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Shenmue III is timed exclusive to Epic Games Store, backers PC code redeemed on EGS & no refund (See Threadmark) [READ STAFF POSTS BEFORE POSTING]
- Thread starter vestan
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Thanks for the offer.
My concern will be the so called KS exclusive DLC, telephone card. PSN Asia is legendary. DLC might not be available in PSN. Games available in Korean, Japanese or Chinese but not English.
I'm confused, how did Ys fuck over Kickstarter again?
Also I never said S3 needed any of that, there is a lot riding on the game for the studio and the fans, so getting hype and development funding is kinda important for getting good impressions, leading to selling copies and making enough money to make a sequel.
No company needs an extra million(s) for polishing, but if you are looking at a game that's been anticipated for 20 years and think you could create a better first impression and someone offers you a bag of money during your bug sweeps, you have a tough decision to make and a lot of jobs potentially on the line. Shenmue 4 would have a much more experienced team and designs nailed down and a partnership with the people that make the engine, 4 isnt quite as hopeless as you paint, fortunately.
The game is basically done, they're not going to redo backgrounds, animations or character models this close to release. And frankly, after the backers' money (close to 4 times what was initially asked), Sony's money and then Deep Silver's money, they had more than enough to deliver.
immense backlash from people who kickstarted this game who try to get their money back from Kickstarter, who report the kickstarter page as fraud. With this and the decline of PC Kickstarters, this could be the nail in the coffin of big Kickstarted games because the loss of trust from the people who pledge on Kickstarter.
good impressions is very important, those impressions are currently everything BUT good.
And what happens when you don't see those polishing Millions in the quality of the game?
Oh well there ya go I guess that's the definitive word then...
EDIT: has the game secretly launched and I'm not aware? Lots of assumptions on its quality treated as fact in here
If Suzuki has to go it alone for Shenmue IV as he did III, it's dead. He won't get it crowdfunded, not after this stunt; if Shenmue reviews and sells badly then publishers won't touch it with a ten foot barge pole; and Epic isn't going to be paying for exclusives forever. In fact, the only reason they moneyhatted this is for the backers, to get them to install their client. It's not like they looked at Shenmue and saw an opportunity to get people buying games through their client; it was solely about getting their install numbers up.
The only way this ship ain't sinking is if Sega jumps back in and manages their own fucking IP for a change. And it's about time they did, because all YsNet has done is shamble from one cockup to another for four years, culminating in a slap in the face and a kick in the teeth to the fans who got this project off the ground in the first place.
I do feel bad for the kickstarter team for having to deal with the mass reports the project is getting. Someone has to sift through all of that.
Indeed. If the game reviews bad and Suzuki losing all support from the backers, the game is already dead
RI fucking P
Well we can look at how previous kickstarters did, compare backers to those that purchased the game after launch, and see how Shenmue might do. 69,000+ backers doesn't typically translate to crappy sales. Most Kickstarter games have niche appeal, too, so I don't see that as any kind of argument.
Didn't EGS have no problems with backers still getting Steam keys?
erm... you are the one who said that they needed the money for polishing.
I really wonder how much money it cost them to record another awful English dub. The fact they felt like it was necessary to include two audio tracks was the first sign that this game might not be on the right track. What a waste of resources.
I haven't paid as much attention to this as I should have (Thanks to E3, which I am sure is partly the *point* of the timeliness of such an announcement), but surely some journalists have picked up this story? Obviously, Epic isn't going to comment much on this, and nor should they -- I think people need to get past Epic at this point, and focus cleanly on the developers and publishers who make these last-minute decisions. It would seem like journalists would have better luck getting in touch with Deep Silver or Ys. The reason being: I don't think there's any moral accountability at Epic these days. They've made it abundantly clear that they do not care what anyone thinks, and intend to proceed in this manner. Publishers and developers who take advantage of their money, though, may be more susceptible to criticism.
This is such a raw deal, it's actually obscene. And I tend not to steer into hyperbolic language when it comes to this industry, but there is no charitable reading you can reasonably give this turn of events without being both blind and / or a bad actor. The fact that they aren't even offering refunds is mind-blowing, since I suspect as much fire as you see on the day, only a small percentage of backers would actually request them.
edit: Thank God for Jim Sterling
This is such a raw deal, it's actually obscene. And I tend not to steer into hyperbolic language when it comes to this industry, but there is no charitable reading you can reasonably give this turn of events without being both blind and / or a bad actor. The fact that they aren't even offering refunds is mind-blowing, since I suspect as much fire as you see on the day, only a small percentage of backers would actually request them.
edit: Thank God for Jim Sterling
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I'm referring to the fact that Epic is fucking with consumers, the biggest supporters of the game in question, for their own benefit. I wouldn't have the heart to do such a thing personally, nor do I think that I would be able to contribute meaningfully by working for a company that doesn't feel any shame for actions like these. I'd leave and starve.
They delayed the game during polishing and then conveniently announced a big cash injection from Epic, come on it's not calculus. Its a lot more reasonable than saying they are just taking money... just because? Because they WANT to fuck their PC fans? Like what is Yu's motivation here? To purposely tank this IP hes poured his life into?
I'm maybe not up to date. But Epic did allow backers of kickstarters to get Steam keys in the past if I remember it correctly.
Yeah, that makes sense. Will do that and give it away if refund option doesn't pan out.
Yeah, a year after release, which isn't very generous of them, considering said game (Phoenix Point) will be released on Steam a year after it comes out on EGS...
User banned (3 days): ignoring staff post and antagonizing other members
tbh all the reactions in here are pretty nuts to me. "Look at how they fucked over the fans!!!"
It's one thing to promise a physical release then only deliver a digital code, or determine your console region based on mailing address, that's some bullshit. But the reaction to the storefront swap seems so overblown to me. I think it's annoying having to switch stores all the time, but I've had to fix and Frankenstein jank-ass Dreamcasts to play Shenmue for 20 years...I'm keeping some perspective here.
It's one thing to promise a physical release then only deliver a digital code, or determine your console region based on mailing address, that's some bullshit. But the reaction to the storefront swap seems so overblown to me. I think it's annoying having to switch stores all the time, but I've had to fix and Frankenstein jank-ass Dreamcasts to play Shenmue for 20 years...I'm keeping some perspective here.
Timed exclusivity means nothing to me as a $175 backer. I chose all the combat perks for the steam version, and now I''m being forced to get an epic code. Nice job fucking the people that helped make this dream game possible.
No. Phoenix Point backers will get Steam keys when game comes to Steam.
Making a game is expensive. I absolutely understand why developers and publishers would take deals like this to be able to finish their game and make the game as good as it can be. Every year a game is delayed is a year extra of payroll. This game has been substantially delayed since the originally planned release date, which would mean it's substantially over budget. In the end I imagine they make a utilitarian calculation. How many people are negatively affected by the game not releasing at all or releasing in a very poor state. Vs how many people are affected by making the release exclusive to a store front that some people refuse to support, and a certain number of players are unable to use (because of operating system or residing in the wrong country). Assuming this is all about greed is a big oversimplification.
That they won't provide refunds and are breaking promises made makes it a lot harder to sympathize with the decision. But that doesn't mean it wasn't a difficult decision made out of necessity rather than malice/greed. Hopefully they'll get legally smacked down if they don't change their minds on refunds
It was not so long ago that Epic was championed as a hero, my how quickly things change.
Actually to an earlier point above. As part of my pledge I (and many other backers) were supposed to get an early access/beta to the game on Steam. What happens now, that just goes "poof", sorry about that folks, enjoy your EGS code?
My personal experience with Epic has been pretty awful so that's why I am so against them & what they are doing.
I haven't been able to log in to my Epic account for nearly 2 years. I had Two Factor Authentication turned on and the only way I could log in was getting a code emailed to me to put in after I logged on. Problem is their 2FA process completely broke and they stopped ever sending emails with codes so I had to finally contact them to try and get that off my account. I gave them every bit of info they asked for to confirm, my identity & even gave them a copy of my actual ID and they still refused to give me access to my own account.
Yeah Jim's journey on this has been interesting to say the least. He had a major hate boner for Steam (for some good reasons) and was willing to champion them until... well Epic became increasingly shit. And even then, he was going soft on them... toothless in the beginning.
So you think it's ok for them to offer you one thing then at the last min change it to another exclusively without any warning and then not offer refunds to the people that don't like the change?
So you ever care about why EGS can be problematic for some people?
You get a box and a piece of paper with numbers on it.
Even as someone who generally isn't bothered by Epic locking down exclusives and who backed the PS4 version of this game, this really sucks (to put it mildly). I wonder how much of a conversation there was about this situation between Epic, Deep Silver and Ys Net? How they don't include an exception to the exclusivity deal for backers is beyond me. Outside of that, I think my only real issue with Epic locking down exclusives is that they seem to be spending all of their time doing that instead of making the feature set their store app better.
EGS is a bad actor, hostile to the PC gaming ecosystem. It's a big deal to force people to use that platform. It's an even bigger deal that the Shenmue 3 folks advertised one thing, accepted money to make that thing, and didn't deliver.
If it's coming to Steam later, then I'd gladly just wait for a Steam key instead of redeeming on EGS.
I mean, this is what one of the NPCs in the latest showcase trailer looks like:
Quality isn't the first word that comes to mind.
"I've had to fix a console so people shouldn't complain about not being given the product they ordered" is certainly not a take I was expecting to see today.
Yup, he's basically buying locked in backers like they're cattle. Moo.
like most of his deals, it's more about sticking it to Steam than anything.
That's an awful lot of money to spend to get like, maybe 20K more people on Epic Game Store. The Kickstarter doesn't have very many backers, all told. Epic probably get more than 20K new users every single day.
This a really weird leap. They can still do a kickstarter, they can secure publisher funding. They can use profit from S3 to make S4.
Still kinda amazed that Bloodstained escaped this. I think with the amount of money that game got, it gave IGA some control over the game. I believe Deep Silver was originally looking to publish and own the IP, but to my knowledge IGA walked from that deal, kept full ownership of the IP, and partnered with 505.
There's a good chance he didn't get the investor money from the pitch, assuming the investor was Deep Silver, simply because fans fully funded the budget by extending all of the goals and running past the initial suggested target.
https://twitter.com/Wario64/status/1138469759782047749
Was it known that this game had DLC?
The hits keep comin'!
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