[LagunaVII]

I think at this stage, despite Microsoft and Sony's interest in the project, if Shenmue III is ever going to see the light of day. Crowdfunding is the way to go. Yu, himself, has said he is currently researching it... so I thought I might too.
 
When talking video game crowdfunding. Two games come to mind. Mighty No. 9 and Broken Age. Both are two games that have been developed thanks to help from Kickstarter - though both come with fan bases that are a little bit more than Shenmue's. but anyway lets look at the figure.
 
Broken Age - Set goal at $400,000 within 9 hours this goal was reached and a month later the goal had been smashed with a total raised of 3.3 million from over 87,000 backers, thats an average pledged of £40.00 per person (the price of a game anyway?)
 
Mighty No. 9 - set a target of $900,000 and met this target 2 days later again the kickstarter campaign ended a month later and smashed the target and made a total of $3,845,170 with a further $201,409 donated by kickstarter to push total raised to $4,046,579 - (I dont have the number of backs this time)
 
So both video game crowdfunding were a massive sucess, could Shenmue do the same?
 
 
This is difficult to say, unfortunately we do not know what needs doing for any future release. As i have mentoned previously there are rumours out there and evidence to suggest that the future installments are finished in some way or another (the assets are there, awaiting porting) Off course, they may very well be sat on a Sega Server, would Sega allow Yu to have them? who knows we may need to start a fresh. But lets look at best case senario. The assets are there and Sega allow the port...
 
Again we get into tricky situations here because we dont really know how much it costs to port a game - a quick google search will tell you that Ubisoft have got porting a game to WiiU to cost as little as $1.2 Million given the ammounts raised above thats in our price range, but would we get to the target?
 
in a recent post of mine, i stated that Shenmue shipped 1.2 million coppies world wide. it would be naive of me to assume that all these 1.2 million actually enjoyed the game and all of the remaining number have stayed with the series following Shenmue II Xbox only US release and the 13 year gap between Shenmue II's end and now - however if all 1.2 million did stay with the series. we would only need to pledge a $1 each to get to the $1.2 million Ubisoft spends porting to a wii. (if only life was that simple eh?)
 
No undoubtably Shenmue has lost fans over the years, however with the improved popularity of Sandbox games such as GTA im sure there are some people out there who picked it up at a later date - its hard to say just how many fans there are. Never mind how many that would be willing to fund the game. However looking at the #SaveShenmue campaign the other day on twitter, if it did reach crowd funding it would be all over that site. Id also bet sites like Kotaku, Gamespot and IGN would be all over it. We would have no trouble atracting the numbers.
 
Lets say a Shenmue Kickstarter is as popular as the Double Fine's Broken age and we get similar sort of numbers and similar sort of funds $3.3 million. Would this be enough to make Shenmue III? I'd argue no, I however think it would be a suitable ammount to port I + II over to the wii (maybe even get them on XBLA or PSN) who knows? perhaps even if they made that much Microsoft or Sony would Match Fund? Who knows?
 
I guess the point Im trying to prove is that Crowdfunding is a very viable sensible option - and I will tell you now. Im not in the next gen market at this moment, but whatever console Shenmue was annouced for I would go out and buy it tomorrow! thats how much of a deal breaker it is for me! As for crowdfunding? I would quite easily invest £100 or $171.00 based on todays exchange rate!
 
So my question to you, What do you think of the Crowd funding route and if we got there, how much would you pledge?

[The Hazuki Legacy]

Dreamfall Chapters (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/redthread/dreamfall-chapters-the-longest-journey) got funded, even though it's a fully 3D role playing game, set in two worlds with a large amount or lore. $1,538,425 was pledged of the $850,000 goal. The Longest Journey / Dreamfall has way less fans than Shenmue does.

1.5 million isn't enough to fund Shenmue 3, obviously, but Shenmue is a bigger name so it would raise more. Personally I think crowd-funding is only possible if they have another source of funding, or if they released it in iterations of episodic 3 hour games. Either that, or the crowd funding would fund the HD ports, which I believe isn't what Yu is researching into.


However, remember that crowd-funding only needs to pay for some of the budget. It's a kick starter, after all.

[LagunaVII]

21,000 backers for Dreamfall, im sure Shenmue has more fans than that. Still $1.5 Mill between 21,000 is $71 a person. I'm sure we have plenty of fans who would pledge at least that..
 
Yeah I think you are right. We could quite easily get over a million. I'm still confident as a whole the project could easily get around $3 Mil, id argue its still not enough - still you are right we might get at least another chapter. they did seem to be getting smaller
 

[Shenmue Stare]

The game Star Citizen has made almost 50 million in crowdfunding so far. https://robertsspaceindustries.com/

Check that shit out. YuSu could definitely go this route with Shenmue 3... and 4. HA!

We recently wrote YuSu a letter mentioning this to him in case he was unaware. Hopefully he bites.

So nobody has a good reason to hate on crowdfunding anymore. 

[LagunaVII]

Unfortunately, I am unable to see crowd funding for Shenmue reach the heights of $50 mil, but we can dream cant we

[Giorgio]

I believe a custom made Kick Starter page should be made by Yu's team for a new installment of Shenmue, just like the one Shenmue Stare pointed out, so as the pledges will not have a time limit and thus (desperate and deprived) Shenmue fans (haha) will give a long-time and long-term support for the future of Shenmue.

Furthermore, when the crowd-funding of a new Shenmue will reach a milestone, then the rest of the fund to be pledged by an interested sponsor / fund-partner (or more of them) to actually start the solid development of the game. But while that happens, fans to keep supporting with their pockets the project, so as to evolve into a greater game, as a Shenmue game would be justice to be.

As also has been mentioned in another topic, AAA projects like The Witcher 2 and 3, have been developed with a relatively low budget for nowadays' standards, thus with the right management (outside of SEGA's Dreamcast-days-dazed minds now) a new Shenmue would be made with a similar one.

About the cost of a new Shenmue, I'll rewrite the following from http://saveshenmue.tumblr.com/shenmue-mythbusting:

Opinion: “Shenmue 3 is going to cost a lot!!!”

- Relative to its contemporaries, Shenmue 3 needn’t be as expensive as the first two games. The ground that was broken by Shenmue 1 & 2 is now well trodden, with plenty of experience and tools available to reduce the insane amounts of R&D required for developing the originals, which were inarguably ahead of their time.

- The cost of making games has certainly increased, but the proportional cost of making Shenmue-style games has fallen dramatically from the bleeding edge heights of its development in the ’90s. It really was an exceptional project to undertake in those days, whereas now, even if they aim for AAA presentation, its costs would be comparable to its modern peers.

- While games are now generally more expensive to produce and inflation makes the numbers look even scarier, it should go without saying that Shenmue today would not be the technical breakthrough that it was in 1999. It paved the way for what so many games are doing now. All the costly R&D, all the early trial and error, was done by Shenmue. The tools, skills and experience to develop that kind of game are now more readily available than in the late nineties when there was no precedence from which to learn and evolve. Just like other open world adventures of today, Shenmue III would be standing on the shoulders of giants, not starting from scratch at the foot of the mountain.

Positively rabid Shenmue fans will give their lungs out of money to support Shenmue, as well the majority of the gaming scene, I believe. This is a legendary game we are talking about, and the idea that it will be made and released, like a myth, a dream, something magical, will make people support it to make a dream come true (something desirable for the human nature); even people who have never played the game, will support it, just to help the fans to get what they want, and keep shouting for, for over a decade.

[The Hazuki Legacy]

Positively rabid Shenmue fans...

This. So much this. If Shenmue went the crowdfunding route, the internet has no idea what's in store for it, lol. It would receive SO much press and many massive donations from the absolutely diehard fans. It might not make even 10 million, but it would be all over the news and would make many new Shenmue fans.

[RobLMor]

I know I would invest highly. It wouldn't even be about the kickstarter rewards or getting your name in the thank you on the credits (although that would be cool). Just knowing I helped get the game out there and getting to play it would be worth every penny. I'm not sure they get the amount needed to make the entire game, but they'd get enough to get it started. With less investment needed from other sources then, I'm sure someone would stump up the rest.

[jameswalker85]

The only issue I see with the crowdfunding route is the rights issue. Broken Age and Mighty No. 9 were new IPs, and Dreamfall had the original creator behind it. Shenmue is still firmly in SEGA's iron grasp, and unless they... ahem... give Yu the Shenmue license, then I can't see how they could do it without the possibility of legal action.


If SEGA did hand over the license, and Yu went the crowdfunding route, I would pledge whatever I could spare on a weekly basis.

[LagunaVII]

Thats current rights issues is something i have been looking into... and to be honest it looks good.
 
All evidence would seem to suggest that besides odd little things like making money off Shenmue figures and putting Ryo in other games, Sega are pretty much done with the franchise, however delving a little further into matters Sega have also said they would be quite happy to see a 3rd outing, they are just not funding it. Suzuki himself believes that Sega would let him do it, though there are other who are saying that the reason III has not been made is Segas way of punishing Yu over not saving the dreamcast. Kind of like how that nintendo bloke never really worked again following the failure of the Virtual Boy (This is MAJOR speculation by the way and there is no evidence to suggest it)
 
I dont think Sega are quite as done with the franchise as they make out - they know it popular (not as popular as they would like) but they have been burnt before. They would just rather play it safe and pump money into a new Sonic Game rather than take a risk on this. I would bet that if Suzuki managed to get a worthwhile ammount of funding they would let him work on it.

[Giorgio]

If Yu Suzuki make a Shenmue-themed salad, he will succeed on Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/324283889/potato-salad |:3


Recipe: Potatoes, with a little bit of sake, Jet Cola, Sapporo beer, a dose of toy capsules, AfterBurn it on the stove and do it Quick-Timer-Event, and then serve it on a Dragon/Phoenix Mirror hot plate.


Stretch goals:

• $333: Win a party with sailors from Yokosuka.
• $1986: Earn a kitten that looks like the one in Yamanose Shrine and listen to either names of Mimi, Taba or Chibi (but no Sasuke).
• $3333: Earn all the toy capsules fans sent to Sega of Japan back then, for your collection.
• $7777: Receive a bite from the Shenmue-themed salad (bonus chopsticks that looks like Joy's hair).

[Shenmue Stare]

Even if Yu didn't Kickstart Shenmue 3, it'd be nice to see him crowdfund something, anything.

[Giorgio]

Even if Yu didn't Kickstart Shenmue 3, it'd be nice to see him crowdfund something, anything.

Yu Suzuki has some projects under his sleeve for the future. Games for mobiles, consoles (and that is pretty interesting to hear) and even thematic parks. I believe the advice Keiji Inafune gave to Yu, was just not for Shenmue III alone, but for all his projects, but of course those which have a mass market potential (like a console game). Furthermore, Yu has said that he is creating right now a Shenmue-inspired game (while taking out what he didn't like from Shenmue and taking in what he liked from Shenmue), only it will be in a fantasy world (and not in a real-like world set in China or Japan). Personally, I keep saying that there is not any game out there like Shenmue (and the ones that look like Shenmue, consist mostly of ultra violence, constant swearing, blood splatting, horror elements and all the adrenaline-bursting likes). It would be awesome to experience one more game as organic, lively and breathing as Shenmue was, with story to be the main focus over the action, and with deep unique personalities (NPCs) to interact, discuss with and learn form (and now with the power of the Internet, he would "have made an effort to emulate the real life of a society, [he] would have striven to create a completely living game [...]"). And all that by the hands of Yu Suzuki, the pioneer of the open-world genre, best expressed as Full Reactive Eyes Entertainment. At GDC 2014 he talked about a prototype he made on Sega Saturn, called "The Old Man and the Peach Tree"; it was an open world game but more light-hearted compared to Shenmue; probably, he will persue the same idea, to create a Shenmue-inspired game but with a fantazy world and a more fun, cheery story. Nonetheless, I trust that Yu Suzuki will enhance the experience once more with believability and relatability [just like in Shenmue's experience that transcends games (and as always Yu is trying to project that to the player, something more than a game, like when he wanted to put "a real motorcycle, instead of the ones made of plastic, with it's working engine, blowing out smoke and all", in the arcade cabinet of Hang-On)].

P.S.: I like wall of texts obviously; here's a bonus for you...

[Shenmue Stare]

Nice bonus, brudda.

[jameswalker85]

At this point, I'd probably throw money at anything Yu decides to do.