Ys Net, the makers of Shenmue III, are going to “assess the situation” with respect to their recently announced exclusive release on the Epic Games Store.
Last week at E3, Shenmue III provided us a release date, a new trailer, opened pre-orders, and the tentative system requirements if you plan to play the game on PC. They also announced that rather than release on Steam as originally planned, Shenmue III would head to the Epic Games Store as an exclusive title.
As with every other game that originally planned to release on Steam and then became an Epic exclusive, this did not go over well. Since Shenmue III was funded via Kickstarter on the promise of a Steam release, the news was particularly odorous to Kickstarter backers, many of whom flooded the crowd-funding service with demands that they get their money back.
As of last week, requests for refunds made to both Kickstarter and publisher Deep Silver were being refused. Now it seems that public outcry was large enough that Deep Silver and Ys Net are rethinking their arrangement with Epic entirely.
"We want to make sure that the Backers are aware that we are listening to their concerns," wrote Ys Net on their most recent Kickstarter update last Friday. "We kindly ask all our fans to have some patience, we are currently at E3 demoing the game and need to get back to our respective offices to assess the situation and together find a way forward to justify the trust you placed in us."
So far we’re not sure what this could mean, but there are really only two options. Either Ys Net and Deep Silver provide refunds to backers demanding their money back, or they break their Epic exclusive arrangement and give back what could be tens of millions of dollars.
So far, Shenmue III’s development looks like it will have more drama than the game itself.
Shenmue III releases on PlayStation 4 and Windows PC on the Epic Games Store (so far, anyway) on November 18th.