Fastest kickstarter funding in history?

Shenmue III Funded in 12 Hours

http://www.gamespot.com/videos/shenmue-iii-funded-in-12-hours-e3-2015-gs-news-upd/2300-6425512/

Broke the backboard on this. Damn son people were like

anyone know of a faster funding for a game? I don't know but this is pretty impressive lol didn't' even make it til the end of the week it's pretty exciting because I know they are motivated now.

Is that game even good? Lol

Bloodstained and Mighty No.9 were faster I think.

I never really cared for the games, but glad that the fans will finally get their sequel. I do respect that the original Shenmue was trying to push the boundaries though.

I think it's pretty lame when big name, already famous and successful designers, series, and companies use Kickstarter. I mean, I can see why a couple guys in a basement need funding to make FTL or whatever. But why are Sony crowdfunding, they're a billion dollar company. :/

Oh well, grouching over. Great that it will come anyway :D

@locopatho: unneccasary risk taking.

Plus Kickstarter to them is just a creative way of Preordering the game.

I don't get why this needed to be kickstarted

Cuz Sony doesn't want to go all the way for a "console exclusive" especially for one this old

Most Kickstarters don't have the luxury of begging on stage like that.

Using kickstarter is a genius idea. Im sure M$ and Nintendo wish they had done the same. It made 2 million in 12 hours and has 31 days to go, that's beyond great. Sure Sony or any other company could afford the 2 million but this was a good marketing tactic plus they are using fans money. Its a brilliant idea from a business point of view..

Pretty smart move from Sony. The risk behind a game so niche years ago, which was a financial disaster back then, is huge.

If it were easy money, companies would lonnnnggg agooo bought the rights to it. So something had to be made. And it worked.

Sony officially helping with funding and development (around minute 57)

http://www.twitch.tv/playstation/v/6249998

Boyes on the subject

https://youtu.be/FRGlVDi3FHQ?t=1m40s

Shenmue 3 took under 100 minutes to reach $1 million, making it the fastest game ever, and second fastest Kickstarter ever (after the Pebble Time smart watch), to reach $1 million.

Shenmue 3 took about 9 hours to reach $2 million, making it the fastest game ever to reach $2 million.

Some people seem to be dissing this kickstarter.

I'd rather them use kickstarter to get the game underway than to never touch it and never happen. lol, can't please some people.

lol, Breaking records nice. Some people say they don't care about Shenmue 3 but clearly there is a vast population of gamers who do, a lot.

@playharderfool: I just think it's a bit shitty to see billion dollar companies using crowdfunding tools, competing with "starving artists" with no cash or resources and arguably shouldering them out of the way, getting heaps of cash with their flashy presentations and big name designers while more unknown guys can't possibly compete with that.

I'm not really complaining, it just feels a bit off to me. Oh well.

Because the first two games cost $90 million to develop, they didn't recoup all of the cost from sales and Sega almost went bankrupt funding them.

They needed to know that interest from the community actually existed and was not just empty talk, they needed to know that people were willing to buy it, they got their answer and it was a resounding yes, Sega will fund the remainder.

Sony is actually funding the remainder. Sega gave Yu Suzuki the rights to Shenmue but he doesn't have rights to the first or second games for whatever reason. The kickstarter has made enough that they will be able to add in short videos explaining the first two games, but odds are that we won't see HD ports of them. Luckily, I still have my Dreamcast with both games (I had to get the EU import of the second as I'm in N. America and Sega crapped all over the fans here).

if true, man were they WRONG. I think they underestimated the demand for Shenmue.

let me travel to the future and return real quick

Where are you getting this information about Sony funding it and him not having the rights to the first two games? From the look of things Sony's involvement goes as far as giving Yu a place to pitch his game.

Also, Sega is watermarked on the game concept videos.

thank you Sony

@nyadc: IGN Article for Sony Funding Shenmue 3.

As for the info on Yu Suzuki not having the rights for the first two games, it's answered in the back and forth between the Kickstarter participants and Ys Net. People asked why there aren't going to be HD releases of the first two games and that was the answer given.

Shenmue sucks.

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Just kidding, good news for the fans.

This stuff irks me.....everyone involved has plenty of money, but yet they want us to finish paying for the game to be made and then buy the game on top of it? Not me.

They might only be publishing the title, which is a win/win for the developer if they can hold creative control during design and sony can publish it without having to front the development costs up front. Granted I think there should be a limit to funding, I think there seems to be a lot of well established developers taking advantage of the system, or you know games like StarCitizen use digital content to fund development for a game that doesn't exist. I won't touch stuff like startcitizen just because there's literally thousands worth of unique stuff.

A lot of people don't remember, or simply weren't old enough but the original game cost 70 million to make. It was a commercial flop. If I remember right, the sequel was an additional 20 million.

Puts this 2.7+ million dollar budget and growing into perspective.

People will get a sequel, but I hope they temper their expectations. The things that made the original so noteworthy are no longer a big deal (QTE, interactive environments).

Plus, SEGA gave the Shenmue IP to Suzuki and his team, so I wonder about the VF Capsules and Saturn...Maybe they won't be in the game? We'll see I guess.

I'm just glad they are making it.....

You'd be wrong for feeling this way, for a couple of reasons

1) Shenmue is unique. It's the series no investor wants to touch with a ten foot pole because it's never made a profit. But it's not unwanted by fans. On the contrary, it might be the single most wanted sequel ever, even more so than Half-Life 3. An investor (in this case, Sony), wants to see proof that there is interest before funding the rest of the game. Ergo, Kickstarter.

2) Just because you are valued at billions of dollars does not mean you have a billion dollars worth of cash reserves. I've even heard Sony's gaming division alone only makes a yearly profit in the low tens of millions. They'd be idiotic to simply fund a game like Shenmue 3 without a proper gauge in interest.

@draign: Shenmue was not a Sony franchise....don't know why you are whining about cows.

When did I whine? Its clearly a collaboration and I find the outcome to be quite hilarious.

In your post....

I hope the big game companies do this a LOT more often... what better way to find out what the players REALLY want? If the big three start doing this for NEW IP's , or to bring back old ones, then you can count me in!

Great way to get more exclusives if nothing else. I will drop some serious cash on some games.

I agree. Especially in regards to older franchises. Great way to bring back old classics that haven't been touched in years by giving publishers and developers a gauge of consumer demand when there really isn't any other concrete way of determining it.

Doublefine's first Kickstarter was funded within 8 hours. Of course, the required amount was lower...but they launched before Kickstarter was a popular platform for funding games, so that was one hell of an achievement for them.

Hyperbole, much.

Shenmue fans might be really, really keen on Shenmue 3...but there really aren't that many fans out there. We're talking probably less than a million fans. 1.5 million tops.

Currently, only 36,000 fans have backed Shenmue 3. I doubt this will hit the same number of backers as Bloodstained, especially now that the hype from the E3 shout-out has passed.

Firstly, what a jaded viewpoint. 1.5 million fans would be a lot of fans for nigh-vaporware. Shenmue probably doesn't have that many fans either since the sequel sold 600,000. Take into the account the "irrelevant majority", and Shenmue's fans are possibly in the tens of thousands.

But measuring anticipation is weighted. That's why an Apple product can be considered "the most anticipated thing ever" and get absolutely trounced by Samsung's mobile products or Windows PCs in the same year. Likewise, in this industry, Halo 5, Call of Duty BO3, Destiny 1.5 and Uncharted 4 will sell the most this year, but those are clockwork releases and thus aren't at fever pitch like Horizon: Zero Dawn or some other predictably smaller selling game.

Shenmue has been notoriously wanting for a sequel ever since 2001. It's 14 years of asking, and it's not an obscure phenomenon as well since it became a running joke in the industry.

Only 36,000 fans have backed Shenmue before the 24 hour mark. That is more than half of Bloodstained before the first day. Shenmue 3 also has crap reward tiers compared to Bloodstained, where the majority pledged for a physical copy of the game on any of the consoles. Shenmue only has a digital PS4/PC version and a physical PC version. Furthermore, I believe more people people have pledged towards $250+ tiers in Shenmue than compared to Bloodstained.

Pretty sure this was the fastest and greatest funded Kick0starter

The dude wanted $18 and hit it out of the fucking ballpark in 10 mins

dude must have been high on drugs asking such a ridiculous question lol

Compared to advancements we have seen today no not even close + both iterations flopped. Its a weaboo game and West just didn't connect.

Shenmue gets put on the pedestal because it was the precursor to what GTA is known for today, an interactive detailed open world. However, the game was made like 8 years ago? Since then many games have expanded on what Shenmue invented and have done it better aka Shadow of Mordor, GTA5, AssCreed, Witcher . PC gamers, as usual lightyears ahead its called MMOs. Anyway, Shenmue's claim to the throne has long since passed and I don't think they will make anything that can compete with what we have today. Shenmue was stagnant for over 8 years while the genre he created has evolved from a baby to a titan. To honestly believe that Yu Suzuki can reinvent the genre AGAIN is pure fanboyism. Especially so when he has not worked on an open world console game for over 10 years a freaking decade. An innovative breakthrough like Shenmue was, that type of thing only happens once.

I'm not even sure where to start to answer the question of '"x" has so much money why don't they just fund it instead of kickstarter?' Obviously, it was a test to see if there were any buyers for this niche game. From a business perspective, I would have never funded 3 if I didn't see any proof that there was demand for this game. Hell, it's niche as fvck. Also quite honestly, I've never played Shemnue 1 or 2. It's as if these guys who ask this question believes 2 million is enough for funding this game..........I'm sure 2 out of 50 million dollars is enough to fund it that Sony is just being greedy as fvck because fans paid 2 out of the 50 or whatever million that its going to require. This is not about Sony as much as it is about Yu Suzuki proving to Sony that his game is worth investing in.

I'm happy for the fans of Shemnue as I have similar experiences. Shit....put out Legend of Dragoon 2 out there and I'll put whatever I can to make that fund come alive, as I'm waiting for that game since I was a kid.