Embracer Q3 Report Presentation @ 9AM CET (3AM EST) 19-2-2020/2-19-2020

Good news indeed that it sold quite well. It does not mean though that S4 is granted but maybe just maybe it enhances the chances a it for a 4th game in case DS is interested in making one.
 
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Tosh said:
Well, the situation could only be improved if there would be another (bigger) publisher.
We can forget EA, Ubisoft, Blizzard, Square Enix etc, all of these big names are unrealistic
and then we already are on the DS AA publisher level. Koch Media / THQ Nordic is already pretty much the biggest
AA publisher and distributor in Europe.
It wont be easy to just find a publisher that will do everything better.
The only good deal would be a deal with Sega and that doesnt help us if they are not interested.

And yes, Koch Media / Deep Silver didnt do the best job with the marketing but still
all of the Shenmue 3 banners at events, Youtube and Facebook Ads, the press previews, Shenmue 3 booth at Gamescom,
the invitations / travels to Japan etc were handled by Koch Media. All of this costs money and you need connections.

If YS Net chooses the self publishing way, they have to handle all of this themselves.
There will be no booth in a Gamescom main hall because thats not for indie games,
there wont be banners at E3 or whatever because advertising space costs thousands of dollars
and YS Net has to invite and handle the press themselves. Which means a small japanese studio
has to handle the press from the west all the time. Japanese studios like Square Enix, Koei Tecmo or Capcom
can do that because they have employees just for that.
How would YS Net handle this?
Why would Sega help with this stuff when they are not the publisher? Yes, they helped at Tokyo Game Show
but probably only because they and Koch Media are partners and all of Sega's booths at Gamescom
are in the Koch Media main hall. I doubt that Cedric can help much with these things,
hes using third party publishers for his own projects.
Click to expand...
As someone who went to TGS last year, I can tell you that the Shenmue showing there was incredibly lackluster. I actually had a bit of trouble finding it owing to the stand having been shoved round the back of Sega’s main stand. It was nice that it was there, but most attendees probably didn’t know that it was. I really don’t see it having made much of a difference at all to sales.

Likewise, while it’s nice that they put some banners up at E3, I’d be surprised if any of the people in attendance saw the banners and decided there and then to buy the game.

The most effective marketing these days is online marketing and this is where Deep Silver really dropped the ball. Could YsNet do better in this area if they went in on their own? I don’t think they could do much worse.

The press previews didn’t help too much as they didn’t provide any actual footage to go with them. They also picked out some incredibly niche sites to invite. One of the publications they paid to fly out to Monaco ended up giving the game a 3/10 having not played it for more than a few hours. I’d say that not having these events wouldn’t have made any difference to total sales (unless of course, they provided decent footage to go with it).

This kind of thing needs contacts, yes, but I’d dare say that Yu Suzuki probably already has a lot of these contacts himself and could probably reach out for the others.

Obviously the best case scenario would be if one of the powerhouse publishers came on board, but as that seems unlikely, when comparing the prospect of another DS published Shenmue and a self-published Shenmue, the latter might just be the best option.

If it’s a case of YSnet giving up 50%+ of their profit to work with a company that makes deals behind their back and does the bare minimum to promote the game or spending $60,000-$120,000 to hire one or two people specifically to handle press and marketing, I think I know which one I’d choose.

The only reason I’d go with DS would be if they were willing to invest enough to lead to a significantly better game and I’m not sure that will be the case next time around.
 
I'll be honest, I came in here expecting the worse, but reading that it broke even at best and made some profits means Shenmue is a viable franchise. If I can toss in my 2 cents, pissing off "Gamerz" like the epic deal is a move they must not repeat with S4...at least do these deals before the marketing phase and not too close to release. The bait and switch narrative was easy ammunition for the haters/click-baiters.

Shenmue 4 should not aim to please with bloated fanservice...keep it focus on pushing the narrative and introduce fresh new cultural/or original mini-games & tighten up the qte's to make em more immersive like S1&2.
 
Valsorys said:
D'accord
Il a toujours cru aux bonnes ventes. Il dit également que le PDG de DS n'est pas dans le projet.
Je voulais juste que cedric commente ces mots. C'est assez étrange
Click to expand...

Hey buddy,
I am a French guy just like you but, regarding we are posting on an english website, we have to make effort writting in (broken) english. This in order being understandable by all.
Thanks.
 
[QUOTE = "OZoran Tsubasa, message: 91296, membre: 1344"]
Hé mon pote,
Je suis un français comme vous, mais en ce qui concerne notre publication sur un site anglais, nous devons faire des efforts pour écrire en anglais (cassé). Ceci afin d'être compréhensible par tous.
Merci.
[/CITATION
Yo! My smartphone do the automatic trad. Sorry
 
spud1897 said:
So we got a response. A polite one but that's all

View attachment 7336
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Thats a typical german company answer to be honest.
Basically he cant and wont say anything because he is not allowed to or they simply dont want people to know,
so his answer is "you will hear about it if we want to".
We have these comments / answers everywhere, politics, sports, police reports, whatever.
You will never get a answer from german companies where they are talking on "our level",
its always in the most serious way with as little information as possible. :D
If they want to say something official, they will say it on their channels but never as a casual answer to someone else.
 
You wont get any answer from any companies about informations they haven't disclosed yet.
It doesn't hurt to try... But it's pointless. Those are either private companies or publicly traded companies. If they haven't disclosed informations to the public or to their investors, don't expect them to do so by email or request from fans. If they didn't, that's because they didn't want to.


高野和泉 said:
I'll be honest, I came in here expecting the worse, but reading that it broke even at best and made some profits means Shenmue is a viable franchise. If I can toss in my 2 cents, pissing off "Gamerz" like the epic deal is a move they must not repeat with S4...at least do these deals before the marketing phase and not too close to release. The bait and switch narrative was easy ammunition for the haters/click-baiters.

Shenmue 4 should not aim to please with bloated fanservice...keep it focus on pushing the narrative and introduce fresh new cultural/or original mini-games & tighten up the qte's to make em more immersive like S1&2.
Click to expand...


The problem isn't to make deals... The problem is to make deals for peanuts. For shit. For litterally pocket change.

What did a deal with Sony brought ? An E3 stage (that anyone could've given them, let's be real, it was Shenmue 3 and considering how many low tier indie games can make it on Sony's stage...) and marketing (???) in exchange of an exclusivity. No money put into making a bigger or better games.

... and a shitload of bad press about their kickstarter.

What did a deal with Epic brought ? Money for Deep Silver only.

... and a shitstorm about selling their PC backers (which is what they did btw).

Two deals, that didn't benefit Shenmue III into making it a better game.
 
GhostTrick said:
You wont get any answer from any companies about informations they haven't disclosed yet.
It doesn't hurt to try... But it's pointless. Those are either private companies or publicly traded companies. If they haven't disclosed informations to the public or to their investors, don't expect them to do so by email or request from fans. If they didn't, that's because they didn't want to.





The problem isn't to make deals... The problem is to make deals for peanuts. For shit. For litterally pocket change.

What did a deal with Sony brought ? An E3 stage (that anyone could've given them, let's be real, it was Shenmue 3 and considering how many low tier indie games can make it on Sony's stage...) and marketing (???) in exchange of an exclusivity. No money put into making a bigger or better games.

... and a shitload of bad press about their kickstarter.

What did a deal with Epic brought ? Money for Deep Silver only.

... and a shitstorm about selling their PC backers (which is what they did btw).

Two deals, that didn't benefit Shenmue III into making it a better game.
Click to expand...
I have to disagree on both points. The exposure was what lead to the Kickstarter being as successful as it was and definitely contributed towards it breaking records. Would I have traded exclusivity for it? Probably not; but Shenmue 1/2 sold terribly on Xbone and so not much was lost through this.

The Epic deal absolutely benefited YSNet. It probably didn’t improve the quality of S3, but it gave them a huge amount of cash to potentially begin production on S4. Again, I doubt it really cost them too many sales and certainly didn’t lead to a worse game.
 
Kiske said:
Sorry for getting back to this, as I know it's been translated over and over.

I'm trying to translate it as close to what I think is the meaning in French as I can.
"Hello, I've never been worried and the person you mention is not my concern nor OUR current projects concern."

To be honest, that reply's meaning is potentially HUGE.
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Cedric hinted SM4 a plethora of times already, perhaps they secured other deals we are not aware of, at this stage is just waiting time for us commoners while they gauge our interest.

Plan B: anyone living in Japan infiltrate YSNet office's air ducts and tell us what they are doing.
 
GhostTrick said:
What did a deal with Sony brought ? An E3 stage (that anyone could've given them, let's be real, it was Shenmue 3 and considering how many low tier indie games can make it on Sony's stage...) and marketing (???) in exchange of an exclusivity.
Click to expand...

What did Sony deal bring? Nothing really. Just such a huge hype that Kickstarter servers exploded within hours. More money than any other videogame ever got on Kickstarter. E3 2015 Kickstarter announcement was a marketing masterpiece in my opinion. And maybe "anyone could have given them an E3 stage", but at the end of the day, it's been Sony and the people closely involved in making Shenmue 3 come back possible, and no one else.
 
tomboz said:
The Epic deal absolutely benefited YSNet. It probably didn’t improve the quality of S3, but it gave them a huge amount of cash to potentially begin production on S4. Again, I doubt it really cost them too many sales and certainly didn’t lead to a worse game.
Click to expand...
I said it at the time it happened, and I'll say it again, I think the EGS deal was the right way to go for sure (this is even after hating EGS for the recent Story Quest Pack DLC delay, and as mainly a PC gamer, I'm not the biggest fan of EGS originally lol).

The PC version of Shenmue III was never going to sell too much, the main sales were always going to be on PS4. Those that intended to play on PC, would have likely have paid for the limited edition Kickstarter version at the time, and thus PC sales at release would have been small. Deep Silver knew this, and decided to take a lump sum upfront which I guess, they estimated would be a larger amount than the sales that they expected. We know from other developers that EGS have been paying millions for upfront sales, so when you look at Shenmue III's ~$12,000,000 cost, it's a straight up no brainer. As others have mentioned, this money would have been used to recoup the games costs, and if there is any extra after dividing it up between DS/YsNet/Shibuya etc, YsNet could use this to keep the studio running, and hopefully start work (or prepare) for what's next.

As much as people like to hate on the decision, and on Deep Silver, they are the ones who know the numbers relating to the development cost, investment, marketing etc, and thus they can run the projections to make the correct choice. They have professionals who do this for a living so I'm sure they did what was right. We don't have the numbers, don't know the deals behind closed doors, so all we can do is look at it logically, and logically, it also makes sense.

Edit: Also you've got to be mad if you think that Sony did nothing for Shenmue III. You really think that if YsNet launched a Kickstarter on their own randomly that it would have hit the $6.3 Million that it did due to all the exposure at E3... Never.
 
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