Sony reaches $2m Shenmue III game target on Kickstarter within hours | Hacker News Reader

Sony reaches $2m Shenmue III game target on Kickstarter within hours

bbc.co.uk

73 points_airh52 comments

They got a fair amount of time to promote this at Sony's E3 event, so I imagine that the value of the marketing already put into Shenmue III is worth more than those 2 million, which begs the question. If Sony is willing to promote this so much, why aren't they willing to invest?

Or to put it bluntly: it fucking sucks when studios use Kickstarter when they are in no need of crowdfunding.

The title should be updated since Sony is not actually part of this Kickstarter, they simply provided the creator with a platform to promote his project because they are fans of his work.

That isn't to say that they aren't potentially part of the follow-on funding deals though (which we know nothing about), since everyone is pretty sure that this Kickstarter is a "proof of interest" gate for further funding. You could never make Shenmue 3 with only $2 million dollars.

Why does it suck that they use Kickstarter? It's validating the idea, and helps to confirm that the market exists.

Despite Shenmue's critical acclaim, it's not certain that the market exists. For comparison , Yakuza 1 and 2 (Yakuza is basically a spiritual successor to Shenmue in many ways) only sold 30k and 50k in the US market.

So this now reached it's funding goal with 30k bakers, why does that confirm the market exists when Yakuza selling 50k copies is considered a failure ?

30,000 people are willing to "buy" this game 2+ years before it even gets released within just 10 hours of it's "announcement". There are still 31 days to go on the kickstarter campaign, and a lot of people who didn't watch Sony's E3 presentation yesterday are waking up to the news of this right now.

That means once the game is released, has an actual marketing/advertising budget, and word of mouth spreads, it's probably going to sell significantly more than that. They are also certainly going to port Shenmue 1 and 2, (since a lot of people will want to play the originals) so those should also sell reasonably well.

This is why, even as a very indie Kickstarter creator myself, I don't begrudge the big studio's use of Kickstarter this way.

I'd rather see a shift toward creators getting paid for the work they do, which they put in one way or another, and away from absolute dependence on the market for post-hoc validation. Not a 100% shift ("real artists ship"), but toward an economic model that doesn't leave creators so beholden to such narrow sources of capital as a single publisher.

> Or to put it bluntly: it fucking sucks when studios use Kickstarter when they are in no need of crowdfunding.

Well, Kick Starter is now mainly a marketing tool anyway. It helps increase "engagement" with Brands. Nothing wrong with that. Other projects aren't going away. And there are still other crowd funding platforms.

Are you suggesting that 15 minutes on the E3 stage is worth $2 million+? I suppose that's possible, but it seems high. Or maybe there are additional promotions you are referring to?

Let's not forget the fact that the game is a sequel to a rather revolutionary game for it's time that cost $50M to develop in 2001. It has a lot to do with what you do with those 15 minutes, not just the time slot itself.

The phrase "this doesn't pick my pocket or break my leg" comes to mind.

I am beyond excited! I never thought Shenmue 3 would be released. I remember when Shenmue 1 came out, it was billed as Yu Suzuki's opus, and at the time the world's most expensive game at 70 million USD. To leave your opus unfinished must be hard, so I'm glad he's getting to finish it up properly (or, given the success, continue it).

For a certain generation of gamer, Shenmue isn't just a game, it's an event. It's a game I've often thought of over the years, to me it felt like a truly adult gaming experience. And to this day I still feel like it's one of the best examples of using gaming as a storytelling medium. I thought I would have to go my whole life not knowing if Ryo Hazuki would get revenge on Lan Di, and now, finally I'll get some closure.

Any idea of the English versions do it credit or if a lot is lost in translation?

I've actually never compared the two versions to see if one is much better than the other. At the time it was released, it was kind of a fact that the translations lost some/major nuance, however I played them in English and enjoyed them greatly nonetheless. I'd say treat it as translated literature: the translation perhaps isn't enough to do scholarly work on, but for enjoyment's sake it's probably just fine.

You can find it on Kickstarter here:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ysnet/shenmue-3

I didn't see the link in the article.

Shenmue I was the most expensive game ever created at the time, costing around $70 million, on Dreamcast hardware. It took five years to develop.

Realistically, how is $2 million going to be enough to fund a PS4-era sequel, presumably with completely new technology (based on the trailer)?

From a simple technology point of view, game development for PC and PS4 using 2015 tools like the Unreal engine is a hell of a lot cheaper and easier than developing for the Dreamcast using 1999 era tools.

Team sizes have increased, development cycles have increased, the size and amount of content expected in games has increased. Just because you now have better tools, doesn't mean it's guaranteed to get any cheaper.

Nobody said kickstarter is the only funding.

Sony is paying something for the exclusivity, I imagine. They might also be matching 2:1 or something. Who knows?

The kickstarter is only a day old, this amount of press will grow that $2M.

Plus they're using UE4, saving a lot vs the custom engine of Shenmue I.

We only have one piece of the financial puzzle, here.

This is from their kickstarter page:

"The real challenge now is to deliver a sequel that we will all be satisfied with after 14 years of waiting. After much research and planning, we set the funding goal at this level believing it will make possible a fulfilling Shenmue experience."

The kickstarter may very well be Sony's attempt at gauging interest in the game before outright funding it.

It's easy for someone to answer a poll asking if they'd like a game. It's an entirely different story to put up your own hard-earned dollars to fund it's development.

Bloodstained, a Castlevania-ish remake, notes that the Kickstarter money is to finish the funding while the remaining 90% came from external investors. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/iga/bloodstained-ritual...

It's a new game, not a remake.

Things have changed drastically since then. Shenmue was the first virtual world of this size, nowadays you can leverage engines capable of that out of the box.

I never played any of the Shenmue games. I know a couple people that are big fans, though, so I'm happy for them.

As a devops guy, I was more entertained by the effect of Shenmue 3's announcement on the Kickstarter servers. Props to them for the quick recovery!

There was a lot of that going around yesterday. For me the most amusing was Twitch.

Does it bother anyone else when a company that does not need a kick starter uses it? That's not really what it was meant for you know :s

But then they simply wouldn't do it because the risk is too large. This gives them hard data on traction before they've even talked to distributors. So it works out well for people. Unlike a traditional pre-sale, these contributors should understand that the game might not ever be released.

What makes you think anyone wants to fund a new Shenmue? It cost Sony a little to put them on the stage since they don't have any first party games to show off. The cost of the time is then made up by 'fan goodwill'

Why do you think they don't need it? There isn't much info available about the company, but from I can tell, this would be the first game they've released. Even if they've done something to this point or have some outside backers, they surely don't have $60M lying around which is what the original Shenmue cost to make.

What excited me most in that article is the line "The press event also saw Sony announce that long-awaited game The Last Guardian would soon be released."

I played one of the original two games and really don't understand the appeal. All I remember is walking around slowly and tediously, talking to shopkeeps and playing pachinko or whatever. Pretty heady stuff.

For those asking "Why was this announced at the Sony event?", note that according to the rewards, Shenmue 3 will be a PlayStation 4 exclusive for consoles: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ysnet/shenmue-3

Could just be a timed exclusive because in the FAQ they said that they haven't decided on plans for other consoles.

I think it should be relatively trivial to port, at least to Xbox One and other PC platforms. The Wii U might take some extra effort to work within the constraints of the hardware, but I'm not sure.

It's definitely not getting ported to the Wii U.

They've added this to their FAQ:

  Will there be an Xbox/Wii U/Linux/Mac version for Shenmue 3?
  Currently we are planning development only for PC (Windows)
  and PS4. Other platforms have not been decided yet.

why is a billion dollar company using kickstarter?

It makes sense as a way to gauge interest, similar to pre-orders.

Because the BBC apparently stopped fact checking. It's a separate studio, not a part of Sony.

Why wouldn't anyone use Kickstarter? Why gamble with your own money?

They aren't. The Kickstarter has no affiliation with Sony.

$100k per language subtitules? Really?

It my be abusive but there is a lot of side things in the shenmue game so ...

Seems like a lot, but if you consider cost of translation, studio time, voice actors, etc, I can see it being 100k, especially if you want to pay the translators and actors fairly.

The translation is only text and subtitle, so no studio time or voice actors.

1. stretch goals are just sales goals, there's no reason they have to correspond to actual costs.

2. that's gross, not net. Subtract 5% for kickstarter, 3% for the credit cards, royalties for game shipments and reward costs, and you're probably looking at less than $50K

3. good professional translation costs ~$30K per man-month if you use an agency. I wouldn't be surprised if Shenmue contains more than a novel's worth of text.

As per 2. I fail to see how number of supported languages directly increases cost of game shipments (per unit)?

I'd say that just put arbitrary numbers in there since the project will require much more than $2 mil. to complete.

You are right about points 1. and 3. though.

Point 2 is referring to fulfillment of Kickstarter costs, not translation. Backers on Kickstarter receive rewards with their pledges, which someone has to pay for, including shipping on not just games but also t-shirts, art books, and other novelties (most likely internationally). Part of the money earned will go towards that.

4. You want that tested? See what translation to German will do for your character counts, and if that'll work with the space allocated on screen.

Granted this isn't the 16 or 32 bit era where all this typography stuff had to be rolled by hand, and probably looks like ass with a monospace font in anything other than japanese.

This is one of those things where if you're unfamiliar with it the cost seems outrageous - but if you want to do it properly you need to pay good money.

Yeah - I recently looked into getting a longer fictional work translated, and when I backed out the numbers from the seemingly high priced quotes, it made sense. You want translations from people that are fluent in both languages AND that are experts at translating the meaning from one to the other. These skills are available, but are expensive.

Google Translate isn't going to cut it, and hiring a professional translator that can handle the context and nuances will set you back that much.

Translating a movie is one thing, it's only a few hours of dialog. Games often have way, way more.

Don't forget stuff like keeping the game consistent with previous translations, blah blah blah.

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