Bloodstained reached 1 million copies

Joined
Nov 13, 2019
It's not an off topic, it's of course always related to Shenmue 3


Bloodstained reached 1 million of copies (well done Iga-san :) )

It's a game that started on kickstarter like Shenmue 3, similar KS budget, both had their issues with the campaign, their haters etc.

But it's really strange that Bloodstained reached the 1 million mark, while Shenmue that is a stronger IP didn't.
I think that having very vocal haters inside our communities really damaged Shenmue 3 sales :(

What do you think?
 
I think the obvious one is availability - Bloodstained is on Switch, PC, PS4 and Xbox One

Shenmue is on PC and PS4 only.

Additionally Bloodstained requires no knowledge of Castlevania and isn't story driven at all.

also Bloodstained launched at mid price in the UK and could be preorded for as low as £26.85

sure the Switch port was rubbish and buyers were vocally upset, but by then they already had their money and a sale.

So all these factors add up.

Shenmue will get another shot in the arm for sales with the GOG/Steam release, but if it's a basic port then the impact will be minimal I fear

Hopefully YsNet have listened to criticism and are making quality of life changes to that build that can be rolled out to PS4 owners too. Some good press and previews would really help.
 
yeah platform availability, low price and the fact of not being "the third game of a story driven series" are all important factors.

But I think also the big damage was done during the KS campaign, especially by some vocal fans/haters that spread hate on resetera and other sites, and we all know that majority of press look at the mood of resetera, neogaf and co. to decide how to review a game...
 
Resetera is such a hate filled shit-pit. The double standards are mind boggling. They have a 160 page thread on the Last of Us 2 spoilers, then complain about respecting developers in the next. They get the knives out for low budget games that punch above their weight, then lament the death of AA games in the next. I went to register back in the Shenmue 3 build up to do some fact checking, but they would only accept my work email address. Are you serious? Place thinks it's above it all, when it's just another videogame forum.
 
Resetera is such a hate filled shit-pit. The double standards are mind boggling. They have a 160 page thread on the Last of Us 2 spoilers, then complain about respecting developers in the next. They get the knives out for low budget games that punch above their weight, then lament the death of AA games in the next. I went to register back in the Shenmue 3 build up to do some fact checking, but they would only accept my work email address. Are you serious? Place thinks it's above it all, when it's just another videogame forum.
Lol my personal email addresses are considered Spam over there. I can sign up to any other forum using whichever provider I want but not there.
 
Resetera is such a hate filled shit-pit. The double standards are mind boggling. They have a 160 page thread on the Last of Us 2 spoilers, then complain about respecting developers in the next. They get the knives out for low budget games that punch above their weight, then lament the death of AA games in the next. I went to register back in the Shenmue 3 build up to do some fact checking, but they would only accept my work email address. Are you serious? Place thinks it's above it all, when it's just another videogame forum.

You have to understand how Resetera was created after a tumultuous break from Neogaf’s founder. They initially were approving new member accounts in batches but requiring non-free email accounts was something long established since Neogaf days.

I admittedly browse their off topic forums much more as I find their discussions regarding Shenmue relatively reductive. You can’t argue they are popular source of discussion however.
 
The only thing that "really damaged Shenmue III sales" is its critical reception and the way its sales were handled.
As you said, Bloodstained also had issues with its Kickstarter. But why did it work ?

The game reviewed well (83 against 67).
The game released on multiple platforms (when Shenmue III released on two platforms and managed to screw up the launch in one of those two platforms).

Better reception + more platforms means more sales.

And let's be honest: They did nothing to gain some good will in their kickstarter handling. At no moment.
 
Query around this. Do sales count the downloads for GamerPass? I'd assume not but does anyone have a concrete answer?
 
I picked up a new and sealed ps4 copy of Bloodstained from base.com back in April for £13.85 delivered.

Shenmue has held its price very well for a 'flop' considering you could buy new copies of Deus Ex for £4.99 after a year.
 
Resetera is such a hate filled shit-pit. The double standards are mind boggling. They have a 160 page thread on the Last of Us 2 spoilers, then complain about respecting developers in the next. They get the knives out for low budget games that punch above their weight, then lament the death of AA games in the next. I went to register back in the Shenmue 3 build up to do some fact checking, but they would only accept my work email address. Are you serious? Place thinks it's above it all, when it's just another videogame forum.
It's bizarre how many "Can we finally admit Shenmue 3 sucks?"-type threads I've seen over there. What's there to admit? The whole forum's hated it since it was announced.
 
Query around this. Do sales count the downloads for GamerPass? I'd assume not but does anyone have a concrete answer?


Nah. It doesn't. And while I can't provide you a "concrete answer", it's highly doubtful otherwise a LOT of games would've seen tremendously higher sales.

I picked up a new and sealed ps4 copy of Bloodstained from base.com back in April for £13.85 delivered.

Shenmue has held its price very well for a 'flop' considering you could buy new copies of Deus Ex for £4.99 after a year.


Don't know your country. But in USA, the price dropped by nearly half barely a month after release.
 
I left NeoGAF like 6 or 7 years ago because of what a creepy thought police echo-chamber it was becoming. I can't even imagine what a fucking lunatic asylum ResetERA must be like after half a decade of festering.
 
I still think releasing shenmue 3 in November was a mistake as it had to compete with other big releases. I would have preferred a quieter month. There were alot of factors at play. Platforms, the handling of the kickstarter, smears, reviews, marketing, etc etc. Hopefully we can get a solid release and situation with shenmue 4. Shenmue 1 is still the only shenmue game to release without any problems (technical/situational/marketing etc).

Oh and you lot are all wrong about resetera

Resetera is a lovely place. I wish the entire world was like that community. Such loving and caring people who would never do anything poisonous or toxic while pretending to be morally righteous. They would never spread hate or attacks on people or try to smear things. Im certain that It MUST be a mere coincidence that the majority of the gaming community and developers/publishers tend to avoid them like the plauge. Maybe they're just shy....

brb going to throw myself down the stairs.
 
Yeah, unfortunately Shenmue only had one chance to shine with Shenmue 1
With 2 and 3 they had all kind of issues.

That said, even if I repeat myself in some way, the problem of sites such as resetera (and neogaf before that) is that they are considered the center of the world of gaming, also due to the fact that they are full of developers and journalists.
So basically it's on these sites that they form the initial opinions that have a real influence on the global perception of a game.

And unfortunately Shenmue 3 was always their laughing stock since the first days of kickstarter, and that really contributed also to the low metascore, way more that the real shortcomings of the game.
 
I think you're giving them waaaaaaaaay too much credit. NeoGAF was a place a fair few developers and journos would post at in the mid to late 2000s, but that was a long time ago. Nobody takes ResetERA seriously.
 
I'm not an Iga-fan, not even in the slightest, I have never owned a Castlevania game and I hate to say it, but Bloodstained was a better game than S3, which is why it sold more copies and it deserved to sell more copies than S3.

I backed Bloodstained because being a Shenmue fan I could understand how Castlevania fans felt and I must say it was a better game than S3.
 
It's a shame they have a dlc road map for the whole year to fulfill kickstarter goals. The quicker they can follow up, the better.
 
To be fair, Yu Suzuki and S3 has a bigger shoe to fill for the budget they have to work with+Other limitations. I can understand that S3 can't/didn't hit all the marks & especially having to downsize+downgrade an inherent AAA IP to indie AA status along such an unorthodox pre-production/planning phase due to crowdfunding. Since the gap...building s3 is akin to building s1 but with half the budget/time/manpower/& working with a middle-ware engine instead of a custom engine you can know the insides and out of that can be tweaked to minutiae.
 
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