Will Shenmue III's Development Costs Equal The Amount of I&II?

[darksniper]

For continuity's sake, I will count I and II as one game. Shenmue costs around 47 million. But when you combine the involvement from all parties (Kickstarter, Shibuya Productions, possibly Sony, Deep Silver and several delays) it's possible that Shenmue III could end up with a 30-40 million dollar development cost.

Obviously this is all speculation, but at first I thought that it would end up around 20 million by release. But with another delay means more money spent. It's also not outside of the realm of possibility that Shenmue IV may have silently went into pre-production as well. It's very possible that YS has already created and developed assets for the next Shenmue game as we know that a sequel is imminent.

All in all if Shenmue III is going into the 30-40 million dollar range, the game itself is creeping into AAA range. Especially with the timing of the release in November. Your thoughts?

 

[Spaghetti]

Inflation is a thing my friend.

But also no.

 

[darksniper]

Inflation is a thing my friend.

But also no.

Can you please elaborate on the inflation part? Because if we go by the reports by Sega (70 million dollars) then yeah, there's no way it will match that. But if we go by Suzuki's statement (47 million) that's a lot more feasible I think.

If we're counting delays and such, a modest range from 35-40 million doesn't unrealistic imo. I think it's at least surpassed 20 million or will by the time we get to November.

 

[spud1897]

Hmm i'd be shocked if it has gone by $20 million. I'd love to know though.

 

[Spaghetti]

Can you please elaborate on the inflation part? Because if we go by the reports by Sega (70 million dollars) then yeah, there's no way it will match that. But if we go by Suzuki's statement (47 million) that's a lot more feasible I think.

$47 million 2015-2019 is not the same as $47 million 1994(?) - 1999/2001.

Basically the money today is "worth" less in terms of bartering power today.

 

[darksniper]

$47 million 2015-2019 is not the same as $47 million 1994(?) - 1999/2001.

Basically the money today is "worth" less in terms of bartering power today.

Ah, I see your point now.

But in terms of Shenmue III's development I think they can do more with less in terms of the "worth" of the dev costs today. In the mid 90's, a new engine had to be created from scratch on two different consoles on a title that ended up being split into two games. Today, Shenmue III already has an engine in place (Unreal) with it's main struggles being getting used to how to program for it. The music, assets, story etc are already in place.

So if it does get to that 30 million dollar range or even 20 million, Shenmue III either has a shitload of content loaded in the game or part of this money has secretly went into development of IV. If it somehow does get to 40 million, there's no way you can convince me that all that money went to just one Shenmue title. Ultimately, a game like Shenmue is way cheaper to develop for today than it was back when there was no tech available to produce a game like that.

There's no right or wrong answer here, it's just something fun to discuss while we wait.

 

[xatruio]

Always assumed Deep Silver at least matched the Kickstarter, plus a few million from Shibuya. $12-15m range?

 

[Spaghetti]

Ah, I see your point now.

But in terms of Shenmue III's development I think they can do more with less in terms of the "worth" of the dev costs today. In the mid 90's, a new engine had to be created from scratch on two different consoles on a title that ended up being split into two games. Today, Shenmue III already has an engine in place (Unreal) with it's main struggles being getting used to how to program for it. The music, assets, story etc are already in place.

So if it does get to that 30 million dollar range or even 20 million, Shenmue III either has a shitload of content loaded in the game or part of this money has secretly went into development of IV. If it somehow does get to 40 million, there's no way you can convince me that all that money went to just one Shenmue title. Ultimately, a game like Shenmue is way cheaper to develop for today than it was back when there was no tech available to produce a game like that.

There's no right or wrong answer here, it's just something fun to discuss while we wait.

There's definitely a trade-off new technology can give the team and they'll have used that to their advantage. Yu Suzuki sung UE4's praises over and over when it came to how quickly they could try ideas out for real - even without a programmer thanks to node-based systems like Blueprints, which would allow a game designer to get right in there and get something working independently.

But it can't do miracles. It still costs time and money to make a game of any reasonable size, and I don't think they're secretly funneling money into Shenmue IV (probably would be illegal to do so also, given the private investors).

I think we're still going to get something pretty good as a whole, but I don't doubt Ys Net have struggled with hard decisions to make something respectably Shenmue on a tight budget. There's always a push and pull between ambition and resources, but the original game was considered a blank cheque project. Tech can't fill that gap.

 

[darksniper]

But it can't do miracles. It still costs time and money to make a game of any reasonable size, and I don't think they're secretly funneling money into Shenmue IV (probably would be illegal to do so also, given the private investors).

Your points make logical sense. But I don't think you would see any private investor be mad at the possible development of IV. I'd like to think that anyone who's made an investment into the Shenmue series (especially Deep Silver) had to have been thinking on a long term scale. Shenmue is unique in the sense that we all know it isn't a one off type of scenario and if it does come out in November as intended, we will be in here talking heavily about the logistics of Shenmue IV sooner rather than later. From an investor's perspective, long term profit off of multiple games makes the investment more attractive imo.

To add to your point about some of the money going to Shenmue IV, I'd think it would be very easy to develop running assets now to hit the ground running when real development starts on the sequel. Plus it would be easy to show investors Shenmue IV locations and characters while not disclosing that they won't show up until the sequel. Hell, the only running live action footage we have of Niao Sun is running on Dreamcast hardware and little did we know at the time that she wouldn't show up until the third game.

Again I agree with most of what you said as it makes complete logical sense. But to counteract your statement, we are dealing with Yu Suzuki here. Who's one of the most unconventional developers out there. The same man who would intentionally crash a game in front of Sega execs just to get more dev time on a game lol.

Right now we're caught up in the hype of the release of Shenmue III, but with everything that's going on in the background I think we could see IV as early as 2021 if we're lucky.

 

[Spaghetti]

Your points make logical sense. But I don't think you would see any private investor be mad at the possible development of IV.

If it's being done without their knowledge, it's kind of an embezzlement of sorts.

I know it's a nice thought that somewhere behind the scenes two Shenmue games are being made in tandem, but it's unrealistic on too many fronts and not how investors behave. Even if a private investor makes a commitment to assist in IV under the right conditions, they'll want Ys Net to finish what's on their plate with III.

It doesn't make sense from a production standpoint either; why stretch your team and your budget thin between two projects when you could go all-in making one the best it can be - and if it sells well, build the next game on the shoulders of the one you just completed? And it's not about building things to pitch for IV either, there's enough existing pre-production material for the series to use for that; and I can't think of a better tool for pitching Shenmue IV... than Shenmue III.

We can't really compare it to the past either. Shenmue was a blank cheque project that was meant to be this enormous, multiple-entry spanning super franchise; but turned out to be a beloved cult classic that was cut short instead. Knowing how this panned out, and how long it took to even get to the point where Shenmue III could realistically happen, nobody involved would dare tempt fate by diverting resources to something that may never get greenlit.