Not a stranger to controversy, the Shenmue 3 Kickstarter campaign has been criticised by the community. This time, the backers of the project have disapproved of a move made by developers Ys Net, offering Kickstarter rewards to Paypal backers. This came from a poll asking the backers of the project if Paypal backers should be given the same rewards they will receive. Out of the 68,533 backers the project has, only 15,110 responded, offering up a small 20% of the entire backer population.
The backers responded to this poll which had only three options; 30.9% stated ‘Yes, please make the Kickstarter exclusive rewards available on Paypal’, 26.5% stated ‘No, Kickstarter exclusive rewards are for Kickstarter only’ and 42.6% stated ‘Either is fine with me’.
With a large vocal outcry by most of the backer community asking for rewards for Paypal backers, you would think developer Ys Net would comply, but it would seem like the outliers were too much for the team to handle. The developer has released an announcement on their Kickstarter page stating: ”Considering the strong response from those of you who felt that the Exclusive Rewards should remain exclusive for the Kickstarter, those Exclusive Rewards will not be made available on the PayPal page as originally promised.”
If nothing else was going to destroy this campaign, it would have to be Ys Net literally forcing their own backers to turn against the project. With the vague third option, low voting percentage and overall lack of communication, it was clear that this move would end in disaster. If we ever do see an actual game out of this project, we will be lucky, as Ys Net is doing nothing but jeopardise its already shaky grounds.
Are you a fan of Shenmue? Let us know what you think of the news in the comments.
