Shenmue III's Placeholder Box Art Is Hilarious

Skeptical fans already had a few pretty solid reasons to hold on to their money, like Sony’s ambiguously defined involvement in production. Today in a campaign update they announced that all contributors at $60 or higher can now opt in for a physical PS4 copy of the game, something a lot of folks had requested as an option.

But for placeholder art they’re using the same key art you’ll find all over the campaign page (more than 20 times), and when they place that image and the hokey title font onto a mockup of a PS4 game box it just looks so much worse.

[Snookies12]

Seriously? People are complaining about a mock up box art now? Here's a little hint for those that don't understand what 'placeholders' are. They're not the final version...

[Relientk77]

I think they have too much time on their hands

[Nyxus]

Kotaku...

[nicksetzer1]

Literally what I came to say. Since when does a placeholder for the boxart (not even the actual box art itself) determine the value of a game?

Ansolutely idiotic.

[mac_sparrow]

It's simply another, frankly pathetic, attempt to try and stall Shenmue's kickstarter. People, and supposed gamers, spent years calling for it and now we're getting it they're nit picking simply because it was announced on a Sony stage. It's on pc too you guys, no need to give money to a company you hate.

Personally, saw this and upgraded my pledge.

Oh and Kotaku, this is nothing more or less than what I expect of you; and no, that isn't a compliment.

[3-4-5]

Kotaku has no shame.

[HeartlessGamer]

This dude actually thinks this is the final box art?

It's people like him that ruin the kickstarter

[OB1Biker]

It sounds more like a hate campaign in the media. It could be because that obviously bring clicks and is easy to write about.
Seems weird to me that the media is trying to find even ridiculous angles to shoot it though

[Nyxus]

"When I saw that mockup this morning I tweeted this: like why would anybody look at this image and think "yes the person who made this mockup deserves my money"

Well, congratulations, you made an idiotic tweet. Certainly worthy of an article.

[pwnsause_returns]

and then theres this asshole.....

Seriously if your're complaining about Proof of concept stuff, then you should give up gaming forever....

its there to show that a physical copy exists.

[OB1Biker]

To sum up the author

'I don’t like the Shenmue III Kickstarter and anyway I dont like funding other people’s creative endeavor...'

'People must hold on to their money, because umm like Sony’s involvement in production is ummm ...ambiguously defined ..' (specially by the media)

'I dont like the placeholder art and I made a funny tweet about it... look... lol Im so clever...'

[yewles1]

...but I was told the anti-Shenmue III campaign was all in my head. Realsies...

[tanukisuit]

I can't believe he's proud that he is "de-railing" the Kickstarter (he tweeted that, btw). I guess he forgot, it's already reached WELL BEYOND its initial goal, and is only going up.

[dark-kyon]

Wtf,seriously is this a joke article right?.i don't want to gave at kotaku clicks.

[SegaGamer]

Why are there people out there looking to bring down this project ?

This thing is a good thing for gamers and there are some gaming journalists out there that are trying to ruin things. Pathetic really, these people should be fully supporting the Shenmue kickstarter campaign. They are supposed to be gamers themselves.

If these people can't do anything good for gaming then let someone else come in and do their job for them.

Just reading the comments in the article on Kotaku and the guy that wrote it has got involved in the comments. And of course he sounds like he has no idea what he is talking about when it comes to Shenmue 3's kickstarter project. This is a gaming journalist by the way. He is somebody who should know about this kind of thing. Amateur.

[rainslacker]

Sadly, they only care about the hits. They don't care about the betterment of the industry or the community in general. Occasionally they do their job and report on things of consequence to inform the public the way they're supposed to, but more often than not they just spend their time drumming of controversy so they can pay their salaries.

The gaming press should be a positive force of change in the gaming industry, and serve their readers. Instead they are a negative force which only serves itself.

[deathtok]

"I don't fund other people's creative endeavors."

The very act of buying a game or paying for a movie is exactly that. How's the weather on that high horse?

[rainslacker]

I personally don't fund Kotaku either. Not clicking because of crap articles like this doesn't help them at all. Because of articles like this, I don't even click for their random good articles...which they do get sometimes.

[mac_sparrow]

I agree entirely. It would take everyone avoiding the trash and only reading the good stories for them to notice and change tact. However, as that won't happen I simply don't visit.

[rainslacker]

Sensationalism is the way of the press nowadays. People are attracted to it. Like a wreck on the highway, you simply can't help but slow down to look.

Sadly, it's become so predictable, that you don't even have to read past the headline 9 times out of 10, which is bad for those 10th articles which use a sensational title, but actually have good content behind the article, because a lot of people are also avoiding this stuff like the plague.

Guess it doesn't help that we comment on it and drive up the heat, which only brings more attention to this crap.

I noticed a while ago, after GG started, that Kotaku started to have to approve any comment that gets displayed publicly. They do this so it makes it seem like their readership is all about these kinds of articles, and thus make them look more relevant. They don't care about actual discussion. If you click the pending approval links for comments though, you'll see a lot more people who disagree with the article's content...although I've noticed it's started to die down, as I guess some people are either not bothering to post, or going elsewhere.

In this day and age, you can get more relevant news from the comment sections than you can from actual articles. I can't say how many times a week, some poster here on N4G will give the actual facts that completely refute an entire article or opinion piece, and since they usually link sources, it's easy to verify...as opposed to websites which twist around statements or other sources to drive an agenda, and will leave out the most important bits that put everything into context.

Until the middle of last gen, it wasn't so much like this, as the articles usually did cite proper sources, but it was the commenters who mostly had impulse reactions off the title.

[reaper602]

LOL!!!! Hating on a box art placeholder??God this is getting sad.

[rainslacker]

I hope in the long run, Kotaku is consistent and makes an article about every bad placeholder box art that comes out. I mean, it's not like they are few and far between.

I'm sitting here trying to think of the most ridiculous thing to say to discredit this KS in some way as it seems to be the current trend. But for the life of me, I can't think of anything more ridiculous than criticizing placeholder box art.

Maybe some people can be more creative than me...

[TheTony316]

People are complaining about PLACEHOLDER box art now?

[SunnyZ]

What's that old saying?
Don't judge a book by its cover?