Is it possible to save a beloved franchise with one dollar and an envelope?
The Shenmue MySpace Campaign is betting yes. Between Thanksgiving day, which also happens to be the tenth anniversary of the Dreamcast, and December 29th (they claim this is Shenmue’s anniversary, but that’s not how I recall it) they want everyone who fondly reminisces about forklifts and sailors to send Sega a capsule toy and a little prayer. A prayer for Shenmue III.
Now this campaign will probably be good for one or two Sega employees who’ve been struggling to complete their collection of little plastic Pokemon. And it’s great to see that people are still really passionate for what was an innovative and influential game—it’s one of my favorite series, too. But it’s highly unlikely there will ever be another one, no matter what the longtime fans do to encourage it.
The Shenmue MySpace Campaign is comparing this effort to the one the got Jericho back on television, but there’s a couple of differences between that and this. Jericho did come back as a result of fan campaigning, but only as a seven episode mid-season replacement—it’s not like Sega could take that “toe in the water” approach with a game. Jericho did six million viewers on average, which is considered poor for network television but was probably enough to at least break even on the effort—so the network likely only lost an opportunity cost.
For Shenmue to tell its long story in a detailed world while maintaining the franchise’s integrity as a technical showcase, tens of millions of dollars would easily have to be spent on the project, and millions would have to be sold for such a game to turn a profit as a result. The first Shenmue sold 1.2 million copies worldwide, but that was a different Sega that had the money and vim to push the game as hard as it could. Remember that even at that level of sales Shenmue was a disastrous money pit for the company.
So at best, Sega would be taking a significant financial risk on a franchise that burned it badly before. It’s doubtful that any number of capsule toys can make that sound like a good idea. I love the sentiment, but maybe we should all focus on getting the company to do something that actually has a chance of happening? Let’s ask for a new, real Phantasy Star, or for Yakuza: Kenzan to come to the US.