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Sony reaches $2m Shenmue III game target on Kickstarter within hours

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Sony reaches $2m Shenmue III game target on Kickstarter within hours

#41

Post by thirdtruck »

TheCoreh wrote: post #31
kayoone wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So this now reached it's funding goal with 30k bakers, why does that confirm the market exists when Yakuza selling 50k copies is considered a failure ?

30,000 people are willing to "buy" this game 2+ years before it even gets released within just 10 hours of it's "announcement". There are still 31 days to go on the kickstarter campaign, and a lot of people who didn't watch Sony's E3 presentation yesterday are waking up to the news of this right now. That means once the game is released, has an actual marketing/advertising budget, and word of mouth spreads, it's prob…

This is why, even as a very indie Kickstarter creator myself, I don't begrudge the big studio's use of Kickstarter this way.

I'd rather see a shift toward creators getting paid for the work they do, which they put in one way or another, and away from absolute dependence on the market for post-hoc validation. Not a 100% shift ("real artists ship"), but toward an economic model that doesn't leave creators so beholden to such narrow sources of capital as a single publisher.

Re: Sony reaches $2m Shenmue III game target on Kickstarter within hours

#42

Post by Scuds »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #10
drKarl wrote: post #2

$100k per language subtitules? Really?

1. stretch goals are just sales goals, there's no reason they have to correspond to actual costs. 2. that's gross, not net. Subtract 5% for kickstarter, 3% for the credit cards, royalties for game shipments and reward costs, and you're probably looking at less than $50K 3. good professional translation costs ~$30K per man-month if you use an agency. I wouldn't be surprised if Shenmue contains more than a novel's wort…

4. You want that tested? See what translation to German will do for your character counts, and if that'll work with the space allocated on screen.

Granted this isn't the 16 or 32 bit era where all this typography stuff had to be rolled by hand, and probably looks like ass with a monospace font in anything other than japanese.

Re: Sony reaches $2m Shenmue III game target on Kickstarter within hours

#43

Post by [deleted] »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #10
drKarl wrote: post #2

$100k per language subtitules? Really?

1. stretch goals are just sales goals, there's no reason they have to correspond to actual costs. 2. that's gross, not net. Subtract 5% for kickstarter, 3% for the credit cards, royalties for game shipments and reward costs, and you're probably looking at less than $50K 3. good professional translation costs ~$30K per man-month if you use an agency. I wouldn't be surprised if Shenmue contains more than a novel's wort…

[deleted]

Re: Sony reaches $2m Shenmue III game target on Kickstarter within hours

#44

Post by DaFranker »

bovermyer wrote: post #4

I never played any of the Shenmue games. I know a couple people that are big fans, though, so I'm happy for them. As a devops guy, I was more entertained by the effect of Shenmue 3's announcement on the Kickstarter servers. Props to them for the quick recovery!

There was a lot of that going around yesterday. For me the most amusing was Twitch.

Re: Sony reaches $2m Shenmue III game target on Kickstarter within hours

#45

Post by djloche »

jackvalentine wrote: post #11
drKarl wrote: post #2

$100k per language subtitules? Really?

This is one of those things where if you're unfamiliar with it the cost seems outrageous - but if you want to do it properly you need to pay good money.

Yeah - I recently looked into getting a longer fictional work translated, and when I backed out the numbers from the seemingly high priced quotes, it made sense. You want translations from people that are fluent in both languages AND that are experts at translating the meaning from one to the other. These skills are available, but are expensive.

Re: Sony reaches $2m Shenmue III game target on Kickstarter within hours

#46

Post by emodendroket »

astrodust wrote: post #34
drKarl wrote: post #2

$100k per language subtitules? Really?

Google Translate isn't going to cut it, and hiring a professional translator that can handle the context and nuances will set you back that much. Translating a movie is one thing, it's only a few hours of dialog. Games often have way, way more.

Don't forget stuff like keeping the game consistent with previous translations, blah blah blah.

Re: Sony reaches $2m Shenmue III game target on Kickstarter within hours

#47

Post by nightski »

passive wrote: post #40
wodenokoto wrote: post #16

They got a fair amount of time to promote this at Sony's E3 event, so I imagine that the value of the marketing already put into Shenmue III is worth more than those 2 million, which begs the question. If Sony is willing to promote this so much, why aren't they willing to invest? Or to put it bluntly: it fucking sucks when studios use Kickstarter when they are in no need of crowdfunding.

Are you suggesting that 15 minutes on the E3 stage is worth $2 million+? I suppose that's possible, but it seems high. Or maybe there are additional promotions you are referring to?

Let's not forget the fact that the game is a sequel to a rather revolutionary game for it's time that cost $50M to develop in 2001. It has a lot to do with what you do with those 15 minutes, not just the time slot itself.

Re: Sony reaches $2m Shenmue III game target on Kickstarter within hours

#48

Post by rodeoclown »

PostOnce wrote: post #20
AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #13

Shenmue I was the most expensive game ever created at the time, costing around $70 million, on Dreamcast hardware. It took five years to develop. Realistically, how is $2 million going to be enough to fund a PS4-era sequel, presumably with completely new technology (based on the trailer)?

Nobody said kickstarter is the only funding. Sony is paying something for the exclusivity, I imagine. They might also be matching 2:1 or something. Who knows? The kickstarter is only a day old, this amount of press will grow that $2M. Plus they're using UE4, saving a lot vs the custom engine of Shenmue I. We only have one piece of the financial puzzle, here.

This is from their kickstarter page:

"The real challenge now is to deliver a sequel that we will all be satisfied with after 14 years of waiting. After much research and planning, we set the funding goal at this level believing it will make possible a fulfilling Shenmue experience."

Re: Sony reaches $2m Shenmue III game target on Kickstarter within hours

#49

Post by ianstallings »

SCHiM wrote: post #37

Does it bother anyone else when a company that does not need a kick starter uses it? That's not really what it was meant for you know :s

But then they simply wouldn't do it because the risk is too large. This gives them hard data on traction before they've even talked to distributors. So it works out well for people. Unlike a traditional pre-sale, these contributors should understand that the game might not ever be released.

Re: Sony reaches $2m Shenmue III game target on Kickstarter within hours

#50

Post by ianstallings »

wodenokoto wrote: post #16

They got a fair amount of time to promote this at Sony's E3 event, so I imagine that the value of the marketing already put into Shenmue III is worth more than those 2 million, which begs the question. If Sony is willing to promote this so much, why aren't they willing to invest? Or to put it bluntly: it fucking sucks when studios use Kickstarter when they are in no need of crowdfunding.

The phrase "this doesn't pick my pocket or break my leg" comes to mind.
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