold from the start, and everyone else is just sort of staring at this Kickstarter as something of a curiosity. It's hard to persuade people to invest $60+ on a game that they're not sure they'd enjoy, and I respect that. Many in the fandom are talking about Suzuki holding a second fundraiser in the future. I think it's not only probable but is the best way for Ys Net to secure the additional development funds they will need to make Shenmue 3 the game of our dreams. Some optimists in the community say we'll reach $7 million by the end of the Kickstarter. Some delusional fans kid themselves that we'll reach $11 million. (Hahaha no. -.-) Me personally, I think we'll hit $5 million easily but that we'll be lucky to break $6 million. The bragging rights of dethroning Bloodstained as the most heavily funded video game in Kickstarter history will probably be enough to entice Shenmue's wealthiest fans to help push us over the $5.5 million mark (if we're already within $200,000 reach of it), but once we do that it's hard to see us making $6 million before time runs out. Thing is, the $6 million to $8 million window is where all of the awesome combat stretch goals are. :\ Making the AIs a lot more intelligent than they were in Shenmue 1 & 2, making the battle controls better, making the ragdoll physics better, etc, etc. It's all there. And it's all stuff that I and other Shenmue fans want. So like ... it'd be a shame to lock Shenmue 3 into a budget of less than $6 million "just because the Kickstarter says it must be." Fuck that shit. Suzuki should hold a second fundraiser if he has to via PayPal or whatever other options he deems best and allow fans to donate a second time if they so choose.
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07-07-2015, 03:05 PM | #22 |
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Talon, what are your thoughts on the cost of the project? Numerous game podcasts I listen to (Giant Bomb's and Co-Optional, to be specific) have pointed out the cost of the original Shenmue games back 15 years ago compared to the $4.5M that Shenmue 3 has so far and the cost gap is huge. Do you have faith that Sony can adequately provide enough funding to bring Shenmue 3 up to the standards that it deserves, especially taking into account the 15 year difference in funding and inflation difference? If they don't fund ~$50M into the project, what do you feel would be the minimum that Shenmue 3 would need to live up to it's legacy? Could Yu Suzuki successfully pull it off with <$20M if he had to?
Curious about what you think. |
07-07-2015, 04:22 PM | #23 | |||
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But I like Suzuki-sensei. So let's roll with $45 million for now, shall we? One factor first brought to my attention several weeks ago by YouTuber Adam Koralik was that the $45 million budget wasn't just for Shenmue 1 on the Dreamcast: it was for Shenmue 1 on the Sega Saturn (scrapped), Shenmue 1 on the Dreamcast, and Shenmue 2 on the Dreamcast. So it actually paid for the staff members of AM2 (Suzuki's development team while at SEGA) to work on Shenmue from around 1996 to around 2001. So whatever figure we're to arrive at in the end for Shenmue 1, we have to consider that the team's budget covered their working and living expenses for five to six years and on two to three different titles. (Shenmue 2 largely shares the same engine as Shenmue 1 but also amplifies the scope; Shenmue Saturn was aborted early on but was likely an entirely different engine made for an entirely different console; hence "two to three.") Another factor that I believe Koralik raised in his video (may be mistaken here; if I am, then consider this my own pondering) was that Suzuki's Shenmue budget was what was tapped into for all the initial costs of research. Whether that was traveling to China, interviewing martial arts masters, or hitting the books at the local library, Shenmue and Shenmue II show enormous amounts of research painstakingly conducted by Team AM2. In applicable cases of traveling to China (think "when Disney traveled to Paris to prepare for Hunchback animation"), that would've cost a small fortune. Many real martial arts show up in the Shenmue games and they're not just paid lip service. For example, when Jianmin performs T'ai chi ch'uan in Lotus Park, his moves actually match the standard exercises of t'ai chi. I know: because I was taught these same foundational moves when I took a t'ai chi gym class a decade ago! It may not be as clear in Shenmue, where most of the fights consist of karate student Ryo taking on various thugs and street fighters, but in Shenmue II the difference between karate's rigidity + power and the fluidity + using your opponent's energy against him of Chinese martial arts is vividly apparent. If you're a content creator, you can't just sit back and admire this stuff like me. You have to actually do your homework. That takes time and money. Depending on who Suzuki interviewed, the costs could've ranged from nothing to tens of thousands of dollars (in travel & lodging costs). When all's said and done, Shenmue 1 still cost an arm and a leg to make. But if Suzuki's $45 million claim is true, and if his claim that this included marketing and publishing costs too, then we can divide that figure crudely by 2 to arrive at $22 million in development costs; then if we divide it by 2 yet again to account for Shenmue Saturn, Shenmue, and Shenmue 2 all working with the same cash pool, we arrive at ~$11 million for just Shenmue. (I'm all but rounding Shenmue Saturn out of the equation, which may actually be unfair to Yu!) $11 million in 1997 dollars would be like $17 million today. ($100 back then is about $148 today.) So we've reached $17 million as a guesstimate for Shenmue 1's budget costs. That still doesn't explain how Suzuki could hope to make Shenmue 3 on a shoestring budget of $2 million nor does it explain how he can promise that the game of our dreams could be made on just $11 million. The New Budget: I think there's a degree of dishonesty from both sides in Shenmue 3's funding. On the one hand, you have the vocal fans (among them Mr. Koralik) who insist that Shenmue 3 is receiving absolutely no funding towards development, that any financial assistance being offered by Sony & Friends is going strictly towards publishing and marketing costs. On the other hand, you have scathing news editors who allege that this Kickstarter is defrauding diehard fans of their money and that the game is all but capable of being fully funded by Sony. So who's right? Well, I think that neither side is right. I agree with the news editors that Shenmue 3 has to at least be receiving some financial assistance from Sony & Friends towards development costs. Why? Because the Kickstarter team admitted as much! Quote:
So yes: simply put, I don't buy the reasoning that Sony's money is 100% going towards non-development costs. Even if Sony Corp.'s is, there could easily be a shell company into which Sony funnels money which is in turn funding Shenmue 3's costs of development -- so as to neither land Suzuki nor Sony in hot water for lying to Kickstarter funders. However. On the other, very important hand ... I don't think that Sony is giving Suzuki much money for this Kickstarter, and zero of it risk-free. I imagine that they have probably offered him something along the lines of "for every dollar they put forward we'll match this many dollars." (Something like $2 Kickstarter : $1 Sony for lower tallies and $1 Kickstarter : $1 Sony for higher ones.) I also imagine that they've stressed to him that they want a return on their investment -- that the money given is at least partially a loan in nature, not fully a grant -- and thus he's best off securing as much money from the fans as possible. If you want proof that Sony isn't helping Suzuki out too much, look no further than:
But put all of this aside for a moment, if you will -- because I oscillate pretty much every day as to whether I think Sony is half-funding this project or 0% funding it. ^^; I just don't know. It really comes down to trust and who to believe. So let's put all of that aside for now and just assume, for the sake of argument, that Sony is funding 0% of the cost of development. How then do we explain Suzuki's ability to make Shenmue 3 for $2 million to $11 million when Shenmue 1, by our armchair math, cost ~$17 million to develop? The New Budget (con't): If you look at the stretch goals on the Kickstarter page, it becomes pretty apparent what sort of game Shenmue 3 is going to be depending on how much money Yu Suzuki gets:
And so cutting to the chase, and making it very easy for you to find in case you got bored with my essay ... I believe the answer is time. Per our argument that Suzuki had $17 million to work on Shenmue 1, he also would have had a little less than 2 years to work on it. (Five to six years in total from 1996 to 2001, but you have to consider that some of that time would've been spent doing a lot of the initial legwork -- legwork he no longer has to do now that he has the story all written out, has already visited China and done his core research, etc.) By contrast, he has two and a half years to work on Shenmue 3 -- so six extra months -- and probably longer since we all know that Kickstarter times aren't absolute, delays in gaming development are common, and our culture is so used to such delays that we are incredibly forgiving of them. No one is going to begrudge Suzuki an extra six months to work on Shenmue 3. While that may mean people are on the clock an extra year than for Shenmue 1 (and thus cost more to feed), it also means that he has the luxury of relaxation, i.e. the luxury of not having to treat every day like it's goddamn Apollo 13. Throwing money at problems to brute force them away is all too common in all walks of life, from architectural repairs to IT work, from catering to flying transcontinental, and I can only imagine that it's the case for gaming development too. Three years might paradoxically be millions cheaper for the development costs than two years for the same amount of work done. Another element of the time answer, but completely unrelated to the above, is how the costs of gaming development have changed over the years. In 1999, it really did cost tens of millions of dollars to make a game like Shenmue. But today? It reportedly cost the team that made The Witcher 3 anywhere from $10 million to $30 million to make their game. Many Shenmue fans have been quoting that lower figure. Let's roll with it for now. If it's true that you can make a Witcher 3 for just $10 million, then it reflects on how advances in technology (computer processing power, data storage, etc.) and laborer competency (skills, knowledge, tools, etc. that we didn't have in 1999) have drastically changed the playing field since when Suzuki pitched Shenmue to SEGA execs. Long story short: I think it's a bit silly to get hung up on how much a project in the past cost. I'm not saying you shouldn't consider it. I'm just saying that there are lots of examples in life of something costs lots of money twenty years ago that today would cost nothing. Hard drives used to be smaller than 1 gigabyte, and now they're routinely larger than 1 terabyte for the same cost. Making a movie like Batman Begins would've been impossibly expensive in 1967 but was feasible in the 2000s. Mario 64 and Mario Galaxy probably had similar budgets with respect to Nintendo's gross or net revenues but obviously you could make a Mario 64 today for much, much cheaper than it cost to make in 1995. (Hell, you probably have college kids who make Mario 64 from scratch as junior/senior projects in CS!) I'm not trying to dismiss people out of hand for looking back at how much Shenmue cost to make, but like ... GTA5 cost $265 million to make. In 1999 terms, that's roughly $179 million. Which is anywhere from two ($70) to four ($47) times as expensive as the entire budget for Shenmue. Do we honestly expect GTA5 to cost $265 million to make in twenty years? With the advances we'll have in graphics and physics engines by then, it probably won't even cost $30 million to make. Things change.
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07-08-2015, 05:57 AM | #24 |
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A vocal number of fans proclaim as fact that Shenmue is not being funded by Sony at all. I expressed yesterday how I have my doubts about this, how I believe it's more likely the case (given all of the very carefully worded answers provided by the relevant parties and given the content of those answers) that Sony and other private sponsors are at least partially funding the development costs of this game. But I admit I could be wrong. We probably won't ever truly know (since there is a huge disincentive to ever reveal private sponsorship of development costs), but I admit it's certainly possible that Shenmue 3's development is being funded 100% by fan donations.
As you can see from these posters put together by Shenmue fans, though, a number of those who disagree that Sony is funding any development costs at all do so with utmost conviction: Posters like these may end up doing more harm than good if it later comes to light that Sony was in fact funding some of Shenmue III's costs of development. I sympathize with the fans who made these, though -- obviously! I donated a chunk of my UPN meetup funds to this Kickstarter! -- but I disagree with the, as I see it, willed naivety by some fans to interpret the announcements we've received so far from Sony, Suzuki, and Team Awesome (Ys Net's PR group handling some of the Kickstarter, including communicating with donors) as signifying 0% involvement by non-Kickstarter sponsors in funding the costs of actually making (i.e. developing) this game. Someone on Twitter recommended this podcast. It's quite long, and much too long for me to expect you or anyone else only casually interested in Shenmue to give it a listen. But since it's 6:55am and I guess I technically have the time, I may put it on in the background while I ready for the day. I'll post later sharing what they had to say and what valuable information I gleaned from it. UPDATE: Okay, so, I'm paused at 26m09s on the YouTube video. Current impressions and summary: I like the podcasters. The guy sounds like a down-to-earth, affable man. His voice also makes me picture him as the doppelganger of Denis Leary. The woman's voice, role on the show, and demeanor all remind me 100% of Ana Kasparian from The Young Turks. So in a way, it's like listening to an NPR program co-hosted by Denis Leary and Ana Kasparian. If that's your kind of thing, then check 'em out! If not, then stay away and let me do the summarizing! One of the early focuses is on Suzuki's failure to communicate to fans in many of the Q&As he's answered. Specifically, they focus on how he told one fan on Reddit that "at $10 million, [Shenmue 3] will truly have the features of an open world." What does this mean exactly? Does this mean for $10 million we'll get Shenmue 1? Does this mean for $10 million we'll get something that surpasses Shenmue 1? If on a scale of 0 to 100 we place "truly open world" at 100, where would Shenmue 1 fall, where would Shenmue 2 fall, where would Shenmue 3 currently fall, and where would Shenmue 3 fall if it had $10 million? It's a solid interrogation, one I've given plenty of thought to myself. We'll have to see if Suzuki will be more forthcoming in future Q&As. The next big focus of the podcast is on Awesome Japan's ineptitude. The podcasters are incredibly polite and professional as they explore this, but the fact remains that it's a solid eight or so minutes of them explaining that Awesome Japan just isn't cut out to handle this Kickstarter and that both their past and present actions reflect this. The lady podcaster explains Awesome Japan's track record:
Right around where I've paused, they've shifted to discussing how the initial Kickstarter goal of $2 million was possibly set too low. This is something I agree with and have brought up before. But it's also something which is debated in the community right now. A lot of people say that if the goal had been set at $4 or $5 million that the project might not have taken off like it did, and that such a failure to take off coupled with the accusations that Sony is funding the game in private would've spelled doom for the Kickstarter. I disagree with this, as does the male host of the podcast. We both seem to think that if the initial goal had been set at around $5 million that a) it would've been met within the first 24 hours and b) we'd currently be looking at a Kickstarter that is $7 or $8 million funded instead of only $4.5 million funded. Oh well. No way to know who's right or wrong on this one since we don't have the power to see into alternate futures with certainty. We can only speculate.
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Last edited by Talon87; 07-08-2015 at 07:37 AM. |
07-08-2015, 11:30 AM | #25 | |
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Thanks for the replies. I read through all of what you had to say, and it's pretty informative. Despite numerous hypotheticals, I think you probably hit the nail on the head with a lot of your assumptions based on history and the fact that in some cases you could, as you said, argue that it might wind up being cheaper today to produce a game such as this due to the many advancements in technology over the past 20 years. I guess I don't have a huge reply or anything to really rebut or point out. I just find this all somewhat fascinating, and that goes for what you had to say as well.
I guess at this point all we can do is wait and see what happens. Quote:
This kickstarter has definitely been a little messy, but I think that might be to be expected given the game. There has never been a game this big on Kickstarter. You've had Might No. 9 and Bloodstained and Yooka-Laylee, and out of all of those Yooka-Laylee is probably the only game ever kickstarted that comes even close to something as legendary and ambitious as Shenmue 3. I don't know that Shenmue can meet another $5.5M in the next 9 days, but I have a feeling it will come close. Big kickstarters tend to get a lot more attention, especially from the procrastinators, in their final few days. Don't be surprised if there's another $1.5M or so in the final 24 hrs. Regardless of what happens, I hope this is the Shenmue 3 everyone has been waiting for. |
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