A major controversy is brewing regarding the Kickstarter campaign for Shenmue III, which is expected to be released sometime in late 2017. It seems that the developer, Ys Net, has announced that thanks to a dubious polling of Kickstarter backers, gamers who backed the game via PayPal would not be eligible for Kickstarter rewards.
Ys Net held two polls - one on Twitter, the other on-site - back in early December asking if Kickstarter Exclusive Rewards should be available to the Paypal backers.
The Twitter poll was pretty conclusive:
Should Exclusive #Shenmue3 Kickstarter Rewards be made available for PayPal Backers at https://t.co/75xoQrGs1B ?
— Shenmue 3 (@Shenmue_3) December 3, 2015
However, on the Kickstarter poll, Ys Net stated:
”Of the 68,533 eligible Kickstarter Backers, there were 15,110 respondents. The poll results are posted below. 4,670 of the respondents answered, “Yes, please make the Kickstarter Exclusive Rewards available on PayPal.” 4,009 respondents answered, “No, Kickstarter Exclusive Rewards are for Kickstarter only.” And 6,432 answered, “Either is fine with me.”
Clean cut, right? 3/4 of the poll either said, “Yes” or “Either way”. Well, according to Ys Net, the 1/4 of users who said, “No” are the clear majority of backers, despite the votes saying “Yes” outnumbering those who said “No”.
Quoth Ys Net: ”Considering the strong response from those of you who felt that the Exclusive Rewards should remain exclusive for the Kickstarter, those Exclusive Rewards will not be made available on the PayPal page as originally promised.”
Needless to say, quite a few people are outraged, accusing Ys Net of going back on its word because the developer wants more sales of downloadable content like Ryu’s jacket, which is one of the Kickstarter rewards.
