Shenmue IV Will Happen - Here's Why!

[iknifaugood]

My best guess is that Suzuki was asked to front up the project in the hope it would be successful and fund future games. The issue with that was literally no one wanted Shenmue Online and while they could have made a great ROI with it they spunked $20m on a game that was ill advised and certainly not wanted by the core community. That much was obvious and SEGA ignored it.

It really seems like it's as simple as Sega just wanting to cash in on the Asian MMO markets and thinking that Shenmue would fit simply because it's set in Asia. That still doesn't explain why they'd involve Suzuki if they wanted to oust him and/or there was bad blood, though.

As for the costs for Shenmue 1 and 2 there's 2 figures brandished about. The first is the $70m and the other is what Suzuki revealed at GDC 2014 which was $47m.

The reason I doubt the $47M figure is because there's no way that covers development for Shenmue on Saturn, both games on DC, and marketing costs considering FF7 cost $45M around the same time with a fraction of the dev time (to say nothing of voice acting in 2 languages and bleeding edge tech). Sega definitely had every reason to inflate the $70M figure, especially at the time, because being "the most expensive game ever" will always be a sales pitch, but Suzuki is similarly incentivized to deflate that number.

Every 7th or 8th Dreamcast owner bought Shenmue 1. Not even Metal Gear Solid, Final Fantasy VII or Resident Evil have such a sales ratio. Roughly 1 in 120-130 bought Yakuza from ps2 owners. How could it not be a success? :) Dreamcast console just didn't sell. We all know the PS2 hype story.

But that doesn't paint a better picture for Shenmue because Shenmue was supposed to sell Dreamcasts. It was outsold by Crazy Taxi. MGS, FF7-9, and RE 1-2 all sold over 5 million units apiece. To put that in perspective: RE2 was developed for $1M with a marketing budget of $7M and grossed 20 times that amount. Both PS1 RE games made a total of over $400M in the 90s.

If you mean it wasn't an interesting enough game to get people saving up for a PS2 to buy a Dreamcast... Yeah, it didn't. The question is whether any game at all could have changed that.

No, the writing was on the wall for the Dreamcast before Shenmue ever came out and Shenmue's failure is inextricably linked to it. Shenmue 3 on the other hand...

 

[Suzaku]

But why would they put him in charge of it if they were trying to sabotage him? Shenmue Online was similar to Hyenas in that it significant upfront costs (around $20M iirc) and was basically DOA when it was announced. And SO at least had the benefit of a fanbase (who were mostly put off by the game).

I don't remember how much it costed, but being a joing venture between sega and a korean company JC, I think costs were divided.

Instead of Shenmue 3 we got Shenmue Online, an outsouced game that even the fanbase didn't want, a total downgrade on every front, from the genre to the technical level, that alone was literally a sabotage.

For probably less money they could've made a real Shenmue 3. 2004 wasn't that far from 2001, most of the tech and assets were ready to be re-used...

That doesn't change the fact that, with the move away from arcades, Suzuki did not demonstrate an ability to produce hit games for consoles.

Suzuki almost never made console games, apart Shenmue and Sword of Vermillion, and both were successful if we take numbers alone.

But Sega could just as easily have done the same thing with Shenmue under a different creator if that were the case. What's more likely is that, because Shenmue is extremely story-based, it didn't have a big enough install base that they could just continue the series from S3 and hope that it gained popularity gradually. It was doubly handicapped because the DC user base was fractured over multiple consoles and S2 only got ported to Xbox.

At the end of the day though, Shenmue was supposed to be the killer app for DC in a way that it just wasn't and Sega either wasn't willing or wasn't in the position to run the experiment again on different hardware. Like I said: bad luck, but none of that matters because Suzuki got to make Shenmue 3! We really have a tendency to downplay that around here but with all that hindsight, knowing the size of his audience, having the biggest videogame Kickstarter ever behind him, and Sega letting him use the IP--he still wasn't able to make it work. The failure of Shenmue 1 and 2 is complicated; the failure of Shenmue 3 is squarely on Suzuki, not Sega.

I don't think the "failure" of S3 is all on Suzuki.
Suzuki actually delivered a real Shenmue game under critical circumstances:

-no backing from Sega
-no virtua fighter engine from sega
-ever changing funds
-new team
-new tech (UE4)
-hate campaign on internet
-deep silver really screwing the marketing
etc.

It wasn't an ideal scenario, just like the first two shenmue games that (despite having all support and money from sega) had to deal with the failure of Dreamcast console.

Shenmue series has still to have a real fair chance on the market.

 

[iknifaugood]

Instead of Shenmue 3 we got Shenmue Online, an outsouced game that even the fanbase didn't want, a total downgrade on every front, from the genre to the technical level, that alone was literally a sabotage.

I don't see how you think this is a "sabotage" unless you think that Sega expected it to fail and intentionally wasted money.

For probably less money they could've made a real Shenmue 3. 2004 wasn't that far from 2001, most of the tech and assets were ready to be re-used...

And put it on which console? S2 was an Xbox exclusive and it didn't sell well enough for a sequel. They could have developed it for PS2 but then they would have had to port S1 and 2 there (and there were also talks about the engine not being easily ported to PS2, not to mention the fact that Microsoft paid for the rights). It was an unfortunate mess but not one with an easy or clear answer.

Suzuki almost never made console games, apart Shenmue and Sword of Vermillion, and both were successful if we take numbers alone.

Shenmue was not a success and you'll have to explain how you consider it such. I can't find any sales info on Sword of Vermillion but it's worth pointing out that Suzuki was only credited as a producer, not a designer or director. He also hasn't displayed much interest in creating console games outside of Shenmue so it may be a chicken/egg issue.

I don't think the "failure" of S3 is all on Suzuki.
Suzuki actually delivered a real Shenmue game under critical circumstances:

-no backing from Sega
-no virtua fighter engine from sega
-ever changing funds
-new team
-new tech (UE4)
-hate campaign on internet
-deep silver really screwing the marketing
etc.

Leaving my personal opinions on the "realness" of the Shenmue game that Suzuki delivered aside:

1. Sega let him use the IP in order to get backing via Kickstarter, which is the entire reason the KS campaign was so successful.
2. The VF engine was completely outdated and very likely incompatible with UE4. Should they have provided him with a dev team and all the animation assets as well?
3. Suzuki had $7M on lock from KS, that he decided to pursue outside investors and balloon that figure into $20M is the main reason that S3 was not a financial success.
4. Suzuki started his own company, so the "newness" of the team was a foregone conclusion and how is this seen as a negative?
5. UE4 is one of the most commonly used game engines in the world. How is this a negative?
6. What "hate campaign"? There was endless hype when it was announced and it had the most successful videogame Kickstarter ever.
7. DS's marketing or lack thereof was tied to a budget that Suzuki (allegedly) blew past which is why Baisha had to be cut to get it out the door. Publishers do not pour endless funds into games, particularly ones that are as "niche" as S3.

Shenmue series has still to have a real fair chance on the market.

What would you consider a real fair chance on the market? Shenmue 3 was announced alongside the FF7 remake during E3, enjoyed the most successful video game Kickstarter ever, had a total budget of around $20M, a four-year development cycle, a release on every major platform, and was covered by every major gaming outlet and streamer when it released. That seems pretty freaking fair to me.

 

[thedemon1238]

You don't know Yu Suzuki very well if you think that by being a "producer" he didn't mess around in the director's part or everywhere in the project.

Funding Shenmue Online instead of Shenmue 3 is clearly a move made by people who don't understand not only Shenmue as a game but gaming at all. "Sabotage" is very well used word in this case, but maybe SEGA didn't even realize what they were doing. That speaks volumes for them during that period. It's just crazy if you think about it.

No matter the sales, Shenmue 4 must happen. Shenmue 4 will happen!

 

[Suzaku]

I don't see how you think this is a "sabotage" unless you think that Sega expected it to fail and intentionally wasted money.

I always seen Shenmue Online as a ill-fated project since the beginning, so Sega probably knew or felt it too, that they were wasting money basically.

If I have to make a conspiracy theory, they probably gave Suzuki a "toy" (Shenmue Online) to make him quiet (back then in 2003-2004 Suzuki was still too powerful in the company for the new management of Sammy), that way he couldn't bother them with Shenmue 3 or other artistic, risky or arcade projects.
By the time Shenmue Online was cancelled, years passed, things changed, company changed and so they were able to force Suzuki in an sort of early retirement, removing one of the last encumbrance for the new Sega that Sammy wanted.

And put it on which console? S2 was an Xbox exclusive and it didn't sell well enough for a sequel. They could have developed it for PS2 but then they would have had to port S1 and 2 there (and there were also talks about the engine not being easily ported to PS2, not to mention the fact that Microsoft paid for the rights). It was an unfortunate mess but not one with an easy or clear answer.

Xbox was the candidate since MS was interested in the series initially, they also had the most powerful hardware, while PS2 required probably some big downgrade and a lot of rework to make shenmue work on that hardware, with possible worst results than dreamcast (just look at yakuza games on ps2).

Shenmue was not a success and you'll have to explain how you consider it such. I can't find any sales info on Sword of Vermillion but it's worth pointing out that Suzuki was only credited as a producer, not a designer or director. He also hasn't displayed much interest in creating console games outside of Shenmue so it may be a chicken/egg issue.

Shenmue sold extremely well, it was one of the DC best seller games, and with more than 1 million copies on a 10 million userbase, it's one of the best attach ratio, the only issue is that it didn't make a profit.
So for an analyst it's a commercial failure, but by Sega metrics, Shenmue surely helped to sell more consoles, so in a way it fulfilled its purpose, at least in part (it could've moved way more consoles).

Sword of Vermillion was big back then and also regarded as a success. Besides, Suzuki role as producer was never limited to just sign papers like a normal producer...

Leaving my personal opinions on the "realness" of the Shenmue game that Suzuki delivered aside:

1. Sega let him use the IP in order to get backing via Kickstarter, which is the entire reason the KS campaign was so successful.
2. The VF engine was completely outdated and very likely incompatible with UE4. Should they have provided him with a dev team and all the animation assets as well?
3. Suzuki had $7M on lock from KS, that he decided to pursue outside investors and balloon that figure into $20M is the main reason that S3 was not a financial success.
4. Suzuki started his own company, so the "newness" of the team was a foregone conclusion and how is this seen as a negative?
5. UE4 is one of the most commonly used game engines in the world. How is this a negative?
6. What "hate campaign"? There was endless hype when it was announced and it had the most successful videogame Kickstarter ever.
7. DS's marketing or lack thereof was tied to a budget that Suzuki (allegedly) blew past which is why Baisha had to be cut to get it out the door. Publishers do not pour endless funds into games, particularly ones that are as "niche" as S3.

1-Sega merit is to have offered the IP, but Shenmue should've been produced INSIDE Sega in the first place, not externally as a indie kickstarter, that's one of the biggest sega failures.

2-Sega simply didn't want to give the virtua fighter engine to an external developer.
An angine can be adaptet, look for example at Virtua Fighter 5 Ultimate that was recreated with Yakuza's Dragon engine, imagine with UE4 that has more standard and versatile tools...

3-20M is the grand total of money moved (epic deals included), Suzuki actually worked mainly with the budget we gave him with KS.

4-It's still an issue to work with new team and new people
VS
work in AM2 with the same people for like 20 years and Sega backing.

5-Suzuki said that he had to learn UE4 from scracth, and he wasn't that confortable with these kind of standard engines as he prefer his own custom engines

6-If you remember, as soon the KS opened, people started with false news like "why Suzuki wants our money if Sony is paying for development? He is a liar and a thief", and that sort of hate and misinformation continued and escalated during the years...

7-Deep Silver basically made 1 real trailer, maybe 2 (and from what I remember, 10-20 years ago a single trailer could cost around $5000, don't know current prices, but DS probably didn't spent anything on the marketing, so they are the last ones who can complains).

What would you consider a real fair chance on the market? Shenmue 3 was announced alongside the FF7 remake during E3, enjoyed the most successful video game Kickstarter ever, had a total budget of around $20M, a four-year development cycle, a release on every major platform, and was covered by every major gaming outlet and streamer when it released. That seems pretty freaking fair to me.

Fair chance?
A project where everything goes smooth from beginning to the end.
That wasn't a luxury for Shenmue 2 and 3, maybe Shenmue 1 was the most lucky and in fact it become a million seller.

 

[ahmed_alency7]

Do you think shenmue 4 will be better than 3 i think so since the engine is already there and the team have expanded and their most likely going to have a bigger budget and plus with that i can reuse the assets from shenmue 3

 

[bcdcdude]

6-If you remember, as soon the KS opened, people started with false news like "why Suzuki wants our money if Sony is paying for development? He is a liar and a thief", and that sort of hate and misinformation continued and escalated during the years...

This. This probably harmed Shenmue III more than anything else (with the possibly exception of the 1st trailer in 2017). Some of the misinformation was on YsNet/Awesome Japan, but I put it down to a group of journalists (and I use the term loosely) who for whatever reason decided that click bait and overdramatic news is more imporant. Then of course you have a readerbase who are quick to judge, quick to anger, slow to understand (bonus points if you get the reference).

Let's face it; Shenmue is a bit of a whipping boy at times. I imagine there are some folk out there who felt it a good use of their energy to decry something they don't understand for a quick bout of endorphin boost. I imagine being constantly told what a great game the first two games were created a bout of pushback for some people (and i'm as guilty as that for other things; the more you push something on me, the less likely I am to want to view it positively).

I'm not going to lie and say gaming journalism was better back in the day(tm) because it wasn't. However, for a lot of websites (even ones I admire), it's a race to the bottom.

Whoever started the bullshit rumour that Shenmue III is the last game in the trilogy deserves a kick in the nuts, because that kind of lie really gets me angry.

 

[WuyingRen]

This. This probably harmed Shenmue III more than anything else (with the possibly exception of the 1st trailer in 2017). Some of the misinformation was on YsNet/Awesome Japan, but I put it down to a group of journalists (and I use the term loosely) who for whatever reason decided that click bait and overdramatic news is more important.

I’m not so sure that it was misinformation though. A few months after the Kickstarter ended, Yu Suzuki did an interview with Eurogamer, during which he seems to confirm that Sony provided some of the funding for Shenmue 3.

"Kickstarter's not the only source of money," says Suzuki. "There's also funding from Sony and Shibuya Productions.”

I agree that the project would probably have made a lot more were it not for the stories about Sony contributing toward the budget, but assuming Mr. Suzuki’s comments in that Eurogamer interview are accurate and they did indeed throw some money into the pot, I think that journalists (and gamers) were right to question the ethicality of the decision to go through Kickstarter.

 

[bcdcdude]

I’m not so sure that it was misinformation though. A few months after the Kickstarter ended, Yu Suzuki did an interview with Eurogamer, during which he seems to confirm that Sony provided some of the funding for Shenmue 3.

I agree that the project would probably have made a lot more were it not for the stories about Sony contributing toward the budget, but assuming Mr. Suzuki’s comments in that Eurogamer interview are accurate and they did indeed throw some money into the pot, I think that journalists (and gamers) were right to question the ethicality of the decision to go through Kickstarter.

That's why I said that there appears to be a misunderstanding from the perspective of YsNet etc. However, I remain steadfast in believing that there were a lot of bad faith articles which harmed the project for easy clicks. Many Kickstarters have been much better in recent years about being more transparent about how things work, but there were far, far too many people who misunderstood (willingly or not) that Kickstarter is not a pre-order store or didn't understand the context as to why a Kickstarter was needed. Not to mention that there had been high profile failures tainting things.

I believe the E3 reveal was one of the best things you could've asked for, but I wish there was a bit more context and transparency from Sony's side of things. We could've avoided so much aggro.

Frankly, Sony should've just foot the bill. I have to wonder if Sony were not involved, would things have gone through more smoothly? Unfortunately, as we're not privy to financial insider info we'll likely never know the true figures. I would say that's entirely reasonable, but that's where bad faith conspiracy theories get into the mix.

 

[Seaman]

Take Shenmue, a movie from a legendary director or another piece of art. The selling figures can not be the only measuring system for its success. Technical achievement and impact on the players and whole industry has to be taken in consideration. No other game blurred the linearity lines the way Shenmue did.

 

[Suzaku]

I think that journalists (and gamers) were right to question the ethicality of the decision to go through Kickstarter.

people were not questioning, they were judging and condemning Suzuki for "stealing money".

 

[KiddMarine]

The way that most game "journalists" behaved around the Kickstarter made the Simpson's parody of gutter tabloid journalism seem respectable.

 

[WuyingRen]

That's why I said that there appears to be a misunderstanding from the perspective of YsNet etc. However, I remain steadfast in believing that there were a lot of bad faith articles which harmed the project for easy clicks. Many Kickstarters have been much better in recent years about being more transparent about how things work, but there were far, far too many people who misunderstood (willingly or not) that Kickstarter is not a pre-order store or didn't understand the context as to why a Kickstarter was needed. Not to mention that there had been high profile failures tainting things.

I believe the E3 reveal was one of the best things you could've asked for, but I wish there was a bit more context and transparency from Sony's side of things. We could've avoided so much aggro.

Frankly, Sony should've just foot the bill. I have to wonder if Sony were not involved, would things have gone through more smoothly? Unfortunately, as we're not privy to financial insider info we'll likely never know the true figures. I would say that's entirely reasonable, but that's where bad faith conspiracy theories get into the mix.

I’m sure there were one or two willfully ignorant pieces around the time, but from what I remember, most simply pointed out the complete lack of transparency that you yourself just acknowledged and questioned why Sony - a multibillion dollar company - was allowing a project that they were seemingly co-funding to go down the crowdfunding route.

Looking back, I genuinely think that Sony just wanted to help make the game happen and can’t blame YS Net for accepting whatever funding was offered. Sadly, however, I suspect that the amount that Sony chipped in was significantly less than the amount lost as a result of the negative press garnered as a result of Sony’s involvement, so it probably would have been better if Sony had contributed nothing and that had been made crystal clear right from the off.

As for whether the Kickstarter would have performed better with no Sony involvement whatsoever, I’d strongly disagree. The platform that they offered Shenmue 3 was huge and was a big part of the reason why the Kickstarter broke records.

 

[iknifaugood]

Shenmue sold extremely well, it was one of the DC best seller games, and with more than 1 million copies on a 10 million userbase, it's one of the best attach ratio, the only issue is that it didn't make a profit.

Shenmue wasn't even the best selling game on Dreamcast, you would have to get to the 89th best selling PS1 game (Dino Crisis 2) or the 38th best selling N64 game (Kobe Bryant NBA Courtside) to get as low as 1.2 million units. In that environment, how can you possibly say that it sold "extremely" well?

1-Sega merit is to have offered the IP, but Shenmue should've been produced INSIDE Sega in the first place, not externally as a indie kickstarter, that's one of the biggest sega failures.

You're making it sound like S3 was some big success that Sega missed out on. If anything, it looks like they dodged a bullet and appear totally vindicated in their decision to realize the potential in some of the Shenmue team and let them loose on the Yakuza series.

3-20M is the grand total of money moved (epic deals included), Suzuki actually worked mainly with the budget we gave him with KS.

What does this mean? What do you think $20M includes?

Fair chance?
A project where everything goes smooth from beginning to the end.

That's not a luxury enjoyed by any game (or any big project for that matter).

6-If you remember, as soon the KS opened, people started with false news like "why Suzuki wants our money if Sony is paying for development? He is a liar and a thief", and that sort of hate and misinformation continued and escalated during the years...

This. This probably harmed Shenmue III more than anything else (with the possibly exception of the 1st trailer in 2017). Some of the misinformation was on YsNet/Awesome Japan, but I put it down to a group of journalists (and I use the term loosely) who for whatever reason decided that click bait and overdramatic news is more imporant. Then of course you have a readerbase who are quick to judge, quick to anger, slow to understand (bonus points if you get the reference).

I didn't hear any review or any of negative feedback when the game launched citing anything related to what Suzuki did during the development of S3 that didn't directly relate to the quality of the game. It is true that many were chomping at the bit to hate on Shenmue 3 before it came out but the reality is it needed to be a much better game to shut those people up (and enjoy broader success). Most people don't follow games as they're in development, I backed Shenmue 3 and I barely paid attention to anything outside of trailers; the real nail in the coffin was the negative buzz around the game itself--not its development.

 

[Suzaku]

Shenmue wasn't even the best selling game on Dreamcast, you would have to get to the 89th best selling PS1 game (Dino Crisis 2) or the 38th best selling N64 game (Kobe Bryant NBA Courtside) to get as low as 1.2 million units. In that environment, how can you possibly say that it sold "extremely" well?

iirc, the "it sold extremely well" were the words of Peter Moore, the ex president of Sega America.

You're making it sound like S3 was some big success that Sega missed out on. If anything, it looks like they dodged a bullet and appear totally vindicated in their decision to realize the potential in some of the Shenmue team and let them loose on the Yakuza series.

Or maybe Shenmue could've become one of their pillars...
Yakuza and Persona were previously ultra niche games, non existent in the west with ridicolous low sales (yakuza barely reached the 30k-50k in the west). Look now after they actually invested in those two franchises for more than 10 years...

What does this mean? What do you think $20M includes?

I don't remember all the numbers, but Suzuki mentioned that 20M are ALL the money moved by the entire project, NOT the development budget, that was done mainly with the KS money.

My guess for those $20M are:

7M from KS with 5 million of actual dev budget (when you remove all the KS costs, rewards etc.)
1-2M from Shibuya Production
1-2M from Sony (maybe)
?M from unknown source (chinese government / chinese tourism association?)
5M from Epic Games deal
3-4M from Deep Silver (it mean DS received all his money back by Epic alone)

I don't think I'm that far from the reality

That's not a luxury enjoyed by any game (or any big project for that matter).

What about nintendo games for example? They go smooth from beginning to end, always got all the love + the usual 10/10 bias even before they are released, and never got hate thanks to their extremist fanbase that are ready to blow up at the first jorunalist that dare to criticize lol

 

[bcdcdude]

I didn't hear any review or any of negative feedback when the game launched citing anything related to what Suzuki did during the development of S3 that didn't directly relate to the quality of the game.

Yes, but i'm not talking about the final product; i'm talking about poorly written articles written around the time of the Kickstarter which has a knock on effect. You have to bear in mind that first impressions count for a lot and I do believe that whilst there were many positive articles about Shenmue at the time, the knives were out for a lot of folk. It's very difficult to change people's minds.

Shenmue was in a weird situation where it was once the most expensive game in the world reduced to needing funding from the public. Let's face it; many gamers(tm) aren't exactly very nuanced when it comes to opinions about things and the sheer amount of noise at the time meant that i'm sure everyone following E3 at the time had an opinion about Shenmue III good or ill.

the real nail in the coffin was the negative buzz around the game itself

I'm so bored of saying this, but 67 isn't awful. Metacritic is incredible skewed when it comes to game reviews (67 for music and cinema is considered positive). Sounds to be like your thoughts of the game comes down comformation bias down your end (something we're all guilty of i'm sure). Of the 78 reviews for the game, 45 of them were 7/10 or more. Doesn't really sound negative to me.

Personally, i'd say that releasing the game in November (it really should've been a mid/new year game) and Deep Silver holding back review copies (which lead to a ton of negative articles) harmed things. If it was released at a quieter time of the year, I imagine it wouldn't have gotten lost among the big hitters.

Looking back, I genuinely think that Sony just wanted to help make the game happen and can’t blame YS Net for accepting whatever funding was offered. Sadly, however, I suspect that the amount that Sony chipped in was significantly less than the amount lost as a result of the negative press garnered as a result of Sony’s involvement, so it probably would have been better if Sony had contributed nothing and that had been made crystal clear right from the off.

As for whether the Kickstarter would have performed better with no Sony involvement whatsoever, I’d strongly disagree. The platform that they offered Shenmue 3 was huge and was a big part of the reason why the Kickstarter broke records.

It's something we can only really look at with hindsight. You're probably right about Sony's involvement, but looking back it's a bit of a monkey's paw situation. It's something that is very unique to Shenmue III and will likely never ever happen again in game develeopment for better or worse.

 

[iknifaugood]

iirc, the "it sold extremely well" were the words of Peter Moore, the ex president of Sega America.

Sold extremely well for Dreamcast =/= sold extremely well. If Shenmue sold extremely well, it would not be in the position that it is currently.

Yakuza and Persona were previously ultra niche games, non existent in the west with ridicolous low sales (yakuza barely reached the 30k-50k in the west). Look now after they actually invested in those two franchises for more than 10 years...

They didn't start out costing $70M to develop. Sega ported Shenmue 2 to Xbox, if that had sold better it likely would have become one of their pillars. Yakuza and Persona are also not really as story-intense as Shenmue; you don't really need to have played every single game in the series to jump on, which is another issue.

1-2M from Shibuya Production
1-2M from Sony (maybe)
?M from unknown source (chinese government / chinese tourism association?)
5M from Epic Games deal
3-4M from Deep Silver (it mean DS received all his money back by Epic alone)

What was all this money used for if not development? Also iirc Suzuki mentioned something about expanding the scope of the game after taking on more money.

What about nintendo games for example? They go smooth from beginning to end, always got all the love + the usual 10/10 bias even before they are released, and never got hate thanks to their extremist fanbase that are ready to blow up at the first jorunalist that dare to criticize lol

Nintendo spends forever prototyping their games and polishing them for hardware they know inside and out. Yet their games are routinely struck with delays, cut content, and negative backlash (anyone remember when Wind Waker was first revealed?). They also (generally speaking) have a great track record for both quality and sales.

Shenmue was in a weird situation where it was once the most expensive game in the world reduced to needing funding from the public. Let's face it; many gamers(tm) aren't exactly very nuanced when it comes to opinions about things and the sheer amount of noise at the time meant that i'm sure everyone following E3 at the time had an opinion about Shenmue III good or ill.

True but at the end of the day, the only real way to change people's minds is to make a great game. S3 was reviewed by Dunkey, Yahtzee, and Jim Sterling; if they had given it good or great reviews to their combined audience of millions then that would have made a much bigger difference than any pre-release backlash.

I'm so bored of saying this, but 67 isn't awful. Metacritic is incredible skewed when it comes to game reviews (67 for music and cinema is considered positive). Sounds to be like your thoughts of the game comes down comformation bias down your end (something we're all guilty of i'm sure). Of the 78 reviews for the game, 45 of them were 7/10 or more. Doesn't really sound negative to me.

Personally, i'd say that releasing the game in November (it really should've been a mid/new year game) and Deep Silver holding back review copies (which lead to a ton of negative articles) harmed things. If it was released at a quieter time of the year, I imagine it wouldn't have gotten lost among the big hitters.

By negative buzz I mean all the memes and takedown videos that specifically just show footage of the game. Dunkey's video and Super Eyepatch Wolf just show/explain the actual gameplay and that's enough to portray the game in a negative light. You can argue all you want that this is unfair but it's simply not possible to do this to most good games and S3 in particular seems to have been purposely designed to lean into the "memeification" of Shenmue. This kind of negativity, the kind where people just make fun of your game because it's bad, is impossible to fix with marketing. It speaks to something fundamentally wrong with the game at its core.

 

[bcdcdude]

I'm a bit old at heart, so I find a lot of YouTubers are quick to pander to the lowest common denominator in order to get clicks and ad revenue (the exception being Jim Sterling who doesn't rely on ads and is funded through Patreon I believe*). (And I must be old because I never heard of Dunkey or certiainly never watched a video). I'm not going to go into SEPW as we've discussed that to death, only to say that I think his video is an incincere hatchet job where points of merit and interest are lost in a sea of over-exaggeration and try-hard desperation to be noticed. I do hope the price he paid for that is worth what little dignity he has left (if at all). I should point out, I don't mind hearing good criticism, but I cannot stand hyperbole which a lot of these people end up spouting. Because that's the quick and easy solution rather than intelligent debate.

I find memeification a double edged sword and I think Sonic the Hedgehog is a good example of this; back in the day (mid 2010's), Sonic memes were pretty clever and funny, but nowadays it feels so contrived and forced. I don't believe Shenmue was a memified game although I can see why you would think so. It's a bit like an old b-movie where it was filmed with sincerity and passion, but in modern eyes comes across as slightly wonky. Shenmue is a bit like that, because these days sadly sincerity is a bit of a dirty word in this rather miserable, cynical timeline we live in.

Yakuza is another example of memeification, but I think that was by accident rather than design - at least to begin with. I think it's the only recent example I can think of that nails that kind of slippery humour well.

I do think it is unfair that a lot of YouTubers hold the power nowadays because they rely on negative videos to draw in people. It's a tactic as old as time; say something controversial (whether you believe it or not is secondary) and whip the fanbase up for engagement. I've fallen for that trap multiple times and every time I hate it, because you're playing into their game.

What's quite interesting in your case is that I don't believe i've ever seen you make a positive comment or if I have it's been incredibly subtle. However, I continue to believe that your answers are intelligent and thought provoking. The negativity does drain the fuck out of me though.

*I will say that Sterling's videos have really dialed down on the noise and hyperbolic bile in recent months, but I do believe that a lot of that bile is due to an abusive relationship at the time.

 

[Suzaku]

Sold extremely well for Dreamcast =/= sold extremely well. If Shenmue sold extremely well, it would not be in the position that it is currently.

problem were the dev costs, otherwise in general terms, a new IP that debut with the first game with more than a million copies is great even by today standards on a 100 million userbase like playstation or switch.
Imagine these results in 1999-2000 on a userbase of less than 10 million...

They didn't start out costing $70M to develop. Sega ported Shenmue 2 to Xbox, if that had sold better it likely would have become one of their pillars. Yakuza and Persona are also not really as story-intense as Shenmue; you don't really need to have played every single game in the series to jump on, which is another issue.

How S2 Xbox could've sold better?
It was a lazy port of only the second game with chapter one missing, no marketing at all and with angry people in the US who couldn't play it on their Dreamcast thanks to MS deal...
Also ports in general never sold like crazy.

Persona started on PSX and took 5 main games and a tons of spin off, anime and merchandise for 3-4 generations of console to become a million seller.
Yakuza started on PS2, and it made success in the west only on PS4 a decade later...

You can't expect for Shenmue to become a hit only with Shenmue 2 Xbox.
Instead if they had continued with Shenmue 4, 5 and 6 for at least a decade...

What was all this money used for if not development? Also iirc Suzuki mentioned something about expanding the scope of the game after taking on more money.

As Suzuki said, the main bulk of the game was done with the KS money, later in development the money from deep silver arrived and the scope expanded, but we are talking for less than 10M for the real dev budget.
If only those money were all available from the start of the development...

Then we have the other funds, for example sony money were probably used just for E3 stage and promotion, epic games money were just an affair between Epic and Deep silver, and neither YSnet nor Shenmue 3 ever seen those money.

Nintendo spends forever prototyping their games and polishing them for hardware they know inside and out. Yet their games are routinely struck with delays, cut content, and negative backlash (anyone remember when Wind Waker was first revealed?). They also (generally speaking) have a great track record for both quality and sales.

Nintendo isn't some kind of magical developer, let's say it honestly, they have this aura thanks to extremist fanboys and condescending journalists.
But thanks to this exremely positive perception created around them, they have a perfect enviroment for their games from start to finish, so when their games are released, even with cut content like wind waker, basically no one cares "10/10", and sales follow suit.

Imagine if Nintendo had professional shenmue haters like us...

 

[WuyingRen]

It's something we can only really look at with hindsight. You're probably right about Sony's involvement, but looking back it's a bit of a monkey's paw situation. It's something that is very unique to Shenmue III and will likely never ever happen again in game develeopment for better or worse.

Right you are. I sometimes wonder whether the original plan was for Sony to play a much bigger role during development than they ultimately did. Gio Corsi’s comments around the time of the Kickstarter would certainly suggest as much.