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.
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