But the worse, and possibly more likely, option is that the near three million already raised in public funds is a mere token drop of what Shenmue 3 is going to cost, rather than the budget so many donators believed the game needed to exist. But that still raises the awkward question of how, if the overall budget is going to be so comparatively small, Sony didn’t just commit to covering the whole thing. If Shenmue 3 is being made on the cheap, it’s possible that Sony’s contribution might be as small as a like-for-like match. Like I said, I don’t know exactly how much money Sony is stumping up now that we’ve thrown our wallets through its hoop and passed the test. Not when the invitation of that money is presented unclearly at best, and with an air of the misleading if we’re going to be more critical. That’s an admirable position to take, but it’s admirable in no small part because the responsibility for financial success or failure rests with the company taking it. By committing to ‘the list’ Sony openly committed to risky projects. They’re proven, megaton hits, and Sony is going to keep making them until they stop being. No-one is going to request another Killzone or Uncharted, because those games are going to happen. By definition, those wishes will not be for ‘safe’ games. It is a program designed to let gamers voice their wishes for long-wanted, seemingly impossible projects. Because at its heart, Sony’s ‘build the list’ initiative - its pledge to make community-requested games happen, and the initiative that led to Shenmue 3 happening - is a program inherently tied to the taking of commercial risks. It made that the case by making the public pass a test before it offered its own support, a test that it knew would cost the public hundreds and thousands.īeyond the obvious financial issue, there’s a matter of philosophy here too. In a way, yes, Shenmue 3 did need that Kickstarter to succeed, but only because Sony made that the case.

A game they were led to believe needed that money in order to happen. Individual members of the public have paid up to ten thousand dollars of their own money for a game they were led to believe had no other funding options. Because however I spin it (and believe me, I’ve spun it like a tumble drier), I keep coming back to the same bottom line. Here’s where I start having a real problem with the way this has been run.

With modern tools, experienced professionals, and the community of Shenmue by our sides, we have set ourselves up for success.” “With regards to development of the game, we have an experienced team, deeply connected with the Shenmue franchise. After much research and planning, we set the funding goal at this level believing it will make possible a fulfilling Shenmue experience. “The real challenge now is to deliver a sequel that we will all be satisfied with after 14 years of waiting. Instead, it implies a staunchly independent, self-sufficient development, discussing the two million dollar request as a complete budget requirement: The Kickstarter page makes no mention of external partners at all, let alone one with the power to “make this a reality”. I’ll very carefully draw the line at ‘misleading’, and leave it at that. If a decent chunk of the company's own money wasn't on the line, why would it desire that fan commitment? So working on the basis that Sony is paying, why was it deemed acceptable to run the Kickstarter as it was run, and only reveal this partnership after public money had been accrued via some very large personal donations? I could start throwing around a lot of strong terms here, but – if only because I don’t know exactly how the balance of funding will play out - I won’t. There's little doubt that Sony is helping to pay for Shenmue 3. We set a goal of two million dollars, and if the fans come in and back it, then absolutely we’re going to make this a reality.” We thought Kickstarter was the perfect place to do this. “We said ‘the only way this is gonna happen is if the fans speak up. Everyone said they wanted it, but did they want it enough to prove that with money as well as forum posts? It turns out, as Corsi goes on, that Shenmue 3’s Kickstarter was a test to see just how committed players are to the series. We’re going to help Ys Net get the game done, we’re going to be partners on it the whole way, and really excited to see this thing come out in a couple of years”. “Sony and PlayStation is definitely a partner in this game,” says Sony’s director of third-party relations, Gio Corsi, “and it’s going to be run through third-party production.

Shenmue 3 announcement