Odds of S4 Reveal? -- THQ Nordic Show

Telekill

Telekill

Sega Game Gear Enthusiast
Joined
Jul 27, 2018
Location
Beginings of Dystopian Hell
Currently playing
FF7 Rebirth (PS5), Helldivers 2 (PS5), God of War: R (PS5)
Very much doubt it. They made a complete mess with Shenmue 3. The extra funding was appreciated though lol.

I also remember hearing they are no longer involved with Shenmue.
 
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From the murmurings I've heard I'd corroborate the above.
 
Shame to hear. Definitely means they weren’t thrilled with 3’s performance more than they let on
 
I think ShenmueIV will happen, and SEGA may take an important part in Shenmue IV.
SEGA actually wanna do something for Shenmue in past years. The cancelled remake version of Shenmue 1 and 2, the remaster version, the animation and so on, but SEGA just don't want to put too much money on Shenmue.
The animation project is the tipping point ,it means that SEGA really wanna do something by its own and really put some money. For comparison, SEGA only give the lisense of Shenmue to Yu-San and let him finish most of things at first. I know the animation project is mainly leaded by the animation company, but SEGA just can refuse the project and lead the team to make an animation about YAKUZA. In my opinion, agree the Shenmue anime project is not really a good choice for SEGA, and SEGA would do nothing for Shenmue after S3 released.
TGS, GameScom will be better than THQ show. And S3 proves that Yu-San and his team can finish the whole game at least.
S3 is a good game but without enough budget, I think the final product of S3 is a miracle. Maybe SEGA never thought that Yu-San could actually finish the game and achieved high quality.
I am optimistic about Shenmue IV just because the animation released. It is weird that SEGA make an animation just because SEGA want core fans to revisit the story of Shenmue I&&II again and again, and that is all what I am talking to other fans, but no one agree with me.
 
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tomboz said:
Based on a conversation that I had with a Deep Silver employee who served as a producer on Shenmue 3 last year, I’ma go ahead and say that they fall somewhere between zero and none.
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Interesting, can you elaborate a little more of what was said? Was it the games production, sales or what issues were the main sticking point?
 
Shadow2222 said:
Shame to hear. Definitely means they weren’t thrilled with 3’s performance more than they let on
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From what I could gather, they did make their money back, but probably wouldn’t have were it not for the Epic Games deal. They also suggested that Yu was asking for too much in his Shenmue 4 pitch and that he was unlikely to find a publisher unless he lowered his demands.

At the time I was quite disheartened by it, but, in hindsight, the conversation only really confirmed what a lot of us already suspected. It’s not like Deep Silver is the only publisher out there either. In fact, many fans didn’t like how they handled the Shenmue 3 project, so them not being involved in a sequel might actually be a good thing. Of course, that’s assuming that one ever gets made!

code l name said:
Interesting, can you elaborate a little more of what was said? Was it the games production, sales or what issues were the main sticking point?
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I’d rather not go into too much detail as this was just a passing conversation rather than any kind of formal interview. Besides, other than what I’ve already shared, there’s not really that much more to tell (I have no idea about exact or even ballpark sales figures, for example, just that the Epic Deal played an important role in DS/Embracer recouping their investment). In hindsight, I really wish I’d asked for an interview, though I’m not so sure they’d have given me one and am almost positive that my editor would have rejected it even if they did, so maybe it’s best that I didn’t 😅
 
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tomboz said:
From what I could gather, they did make their money back, but probably wouldn’t have were it not for the Epic Games deal. They also suggested that Yu was asking for too much in his Shenmue 4 pitch and that he was unlikely to find a publisher unless he lowered his demands.

At the time I was quite disheartened by it, but, in hindsight, the conversation only really confirmed what a lot of us already suspected. It’s not like Deep Silver is the only publisher out there either. In fact, many fans didn’t like how they handled the Shenmue 3 project, so them not being involved in a sequel might actually be a good thing. Of course, that’s assuming that one ever gets made!


I’d rather not go into too much detail as this was just a passing conversation rather than any kind of formal interview. Besides, other than what I’ve already shared, there’s not really that much more to tell (I have no idea about exact or even ballpark sales figures, for example, just that the Epic Deal played an important role in DS/Embracer recouping their investment). In hindsight, I really wish I’d asked for an interview, though I’m not so sure they’d have given me one and am almost positive that my editor would have rejected it even if they did, so maybe it’s best that I didn’t 😅
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Could have done it on the Dojo's behalf haha. I'd publish it :p
 
Ok, who is 110 Indutries? I am really curious about them
 
Shadow2222 said:
Shame to hear. Definitely means they weren’t thrilled with 3’s performance more than they let on
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I think that much was obvious, to be honest. But then their marketing and promotion work was atrocious. They acted like a bunch of amateurs, which was really weird. I mean who can forget the "the review embargo is two days after release" fiasco? which they let stew for nearly a whole day before "clarifying" it was a mistake. And then it transpired they had sent review copies so late that it didn't matter anyways.
 
Reprise said:
I think that much was obvious, to be honest. But then their marketing and promotion work was atrocious. They acted like a bunch of amateurs, which was really weird. I mean who can forget the "the review embargo is two days after release" fiasco? which they let stew for nearly a whole day before "clarifying" it was a mistake. And then it transpired they had sent review copies so late that it didn't matter anyways.
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Also although last few trailers were quite good, they continued to let old promotional and early KS media be used for previews and reviews! I still encounter people to this day who think Shenmue 3 is an ugly game because of the early screenshots not realizing the finished game looked much better.
 
I don’t think Deep Silver did a terrible job and feel confident in saying that were it not for their involvement, we’d have ended up with a far worse final game. I think the issue was that, due to the record-breaking Kickstarter, the higher ups at Embracer saw Shenmue as a way to make some easy money and then gave up on the project when they realized that it wasn’t going to sell millions and might cost a little more than they’d planned for.

To succeed, Shenmue needs a publisher who genuinely believes in the product and, as far as I’m concerned, that isn’t and never was Deep Silver. With that in mind, them not being involved in Shenmue 4 is almost certainly for the best (assuming, that is, that another publisher can be found).
 
I think overall the discussion shouldnt really be about if Shenmue 3's marketing stuff could have been so much better or not.
I'm pretty sure we all know that it could have been better.
The important part is: who is gonna do a better job?
Criticising this and that is always the easy part, anyone can do that.
The hard part is to actually do something about that and change it. Deep Silver actually gave Yu Suzuki a ton of money
that he wouldnt have otherwise. Its not gonna be a easy mission to find someone with at least the same budget
or even more + a awesome marketing campaign. The companies who could provide something like that
simply dont have any interest in these kind of projects. Just take a look for example
at the game Kingdom Come Deliverance,
the team tried to sell their project to basically every big publisher on this planet and they all said 'nah thanks."

So in this scenario, Koch Media / THQ Nordic / Deep Silver
is already one of the biggest EU companies when it comes to entertainment products. There will be no easy upgrade.
So if we 'up / downgrade' to some other like EU publisher from France or some US indie publisher or whatever,
chances are extremely high, that the marketing campaign is going to be even smaller and more quiet
than the marketing campaign for Shenmue 3.
And i think the same is going to happen if 110 Industries is making Shenmue 4.
They wont even reach the level of Koch Medias marketing campaign.
 
This might all be bluster or some kind of pyramid scheme, but I think you might be underselling how well financed they are.

gameworldobserver.com

Billionaire Roman Abramovich and partners invest $20 million in video games | Game World Observer

UK gaming company 110 Industries raised $20 million from Roman Abramovich’s investment company Norma Investment, GEM Capital, and film producer Sergey Kornykhin, Vedomosti reports.
gameworldobserver.com gameworldobserver.com

110 Industries founded by Anton Poletaev and Sergey Kolobashkin in 2017 is not a development studio. It acts as a production center. The company creates a script, concept art for characters, and then hires a third-party studio to develop the title based on those. 110 Industries plans to work with top foreign studios focusing on premium single-player titles for consoles and streaming game services.

The deal marks Abramovich’s first investment in video games. GEM Capital, on the other hand, has previously invested in Atomic Heart by Mundfish and Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous by Owlcat Games.

Most of the $20 million raised will be spent on the development of the first title from 110 Industries. The company hired an unnamed “well-known Japanese game studio” to develop the game, which is titled Wanted: dead. 110 Industries is getting part of the rights and part of the future revenue from it. The game is due out in 2022.

Interestingly, one of the presentations 110 Industries sent to investors earlier names a different developer. According to the leaked slide posted by App2Top, the title was initialy to be developed by Remedy. The project might have changed the development studio, but the required budget indicated in the presentation more or less matches the size of the investment made. The team behind the project also includes some notable names, although it’s unclear whether they are currently attached to the project.
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Certainly something a bit shady, especially seeing the Russian oligarchs' backing in 2022, but I don't think money's a problem at the moment.

www.aroged.com

110 Industries has raised another $10 million for game development. The company has not yet released a single title

110 Industries, a company with Russian roots, raised a total of $10 million last year to develop games. The money was also invested by billionaire Philip Gens. At the same time, the startup itself still does not have a single released title in its portfolio. All money should not go to the...
www.aroged.com www.aroged.com

One of the founders of 110 Industries, Sergey Kolobashkin, noted that the creation of each high-budget project costs $20-50 million. However, over the several years of its existence, the company has not yet presented a single finished product. Kolobashkin himself explains this by the duration of the development of large games and says that the concept development stage alone takes up to a year.

110 Industries says it currently has eight games in production. Among them is the third-person action game Wanted: Dead, which is scheduled for release in 2022. The Japanese studio Soleil is engaged in its creation, although in one of the early presentations the Finnish Remedy was indicated as a developer.
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Yeah and how much did you hear about any of their announced projects,
like Wanted Dead? We are talking about a planned 2022 release and that game has a little more than 1 mil clicks on Youtube.
They 100% dont have the ressources or contacts as someone like THQ Nordic
even if they are able to get 8, 10, 15 Mil USD for a game development. The marketing stuff is a completely separate beast.
We are talking about a publisher with 5000 followers on Twitter and like zero output so far.

Are they going to have like Yu Suzuki at Gamescom events, Shenmue banners, exclusive magazine reports,
gameplay event sessions? I doubt it. The marketing campaign will be even more quiet than the Shenmue 3 campaign.
 
*shrug* as far as I can tell deep silver isn’t releasing it so I guess I’ll just try to stay optimistic for a while
 
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