Shenmue 3 Marketing Analysis Thread

ShenSun

Site Staff
Joined
Jul 24, 2018
Mod Note: I will adjust the alignment, titles and triple check the math when I have some more spare time, If i've made any errors anywhere, feel free to let me know and i'll update the thread.

HaF2C4X.jpg


I've been keeping an eye on the latest Shenmue 3 videos and thought i'd throw my 2 cents into the mix of what's going on. Keep in mind this is only my personal perspective and doesn't represent what's actually happening. This is all speculation on my part from doing advertising and marketing here and there.

I also ask that you all keep it civil and respectful. No drama in this thread.

SHENMUE VIDEO ADS

At the start of this month, we all began seeing Shenmue ads appear in various different places. Youtube & Facebook being the main platforms. So far we have the following videos and statistics

30 Second Ad FRANCE

123,000 VIEWS

15 Second Ad GERMANY

84,000 VIEWS

15 Second Ad ENGLISH

323,000 VIEWS

30 Second Ad ENGLISH

100,000 VIEWS

There is however more going on here than meets the eye. Deep Silver usually upload Shenmue trailers to their youtube channel and to be frank, they always perform poorly due to the videos being uploaded long after they've been shown on other channels. Recently all of the Shenmue Videos have seen a massive spike in views. This is due to the videos now being used for advertisements

qCrZ735.jpg


If you total everything up as it currently stands (facebook + youtube) our views amount to around 2,285,000 (Well over 2 million views).

The Shenmue 3 advertisement campaign has only really begun since the start of November, so we can expect that result to go well up to between 10 million - 20 million views come November 19th

WILL THIS CONVERT INTO SALES?

Yes it will convert into sales, but don't get your hopes up too high just yet. I personally advertise everyday products and services to your regular man/woman. I can tell you that the conversion rate of these ads into sales is usually around 1% - 2%. It can go much higher depending on the season, targeting, virality, etc. For example, the Christmas season is a good period for conversion rates to go higher than normal due to people buying presents and gifts. Fortunately, that's the period Shenmue is being advertised in, so that will work in our favor. Also bear in mind, gamers have higher buying intent during this period, so that will also boost the conversion rate.

For the sake of keep our expectations in check and not to overhype this, im gonna play devils advocate and assume the absolute worse case scenario. We're gonna give Shenmue 3's conversion rate a 1 - 3% during the holiday season.

SIDE NOTE: BARE IN MIND THE FOLLOWING SALES NUMBERS ARE NOT ACCURATE AS WE HAVE NO SALES DATA TO MAKE A 100% CORRECT CONVERSION RATE.

THIS IS ALL SPECULATION AND ASSUMPTION. WE'RE SIMPLY WORKING OUT 1 - 3% OF THE TOTAL VIEWS AND BASING OUR SALES CONVERSIONS ON THAT.


WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?

Currently we have 2,285,000 views on those videos combined. if 1 - 3% of those viewers convert into sales you get the following
  • 1% sales of 2,285,000 views = 22,850 copies sold
  • 2% sales of 2,285,000 views = 45,700 copies sold
  • 3% sales of 2,285, 000 views = 68,550 copies sold
  • etc
You can see that if those views reach 10 million or more, those conversion percentages will equate to more copies sold.
  • 1% sales of 10,000,000 views = 100,000 copies sold
  • 2% sales of 20,000,000 views = 200,000 copies sold
  • etc
IS THIS GUARANTEED?

Heck no. you see when you market to people. you are given a choice of various marketing algorithms to work with. Each one has lower conversion rates than the others. For example, the most common algorithms used are as follows

Video view algorithm campaign
Engagement algorithm campaign
Conversion algorithm campaign

We have no idea what algorithms Deep Silver are using for their marketing or how much money/budget they are using for each advert. I will say that video views and engagement algorithm campaigns have a much lower conversion rate than the conversion algorithm campaign (less than 0.1%). Conversion algorithm campaigns are the ones that usually convert around 1-3%.

Using the conversion algorithm for your ads is also much, much, MUCH more expensive as its goal is to find people on these social media platforms who are most likely to buy products from your adverts

The engagement algorithm finds people who will leave comments, likes etc and therefore it is cheaper

the video view algorithm finds people who will simply view the video and nothing else.

IS THERE ANY POINT TO THE VIDEO VIEWS AND ENGAGEMENT ADS COMPARED TO THE CONVERSION ADS?

Yes there is. Even though video view and engagement ads have a much lower conversion rate (less than 0.1%), they can still help massively. Deep Silver could throw out a bunch of adverts (engagement, video views, conversions), let it run for a week and then use that data to increase sales and boost the conversion rate massively. I'll illustrate this point using a staged example

STAGE 1 RUN EVERY TRAILER AS AN AD SEPARATELY USING VIDEO VIEWS, ENGAGEMENT AND CONVERSION ALGORITHMS

Run video view ads, engagement ads, and conversion ads for each Shenmue trailer in many different countries (UK, USA, EU, AU, CA, NZ) etc

Do this for a week

STAGE 2 LOOK AT THE DATA

After a week, we can look at the data of the ads and see which ones are performing best, which countries are responding well, what type of people are looking at the ad, and most importantly, who click that shop now button and purchased Shenmue 3

Going back to our earlier picture, we can see the following

qCrZ735.jpg


Shenmue Spirit of the land Trailer

France 135k views
Germany 10k views
AUS/NZ 8.1k views
USA or UK 90k views

Clearly France and the USA/UK are responding most to this trailer. Therefore we can stop the ads targeting Germany and AUS,NZ and spend that money on the USA/UK and France

Shenmue 3: A Day in Shenmue

Germany - 110k views
USA/UK - 754k views
France - 152k views
Spain - 157k views
NA only - 58k views
AUS/NZ - 148k views
Italy = 51k

All of these are good numbers. I'd keep them all running. You'd definitely want to increase the budget in the USA/UK, AUS, Spain, France and Germany though as they are pulling in some serious high numbers.

The 15 second and 30 second ads on Facebook/Youtube also all have good metrics (I WILL AVENGE MY FATHER AD)

30 second ad FRANCE

123,000 VIEWS

15 second ad GERMANY

84,000 VIEWS

15 second ad ENGLISH

323,000 VIEWS

30 second ad ENGLISH

100,000 VIEWS

Summary of Facebook and Youtube Avenge Father Ad

Video AdVideo ViewsCountry
30 Second Avenge Father Ad123,000 VIEWSFrance
15 Second Avenge Father Ad84,000 VIEWSGermany
15 Second Avenge Father Ad (Youtube)323,000 VIEWSUK/USA
30 Second Avenge Father Ad100,000 VIEWSUSA/UK
I'd increase the budget on all of them.


Basically, I'd increase the budget massively on the ads that had the most views and more importantly had the highest conversion rate/sales.

For example

Shenmue Mood trailer may have had a 1.4% conversion (sales)
Shenmue Avenge Father Trailer may have had a 3.4% conversion (sales)
Shenmue A day in Shenmue has 700k views
Shenmue 15 second Avenge father has 300k+ views
etc
etc

Once the budget has been increased on those ads, id leave it for a few days, come back, view the data and then repeat the process.

STAGE 3 - DETAILED TARGETING AND RE TARGETING

Now that we have some data to play around with from stage 1, we can go much deeper.

TARGETED ADS

When you create an ad, you have to set the parameters of the people you're trying to target. In Shenmue's case, that would be gamers. You target them by specifying interests. (video games, playstation 4, PC, RPG gamers etc etc)

You can also target people who have viewed particular videos. Death Stranding videos, Detroit videos, Rpgs, Fighting games videos, etc. Or you can go more broad, Kung Fu, martial arts, UFC, heck you can even put WWE and the simpsons or even coffee if you really wanted to lol.

Once you run your ads for a week and have the data, you can see which interests performed best and led to sales. You can then increase the budget on these interests to drive more sales and kill the interests that led to nothing.

VIDEO RETARGETING ADS

Using our data in stage 1, we can now see how much percent of people viewed 5% of each video ad, 20% of each video ad, 70% of each video ad, 95% of each video ad etc

We can forget about the people who viewed each video 5% or 20% of the time as they most likely clicked skip on the ad or closed it. The ones who viewed 70 - 95% of the video ad means they are potential customers and have shown some interest. Knowing this, we can target all people who viewed and watched each video ad 70 - 90% of the time and show them the ad more frequently. This is why sometimes you see ads of something you're interested in over and over again all over the internet. You're being re targeted because you've shown some interest in the original ad and its now tracking you. Usually, it takes about 7 re targeted ads for a person to convert into a sale.

DEMOGRAPHIC RETARGETING ADS

The data in stage 1 will also show what type of people are responding to the ads. Male/female, age, country, platform they viewed the ad on etc. You can now use the same re targeting method as above to show the demographic of people who have shown interest the ads over and over again. You can also increase your marketing budget in this area and cut out demographics who showed no interest at all

ENGAGEMENT RETARGET ADS

Same principle applies as the two above (The ones who were most engaged, retarget them. The ones who didnt engage, cut them out)

ADD TO CART, INITIATE CHECKOUT & VIEW CONTENT RETARGET ADS

You can also retarget people who have visited the sales page and performed a certain action. These are also potential customers.

Retarget everyone who added Shenmue 3 to their online cart
Retarget everyone who click the checkout button
Retarget everyone who viewed the sales page where Shenmue 3 is being sold

This form of retargeting only really works, if the "shop now" button links directly to the sales page and is connected with the social media ad platforms. If the shop now button links to the deep silver website and then you have to select your region and then go to amazon etc, i doubt you'll be able to track these actions. Then again, there might be some more advance ways which im not aware of that can do this.

Here's an example of a retargeting image ad i received from amazon whilst browsing the Era Forum

jLQhZEo.jpg



GOING DEEPER

Here's where things can go crazy. On facebook at least, you can look at your data and build an avatar of all the people who purchased Shenmue 3 through an ad, or viewed a certain percentage of the video. This avatar will consist of the average age, interests, $ex, basically any characteristic of the person who bought the game from the ad.

You can then tell the algorthym to find everyone in its database who match these characteristics and market the ads to them. 1 million users can quickly become 3 million - 5 million users using this method. Since they share the same characteristics and interests as the original set of people who were marketed to, the conversion rate for sales will be much MUCH higher.

Its no secret that all of us share similar characteristics on this forum. The algorithms can find people who are similar to us but have not played shenmue before and advertise to them in hopes of converting them into customers

You can quickly see how powerful this stuff can get and how sales can go to the moon given the right approach. It's no surprise why Deep Silver games sell like hot cakes.

MOVING FORWARD

This info is based on Youtube and Facebook, but there are other platforms out there. Instagram, Twitter, etc. Find those ads and post them. We'll have a much clearer picture of what's going on once we have all the data.

EPIC GAME STORE

I thought it's worth mentioning EGS. We know they have most likely guaranteed at least 200k copies of Shenmue 3 on PC, They've probably given Deep Silver and Ysnet 9 million dollars for exclusive rights. (Similar to Control)

If you go on to the Epic Game Store, you can see on the front page Red Dead 2 is being promoted to every user.

v8oHJJn.jpg


Outer Worlds, Borderlands 3 and Untitled Goose were all pushed to that top spot for about 1.5 - 2 weeks. I have no idea what the conversion rate is from this promotion, but EGS has around 80 million users. Even if 0.5% of those 80 million convert to sales, that would be gold. Off the top of my head, thats like 400k copies sold. Saying that though, remember EGS has guaranteed around 200k copies. As far as i know, and i may be wrong. Ysnet and Deep Silver dont receive anything from EGS sales until that 200k is surpassed. Still if the conversion rate is anywhere near 1% or more, we're good.

Side Note: You'll notice that you may get notifications from EGS on your desktop. From what i can tell, during that two week period, that will be soley Shenmue 3 notifications to every user on the platform, unless they've disabled it via the option menu

hp2ofllmd1i21.png


COLLECTORS EDITIONS

Deep Silver have been pumping out all sorts of collectors editions and fortunately, they have all sold out. I have no idea what the total sales copies amount to, but lets say a modest 30 - 50k.

81YD8gjNQDL._SL1500_.jpg


Then you have preorders and day one editions. We have amazon and best buy numbers. Although, we can't draw too much from this as it is inconsistent

OTHER RELEVANT INFORMATION

We also have the multiple copies that the community have purchased. We have other marketing methods such as in store promotions, Preview events, billboards, etc etc.

The next stage will be to get decent reviews and that will drive sales by itself.

We also don't know what SONY is doing or planning

Overall i think we're in a good position and I do believe we can easily get 500k sales with relative ease. If we can reach a million, I'll see you in Shenmue 5

Hopefully, this puts things into perspective. Just remember, this is my own perspective and speculation. None of this is certain and the reality is probably far different. I have no idea what the marketing team at deep silver are doing. All i know is, their games tend to sell very well.

Discuss

Obk0m4d.jpg
 
Last edited:
Great amount of info, thanks for putting this together Shensun. But, I don't know what I can add to it really? Can throw it on the boards though, for people to discuss if the game will sell well. At the end of the day, it's still all speculation.
 
Mod Note: I will adjust the alignment, titles and triple check the math when I have some more spare time, If i've made any errors anywhere, feel free to let me know and i'll update the thread.

HaF2C4X.jpg


I've been keeping an eye on the latest Shenmue 3 videos and thought i'd throw my 2 cents into the mix of what's going on. Keep in mind this is only my personal perspective and doesn't represent what's actually happening. This is all speculation on my part from doing advertising and marketing here and there.

I also ask that you all keep it civil and respectful. No drama in this thread.

SHENMUE VIDEO ADS

At the start of this month, we all began seeing Shenmue ads appear in various different places. Youtube & Facebook being the main platforms. So far we have the following videos and statistics

30 Second Ad FRANCE

123,000 VIEWS

15 Second Ad GERMANY

84,000 VIEWS

15 Second Ad ENGLISH

323,000 VIEWS

30 Second Ad ENGLISH

100,000 VIEWS

There is however more going on here than meets the eye. Deep Silver usually upload Shenmue trailers to their youtube channel and to be frank, they always perform poorly due to the videos being uploaded long after they've been shown on other channels. Recently all of the Shenmue Videos have seen a massive spike in views. This is due to the videos now being used for advertisements

qCrZ735.jpg


If you total everything up as it currently stands (facebook + youtube) our views amount to around 2,285,000 (Well over 2 million views).

The Shenmue 3 advertisement campaign has only really begun since the start of November, so we can expect that result to go well up to between 10 million - 20 million views come November 19th

WILL THIS CONVERT INTO SALES?

Yes it will convert into sales, but don't get your hopes up too high just yet. I personally advertise everyday products and services to your regular man/woman. I can tell you that the conversion rate of these ads into sales is usually around 1% - 2%. It can go much higher depending on the season, targeting, virality, etc. For example, the Christmas season is a good period for conversion rates to go higher than normal due to people buying presents and gifts. Fortunately, that's the period Shenmue is being advertised in, so that will work in our favor. Also bear in mind, gamers have higher buying intent during this period, so that will also boost the conversion rate.

For the sake of keep our expectations in check and not to overhype this, im gonna play devils advocate and assume the absolute worse case scenario. We're gonna give Shenmue 3's conversion rate a 1 - 3% during the holiday season.

SIDE NOTE: BARE IN MIND THE FOLLOWING SALES NUMBERS ARE NOT ACCURATE AS WE HAVE NO SALES DATA TO MAKE A 100% CORRECT CONVERSION RATE.

THIS IS ALL SPECULATION AND ASSUMPTION. WE'RE SIMPLY WORKING OUT 1 - 3% OF THE TOTAL VIEWS AND BASING OUR SALES CONVERSIONS ON THAT.


WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?

Currently we have 2,285,000 views on those videos combined. if 1 - 3% of those viewers convert into sales you get the following
  • 1% sales of 2,285,000 views = 22,850 copies sold
  • 2% sales of 2,285,000 views = 45,700 copies sold
  • 3% sales of 2,285, 000 views = 68,550 copies sold
  • etc
You can see that if those views reach 10 million or more, those conversion percentages will equate to more copies sold.
  • 1% sales of 10,000,000 views = 100,000 copies sold
  • 2% sales of 20,000,000 views = 200,000 copies sold
  • etc
IS THIS GUARANTEED?

Heck no. you see when you market to people. you are given a choice of various marketing algorithms to work with. Each one has lower conversion rates than the others. For example, the most common algorithms used are as follows

Video view algorithm campaign
Engagement algorithm campaign
Conversion algorithm campaign

We have no idea what algorithms Deep Silver are using for their marketing or how much money/budget they are using for each advert. I will say that video views and engagement algorithm campaigns have a much lower conversion rate than the conversion algorithm campaign (less than 0.1%). Conversion algorithm campaigns are the ones that usually convert around 1-3%.

Using the conversion algorithm for your ads is also much, much, MUCH more expensive as its goal is to find people on these social media platforms who are most likely to buy products from your adverts

The engagement algorithm finds people who will leave comments, likes etc and therefore it is cheaper

the video view algorithm finds people who will simply view the video and nothing else.

IS THERE ANY POINT TO THE VIDEO VIEWS AND ENGAGEMENT ADS COMPARED TO THE CONVERSION ADS?

Yes there is. Even though video view and engagement ads have a much lower conversion rate (less than 0.1%), they can still help massively. Deep Silver could throw out a bunch of adverts (engagement, video views, conversions), let it run for a week and then use that data to increase sales and boost the conversion rate massively. I'll illustrate this point using a staged example

STAGE 1 RUN EVERY TRAILER AS AN AD SEPARATELY USING VIDEO VIEWS, ENGAGEMENT AND CONVERSION ALGORITHMS

Run video view ads, engagement ads, and conversion ads for each Shenmue trailer in many different countries (UK, USA, EU, AU, CA, NZ) etc

Do this for a week

STAGE 2 LOOK AT THE DATA

After a week, we can look at the data of the ads and see which ones are performing best, which countries are responding well, what type of people are looking at the ad, and most importantly, who click that shop now button and purchased Shenmue 3

Going back to our earlier picture, we can see the following

qCrZ735.jpg


Shenmue Spirit of the land Trailer

France 135k views
Germany 10k views
AUS/NZ 8.1k views
USA or UK 90k views

Clearly France and the USA/UK are responding most to this trailer. Therefore we can stop the ads targeting Germany and AUS,NZ and spend that money on the USA/UK and France

Shenmue 3: A Day in Shenmue

Germany - 110k views
USA/UK - 754k views
France - 152k views
Spain - 157k views
NA only - 58k views
AUS/NZ - 148k views
Italy = 51k

All of these are good numbers. I'd keep them all running. You'd definitely want to increase the budget in the USA/UK, AUS, Spain, France and Germany though as they are pulling in some serious high numbers.

The 15 second and 30 second ads on Facebook/Youtube also all have good metrics (I WILL AVENGE MY FATHER AD)

30 second ad FRANCE

123,000 VIEWS

15 second ad GERMANY

84,000 VIEWS

15 second ad ENGLISH

323,000 VIEWS

30 second ad ENGLISH

100,000 VIEWS

Summary of Facebook and Youtube Avenge Father Ad

Video AdVideo ViewsCountry
30 Second Avenge Father Ad123,000 VIEWSFrance
15 Second Avenge Father Ad84,000 VIEWSGermany
15 Second Avenge Father Ad (Youtube)323,000 VIEWSUK/USA
30 Second Avenge Father Ad100,000 VIEWSUSA/UK
I'd increase the budget on all of them.



Basically, I'd increase the budget massively on the ads that had the most views and more importantly had the highest conversion rate/sales.

For example

Shenmue Mood trailer may have had a 1.4% conversion (sales)
Shenmue Avenge Father Trailer may have had a 3.4% conversion (sales)
Shenmue A day in Shenmue has 700k views
Shenmue 15 second Avenge father has 300k+ views
etc
etc

Once the budget has been increased on those ads, id leave it for a few days, come back, view the data and then repeat the process.

STAGE 3 - DETAILED TARGETING AND RE TARGETING

Now that we have some data to play around with from stage 1, we can go much deeper.

TARGETED ADS

When you create an ad, you have to set the parameters of the people you're trying to target. In Shenmue's case, that would be gamers. You target them by specifying interests. (video games, playstation 4, PC, RPG gamers etc etc)

You can also target people who have viewed particular videos. Death Stranding videos, Detroit videos, Rpgs, Fighting games videos, etc. Or you can go more broad, Kung Fu, martial arts, UFC, heck you can even put WWE and the simpsons or even coffee if you really wanted to lol.

Once you run your ads for a week and have the data, you can see which interests performed best and led to sales. You can then increase the budget on these interests to drive more sales and kill the interests that led to nothing.

VIDEO RETARGETING ADS

Using our data in stage 1, we can now see how much percent of people viewed 5% of each video ad, 20% of each video ad, 70% of each video ad, 95% of each video ad etc

We can forget about the people who viewed each video 5% or 20% of the time as they most likely clicked skip on the ad or closed it. The ones who viewed 70 - 95% of the video ad means they are potential customers and have shown some interest. Knowing this, we can target all people who viewed and watched each video ad 70 - 90% of the time and show them the ad more frequently. This is why sometimes you see ads of something you're interested in over and over again all over the internet. You're being re targeted because you've shown some interest in the original ad and its now tracking you. Usually, it takes about 7 re targeted ads for a person to convert into a sale.

DEMOGRAPHIC RETARGETING ADS

The data in stage 1 will also show what type of people are responding to the ads. Male/female, age, country, platform they viewed the ad on etc. You can now use the same re targeting method as above to show the demographic of people who have shown interest the ads over and over again. You can also increase your marketing budget in this area and cut out demographics who showed no interest at all

ENGAGEMENT RETARGET ADS

Same principle applies as the two above (The ones who were most engaged, retarget them. The ones who didnt engage, cut them out)

ADD TO CART, INITIATE CHECKOUT & VIEW CONTENT RETARGET ADS

You can also retarget people who have visited the sales page and performed a certain action. These are also potential customers.

Retarget everyone who added Shenmue 3 to their online cart
Retarget everyone who click the checkout button
Retarget everyone who viewed the sales page where Shenmue 3 is being sold

This form of retargeting only really works, if the "shop now" button links directly to the sales page and is connected with the social media ad platforms. If the shop now button links to the deep silver website and then you have to select your region and then go to amazon etc, i doubt you'll be able to track these actions. Then again, there might be some more advance ways which im not aware of that can do this.

Here's an example of a retargeting image ad i received from amazon whilst browsing the Era Forum

jLQhZEo.jpg



GOING DEEPER

Here's where things can go crazy. On facebook at least, you can look at your data and build an avatar of all the people who purchased Shenmue 3 through an ad, or viewed a certain percentage of the video. This avatar will consist of the average age, interests, $ex, basically any characteristic of the person who bought the game from the ad.

You can then tell the algorthym to find everyone in its database who match these characteristics and market the ads to them. 1 million users can quickly become 3 million - 5 million users using this method. Since they share the same characteristics and interests as the original set of people who were marketed to, the conversion rate for sales will be much MUCH higher.

Its no secret that all of us share similar characteristics on this forum. The algorithms can find people who are similar to us but have not played shenmue before and advertise to them in hopes of converting them into customers

You can quickly see how powerful this stuff can get and how sales can go to the moon given the right approach. It's no surprise why Deep Silver games sell like hot cakes.

MOVING FORWARD

This info is based on Youtube and Facebook, but there are other platforms out there. Instagram, Twitter, etc. Find those ads and post them. We'll have a much clearer picture of what's going on once we have all the data.

EPIC GAME STORE

I thought it's worth mentioning EGS. We know they have most likely guaranteed at least 200k copies of Shenmue 3 on PC, They've probably given Deep Silver and Ysnet 9 million dollars for exclusive rights. (Similar to Control)

If you go on to the Epic Game Store, you can see on the front page Red Dead 2 is being promoted to every user.

v8oHJJn.jpg


Outer Worlds, Borderlands 3 and Untitled Goose were all pushed to that top spot for about 1.5 - 2 weeks. I have no idea what the conversion rate is from this promotion, but EGS has around 80 million users. Even if 0.5% of those 80 million convert to sales, that would be gold. Off the top of my head, thats like 400k copies sold. Saying that though, remember EGS has guaranteed around 200k copies. As far as i know, and i may be wrong. Ysnet and Deep Silver dont receive anything from EGS sales until that 200k is surpassed. Still if the conversion rate is anywhere near 1% or more, we're good.

Side Note: You'll notice that you may get notifications from EGS on your desktop. From what i can tell, during that two week period, that will be soley Shenmue 3 notifications to every user on the platform, unless they've disabled it via the option menu

hp2ofllmd1i21.png


COLLECTORS EDITIONS

Deep Silver have been pumping out all sorts of collectors editions and fortunately, they have all sold out. I have no idea what the total sales copies amount to, but lets say a modest 30 - 50k.

81YD8gjNQDL._SL1500_.jpg


Then you have preorders and day one editions. We have amazon and best buy numbers. Although, we can't draw too much from this as it is inconsistent

OTHER RELEVANT INFORMATION

We also have the multiple copies that the community have purchased. We have other marketing methods such as in store promotions, Preview events, billboards, etc etc.

The next stage will be to get decent reviews and that will drive sales by itself.

We also don't know what SONY is doing or planning

Overall i think we're in a good position and I do believe we can easily get 500k sales with relative ease. If we can reach a million, I'll see you in Shenmue 5

Hopefully, this puts things into perspective. Just remember, this is my own perspective and speculation. None of this is certain and the reality is probably far different. I have no idea what the marketing team at deep silver are doing. All i know is, their games tend to sell very well.

Discuss

Obk0m4d.jpg
Yeah, but fanboys like me re-watch on YouTube. 2 million probably is closer to 500k if you don't count the same user viewing. We'll see. It looks very real, it's happening. Whatever the number are, the powers that be should see a real interest as they should have had years ago.
 
I was going to bring up how the EGS Coming Soon section still doesn't show Shenmue but shows a game that releases in December. Maybe it will be added when those November releasing games come out but you'd think with it being an EGS exclusive they'd want to promote it as much as possible.

60MAE5P.png
 
I was going to bring up how the EGS Coming Soon section still doesn't show Shenmue but shows a game that releases in December. Maybe it will be added when those November releasing games come out but you'd think with it being an EGS exclusive they'd want to promote it as much as possible.

60MAE5P.png
Their store is not crazy promoting their big exclusives. I saw no Ancestors there by default either. They won't be the reason PC gamers get Shenmue 3. It'll be links from other sites going to them. Sad, but there it is. You have to type it in for it to show up.
 
Let's see!
Maybe Deep Silver will not fuck it up after all. lol
They have millions invested, the best reason to do their best. You think there are potential buyers that don't know what Shenmue is to be swayed by these ads? I don't at this point. They either know, or they don't by now.
 
They have millions invested, the best reason to do their best. You think there are potential buyers that don't know what Shenmue is to be swayed by these ads? I don't at this point. They either know, or they don't by now.
Of course they want the game to succed.
Some people were doubting their abilitiy to do a good amarkting. They seem to be cathing up now.
Ads are allways important.
Many people are on the fence about buying the game or not.
A good ad might make many of those people to jump in to it if they like what they see.
The biggest chunk of sales is not between us devoted fans, who already have a formed opinion about the game.

Ads are crucial.
 
Of course they want the game to succed.
Some people were doubting their abilitiy to do a good amarkting. They seem to be cathing up now.
Ads are allways important.
Many people are on the fence about buying the game or not.
A good ad might make many of those people to jump in to it if they like what they see.
The biggest chunk of sales is not between us devoted fans, who already have a formed opinion about the game.

Ads are crucial.
Then that 15 sec ad is sort of lost on the newer guys. It screams I'm part 3 of 1&2 from my seeing it. If they then go on YouTube to research what the heck Shenmue is, it's another thing. I hope more do research Shenmue thanks to these ads then.
 
Yeah, but fanboys like me re-watch on YouTube. 2 million probably is closer to 500k if you don't count the same user viewing. We'll see. It looks very real, it's happening. Whatever the number are, the powers that be should see a real interest as they should have had years ago.

No way Shenmue fans or those who are viewing the ad for a second or third time account for 1.5 million views. Even the video trailers which are easily accessible to us and combined with casual viewers don't amount to anywhere near the numbers those video ads are pulling in, especially in such a short amount of time.

When you set up ads, you can set them to advertise to as much unique individuals as possible. If not, you're wasting money. If you are seeing the same ad over and over again, chances are you're being retargeted due to viewing the ad all the way, which would increase the viewcount. The ideal goal is to retarget potential customers and keep expanding to new people. No real way to know unfortunately as Deep Silver are the only ones with the data.

They have millions invested, the best reason to do their best. You think there are potential buyers that don't know what Shenmue is to be swayed by these ads? I don't at this point. They either know, or they don't by now.

Biggest mistake in marketing is assuming you know what the market wants or knows. You publish advertisements, gather data and then make educated guesses based on that data to move forward. Deep Silver can easily make Shenmue appeal to audiences outside gaming. Martial arts, Chinese philosophy, Chinese travel, Music, etc etc. Advertise to every possible variable and potential angle/interest which is suitable. Gather the data and continue to do whats working and cut what isn't

Then that 15 sec ad is sort of lost on the newer guys. It screams I'm part 3 of 1&2 from my seeing it. If they then go on YouTube to research what the heck Shenmue is, it's another thing. I hope more do research Shenmue thanks to these ads then.

I think the 15 and 30 second ad is actually really good. Online consumers buy products based on emotion and will later justify it with logic. A good example of this is probably the Shenmue 3 kickstarter. That was one big advertisement on Sony's E3 stage and it led to tons of people who have no idea what Shenmue is to pledge.

Ideally you want to make ads which trigger certain emotions in a consumer's psychology, or at the very least, make them feel something, so they're compelled to check out the product. The 30 second ad, displays mystery, vengeance, story, intrigued, etc etc. I think its a good ad.
 
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I was going to bring up how the EGS Coming Soon section still doesn't show Shenmue but shows a game that releases in December. Maybe it will be added when those November releasing games come out but you'd think with it being an EGS exclusive they'd want to promote it as much as possible.

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Yeah, i hear ya. Hopefully nearer to the 19th and from there on, there is a massive push. We thought Deep Silver were slacking with their advertisements but they appear to be going quite aggressive on the video ads recently. No doubt Epic will be doing the same given their investment.
 
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Yeah, but fanboys like me re-watch on YouTube. 2 million probably is closer to 500k if you don't count the same user viewing. We'll see. It looks very real, it's happening. Whatever the number are, the powers that be should see a real interest as they should have had years ago.

Even then, that's why conversion is 1%; you take that into account (that's what I learned in my marketing classes, anyways lol)
 
Shenmue III will be the highest selling Shenmue game in the series up to this point. I think the mystique and 20 year hype of the game has brought it to a level that not even the first game achieved on the Dreamcast. Factor in the fans like us who have the old school Dreamcast approach and will be buying multiple copies to ensure it's success and I think we'll have a few more Shenmues after this.
 
We've been monitoring pre orders for a while in the non spoiler forum. Best Buy US, its been in their preorder top 10 since the steelbook announcement. As far as physical copies go they must have the most presales by far - steelbook is a great bonus though.

I think here in the UK, it will do very well, ive been keeping an eye on preorders with great interest, and you haven't been able to preorder a collectors edition for over 2 months.

When I'm back on my desktop, I'll put some hotlinks for the major retailer pre order charts, can quickly see how it's doing as we approach release.

The games obviously geared to 29+ age demographic, we have the disposable income we didnt have twenty years ago. It'll be interesting to see how it's done on PSN, as that age group is leaning toward digital (not me though!)

Whatever happens... I'm just thrilled we've got this game. Even if it flatlines and we get the rest of the story by other means, the thrill of stepping back into Ryos shoes one final time can't be understated. Dreams come true.
 
No way Shenmue fans or those who are viewing the ad for a second or third time account for 1.5 million views. Even the video trailers which are easily accessible to us and combined with casual viewers don't amount to anywhere near the numbers those video ads are pulling in, especially in such a short amount of time.

When you set up ads, you can set them to advertise to as much unique individuals as possible. If not, you're wasting money. If you are seeing the same ad over and over again, chances are you're being retargeted due to viewing the ad all the way, which would increase the viewcount. The ideal goal is to retarget potential customers and keep expanding to new people. No real way to know unfortunately as Deep Silver are the only ones with the data.



Biggest mistake in marketing is assuming you know what the market wants or knows. You publish advertisements, gather data and then make educated guesses based on that data to move forward. Deep Silver can easily make Shenmue appeal to audiences outside gaming. Martial arts, Chinese philosophy, Chinese travel, Music, etc etc. Advertise to every possible variable and potential angle/interest which is suitable. Gather the data and continue to do whats working and cut what isn't



I think the 15 and 30 second ad is actually really good. Online consumers buy products based on emotion and will later justify it with logic. A good example of this is probably the Shenmue 3 kickstarter. That was one big advertisement on Sony's E3 stage and it led to tons of people who have no idea what Shenmue is to pledge.

Ideally you want to make ads which trigger certain emotions in a consumer's psychology, or at the very least, make them feel something, so they're compelled to check out the product. The 30 second ad, displays mystery, vengeance, story, intrigued, etc etc. I think its a good ad.
Not even saying it's not good. It just doesn't show the best Shenmues excel at. Too many of those kickstarters based on emotion are "refund!" ing. Saying all sorts of stupid things.

I hear you. I sincerely hope I'm wrong so that Shenmue 4 has no problems. Those ads mean everything to the fans, I don't know about the average Joe looking for a new game. He'll see some pretty outdated character models, and it so pains me to type that. Seeing nothing that sets Shenmue apart. Ads like that would sell it in 2000 for sure. Now I'm hoping for a lot of word of mouth, YouTube by the fans to expose it to as many as we can. As much streaming of the best parts of the gameplay as possible, not the story bits.
 
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And one more: 12.9k views

Agh, so much negativity in the comments. Epic this, Steam that... I thought people had let that garbage go by now.

That's one thing I'm afraid of. Curious new customers google Shenmue III and get results about how "it broke promises" when it didn't.
 
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