With time left to rack up even more money, Shenmue 3 has officially crossed the mark and become the most funded game in Kickstarter history. With over $5.5 million in funding provided by over 61,000 backers, the game beat out Koji Igarashi’s Castlevania-style revival Bloodstained.
A few things make this record extraordinary. First up, Shenmue 3 was a game that publishers seemed wary to produce. While the critical reception to the first two Shenmue titles was extremely high, sales were extremely poor, resulting in Sega abandoning the series for 10 years. It seems that the market for Shenmue may have grown in the interim.
Another key point that makes Shenmue 3’s success interesting is that the game is only currently available for PC and PS4. That means the game reached this major milestone while cutting out the entirety of the Xbox One and Wii U market. It would be interesting to find out the breakdown between the two platforms to see where most players plan on getting the game.
There have also been a few high profile missteps along the way for this Kickstarter campaign. The lack of transparency in terms of the game’s funding, and comments about how high the campaign would need to go to allow for Yu Suzuki’s true vision.
None of that seems to have really mattered in the end though, with fans throwing cash at the game in droves. With just about 12 hours left at the time of writing, we’ll have to wait and see just how high it goes, but this will certainly be a tough record to beat for future games on Kickstarter.
Published: Jul 17, 2015 08:31 am