Dreams can come true

A reader celebrates the crowd-funded success of Shenmue III and how it proves that fans really can make dreams come true.

Shenmue III was always a running joke amongst GameCentral and its community of readers. Not in a spiteful way, but more in a ‘you’ve as much chance of grandad not dropping his dentures in the Christmas punch this year’ kind of way – a fondly bitter acceptance of unchangeable tradition. All of the year’s biggest games would be released within a week of each other, a tedious annual franchise would be topping the charts come December 25th, and Shenmue III really wasn’t coming out, was it? All tinged with remorse, yet somehow comforting in their familiarity.



Which may be why the GameCentral team chose to report on an English subtitled interview by a French fansite with Shenmue’s Japanese director, Yu Suzuki. Filmed in late 2011, the translated video was published on YouTube in the New Year, and featured Suzuki answering questions about the ground-breaking series so far and what had been planned for the uncommissioned sequel.

What had caught GC’s attention was a quote addressing whether Shenmue III would ever see the light of day. Suzuki hypothesised that he and his studio could obtain the license from its owners, Sega, and throughout the interview he spoke of the sequel as a game that was still very real to him and one that he wanted to make.


In the article’s comments section (sadly lost to the combined ravages of time and web design), somebody remarked on how inspiring it was to see a legendary game developer still motivated to complete his work after a decade of being in limbo. In agreement, I responded with a light-hearted photoshopping of Suzuki reaching out for a copy of Shenmue, under the heading ‘Team Yu’. As in, we’re all in Yu’s corner, we’re on his side, we’re on Team Yu. The other commenter then replied that he’d love to see ‘Team Yu’ trending on Twitter one day.

Which got me thinking: why not?

Having never used Twitter before, I went ahead and set up accounts on there and Facebook in the Team Yu name, and began networking with other fans, whose passion for the unfinished saga simply floored me, and spurred me on beyond my initial curiosity for how far this thing could go. Before long, the project launched what would become known as the #SaveShenmue campaign, uniting an organised army of followers who would routinely and publicly implore Sega and other potential investors to get their acts together and help Suzuki realise his dream of a Shenmue III.

Three and a half years later, brandishing the same hashtag, Suzuki announced a Kickstarter appeal for Shenmue III to be developed for PlayStation 4 and PC with the help of Sony and Shibuya Productions. Revealed at E3, the crowd-funding mission broke not only Kickstarter records but Kickstarter itself, knocking the site briefly offline under the unprecedented strain on its servers.



After a lot of hard work by a lot of people, and a great many pieces falling perfectly into place at just the right time, the dream had somehow come true.

So why am I writing this feature? Because I’d like GC readers to take some ownership of Shenmue’s future. For years we lamented, with a grim sense of humour, the dispiriting fate of Shenmue III. Now that the impossible has been made a reality, are we going to applaud politely from the sidelines or are we going to fully reward those who took the risk and show other companies that this – THIS! – is the kind of dream fulfilment that we gamers want to see more of?

Late supporters can still participate in the Slacker Backer campaign, donating to Shenmue III’s development budget of over six and a half million dollars in return for an array of goodies that include a pre-ordered copy of the game. The total amount raised so far is agonisingly close to reaching the next stretch goal that was missed by the original crowd-funding session on Kickstarter. This is your last chance to make a real difference to the final product, and help influence the commercial potential of a series that still requires at least one more game to be greenlit before its epic story can be concluded.

To help encourage more backers, some of the fan community’s most dedicated collectors have given up their most prized possessions for an unofficial raffle, exchanging tickets for PayPal receipts. Knowing these particular fans and what their collections mean to them, I am once again stunned by the sacrifice and commitment being made for this game. Also involved are Ryo Hazuki’s voice actor Corey Marshall, who will be signing certain prizes, and First 4 Figures, makers of licensed Shenmue statues including the exquisitely sinister Lan Di model that they have donated to the prize pool.


Another reason for writing this feature is to highlight the impact that online reporting can make, whether knowingly or otherwise. For GameCentral their January 2012 report on Yu Suzuki’s comments to a French interviewer was probably just another article to fill the post-Christmas lull, but without it we’ll never know whether Shenmue III would now be in development.

By the same token, many journalists spare no thought for the negative repercussions of their less helpful baiting and rumour mongering, as I addressed in a recent discussion about some of the damaging press that has hounded Shenmue III since June.

But ultimately what’s important to take away from all of this is the strength of fan power in gaming. It’s easy to assume that nobody listens to us but we have to take our opportunities when they come our way, and if they don’t come along then it’s up to us to create them. Which I suppose is true not only in gaming but life in general. And to that, if nothing more, I hope you’ll join me in raising a nice glass of cranberry and Fixodent punch.

By reader James Hamill

The reader’s feature does not necessary represent the views of GameCentral or Metro.

You can submit your own 500 to 600-word reader feature at any time, which if used will be published in the next appropriate weekend slot. As always, email gamecentral@ukmetro.co.uk and follow us on Twitter.