Crowdfunding - a possible future for Suikoden?

A place to post news and also give your ideas about the future of the Suikoden series.
Please justify all speculations with reasons why you think such an event could happen.
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Xelinis
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Re: Crowdfunding - a possible future for Suikoden?

Post by Xelinis »

Ahh, but here's the reason why it worked for them but won't work for us: Tim Schaffer was able to (awesomely) abuse his status as a gaming celebrity.
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Vextor
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Re: Crowdfunding - a possible future for Suikoden?

Post by Vextor »

Konami once released an ultimate fan item which is sort of legendary within the Japanese gensui fan community: The Genso Suikoden Certificate of Deposit

This was an attempt by Konami to do some crowdfunding (back in 2000 or something), and each certificate cost about a million yen (which would be about $13000 today).
Of course the whole thing failed because not too many fans can afford such an expensive item (even if the value of the CD might increase).

Konami has since never done this sort of stuff-- likely they would have little interest receiving "donations" from fans as well, considering how their corporate strategy is shifting towards their health/fitness business. Even within their shrinking game business they're shifting towards "social gaming" (ie. I-Phone apps)
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Re: Crowdfunding - a possible future for Suikoden?

Post by Oppenheimer »

Kotaku recently published an article with this very idea:
http://kotaku.com/5893552/five-dead-jrp ... ickstarter
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Re: Crowdfunding - a possible future for Suikoden?

Post by KC_MCDOHL »

Perhaps, then, we can get Kotaku to do some promotion for us? Or even get Jason Schreier to write an article about the campaign?
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Re: Crowdfunding - a possible future for Suikoden?

Post by Vextor »

I'm sure hell be glad to join forces with suikosource, if he's a big fan of the series.
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Xelinis
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Re: Crowdfunding - a possible future for Suikoden?

Post by Xelinis »

Right now, there are two major things holding this franchise back: Awareness and Availability. Finding a way to team up with one of the most frequented sources of gaming news would certainly bring us closer to resolving the former.
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Lemmy Claypool
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Re: Crowdfunding - a possible future for Suikoden?

Post by Lemmy Claypool »

Jason has a serious Suikoboner. I had a brief chat with him on Twitter the other day and he seems keen to bring as much attention to the series as possible.
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Re: Crowdfunding - a possible future for Suikoden?

Post by KC_MCDOHL »

Nice! Im in an on going email conversation with him at the moment. Hopefully he can help bring more awareness to our efforts.


EDIT (07/07/12):

The resulting article can now be found here:

http://kotaku.com/5923830/these-loyal-r ... Encounters
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Re: Crowdfunding - a possible future for Suikoden?

Post by freshmetal »

So it's been a while since the kickstarter idea was discussed. What are the chances of something like this coming together? Just recently, a Kickstarter campaign for the Ouya game console set a goal of $950,000 and collected $8,596,475, easily exceeding its goal.

Here's the link:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ouy ... sole/posts

A new Suikoden funded with Kickstarted may not be as far fetched as some may think.
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Xelinis
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Re: Crowdfunding - a possible future for Suikoden?

Post by Xelinis »

Kickstarter is for independent developers who have no way of securing the money otherwise. It's completely inapplicable to this scenario.
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Re: Crowdfunding - a possible future for Suikoden?

Post by KC_MCDOHL »

I agree with you Xelenis, per se. I dont think its impossible for Kickstarter to be Suikoden/Konami related though?

Anyway, Kickstarter aside, a fan movement similar to this, with its main goal to revive the Suikoden series or something more specific, say, aquiring Suikoden II on PSN, is definantly a great idea to me.

Please join and keep an eye on the Suikoden Revial Movement for more details and announcements similar to this:


https://www.facebook.com/SuikodenRevival
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Re: Crowdfunding - a possible future for Suikoden?

Post by LanceHeart »

Lemmy Claypool wrote:Jason has a serious Suikoboner. I had a brief chat with him on Twitter the other day and he seems keen to bring as much attention to the series as possible.
Isn't Kotaku still essentially banned from dealing with Konami in Japan? Did they ever fix their relationship post-MGS4 Famitsu fiasco?

That's pretty much why I haven't really paid much attention to Kotaku on anything that involves them and Konami. Count Destructoid out too, since Jim Sterling got himself banned from their presence as well by criticizing Konami's mishandling of their video game business.
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Re: Crowdfunding - a possible future for Suikoden?

Post by Antimatzist »

I guess a new Suikoden this way is totally out of question. But I like the idea that Konami could use kickstarter (or a own crowdfunding thing on their site) to get money for a Suikogaiden translation, for example, and then the game gets a PSN release. I am sure that they would get enough money for that and could use it as a different type of pre-order or something. I mean, how expensive might a translation be?
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Re: Crowdfunding - a possible future for Suikoden?

Post by KC_MCDOHL »

I dont think its entirely out of the question at all and certainly realistic. We need to build a relationship with Konami first though and make them see that the Suikoden fanbase is still large enough.
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Re: Crowdfunding - a possible future for Suikoden?

Post by LanceHeart »

Antimatzist wrote:I mean, how expensive might a translation be?
Quite expensive if you're looking for a retail/physical release. Translation doesn't just mean translating the text and putting it into the game. You need to build a latin character set if it's not already in the game (Suikogaiden shouldn't), you need to program the translated text into the game to replace the Japanese text, then fix any text scrolling issues that can arise from the far less efficient latin alphabet.

Then come the in-house testing, the ESRB/PEGI ratings approvals, then SCEI, SCEA/SCEE testing and approvals...

That's a lot of people involved and a lot of money being spent for a single translation in this day and age. We haven't even looked into localization of voices and paying any royalties to people in Japan.
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