Evidently Sony was a bigger part of that decision than we first thought.Īt the time of writing Shenmue 3 had raised $2.9 million, with 30 days remaining until its Presumably you're refering to Amplitude HD. In an introductory post on the Shenmue 3 Kickstarter page, Yu Suzuki indicated that, if the funding goal wasn't met, the project wouldn't go ahead. the original Shenmue, for example, cost a reported $70 million all the way back in 1999. who will have noticed the huge difference between Shenmue 3's funding target and the huge budgets attached to the previous two games. This will be welcome news for fans of the series. "If the fans come in and back it, then absolutely we're going to make this a reality," Corsi said during the PlayStation E3 livestream, which took place before the game eclipsed its $2 million funding target. The Kickstarter was simply a tool to measure demand for more Shenmue.
![shenmue 3 kickstarter shenmue 3 kickstarter](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/WKzp4p2ep5w/maxresdefault.jpg)
However, according to Polygon, Sony's director of third-party development, Gio Corsi, confirmed the company's intention to help develop the game. Indeed, it seemed odd that Sony would give stage time to a completely independent project, even if it was the long-awaited sequel to Shenmue 2. Of course, that happened in just a few hours following Sony's E3 press conference, where the campaign was officially announced. Shenmue’s Kickstarter page discloses none of the relevant information and does not inform gamers that they are participating in a marketing experience to gauge interest in the title.Sony will help Yu Suzuki to develop Shenmue 3, but only if the game's Kickstarter campaign reaches its funding target. The problem with what’s happened here is that people didn’t pledge funds to “demonstrate interest,” and they didn’t give money knowing that the project was actually completely underwritten by a multinational conglomerate with billions of dollars in annual revenue. I understand Sony’s reasoning, of course - the company didn’t want to commit itself to a game with the legacy of Shenmue and a history of some fairly large development costs without knowing it might make a decent return on its investment. And now, it doesn’t even buy you an assurance that someone else isn’t bankrolling the project. Not a say in whether or not the company sells itself to an enormously profitable social media company.
![shenmue 3 kickstarter shenmue 3 kickstarter](https://hardcore-gamer.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2016/12/ShenmueIIICows-570x264.jpg)
Whether or not the campaign is legal or technically fulfills Kickstarter rules, it’s another example of how “crowdfunding” doesn’t actually buy you anything at all.
![shenmue 3 kickstarter shenmue 3 kickstarter](https://happygamer.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Shenmue-3-Official-Gameplay-Trailer-E3-2019-1-2-screenshot.png)
It’s now clear that the entire affair was simply a PR stunt, a way to raise money and demonstrate public interest in a game. Developing open-world, expansive gameplay has only gotten more expensive in the 16 years since Shenmue debuted, not less, and stretches credulity to think that a team of developers could deliver a sprawling adventure across multiple locations (or an incredibly detailed portrayal of a single location) in less than a tenth the original game’s budget. Either way, that’s far more than the $4 million stretch goal that the Kickstarter set (currently at $3.3 million as of this writing).
![shenmue 3 kickstarter shenmue 3 kickstarter](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/LwUucpzQ54E/maxresdefault.jpg)
The original Shenmue was widely reported to have cost $70 million, though the game’s creator, Yu Suzuki, has claimed that the figure was inflated and that the real cost was $47 million. Now, it’s been confirmed that Sony is actually bankrolling the project, and the entire affair is likely to leave an extremely sour taste in backers’ mouths. One of the key underpinnings was the announcement of a crowdsourced campaign to fund the creation of Shenmue 3, the lost conclusion to a planned trilogy of titles that debuted on the Dreamcast. At E3 this week there were few announcements larger than Sony’s press conference.