Legendary Sega game series Shenmue is to receive a third installment thanks to a $3m-and-rising Kickstarter campaign. But now we find out that Sony is a 'partner' in the game, investing an 'undisclosed budget' despite no mention on the game's pleas for crowdfunding. What gives?
So working on the basis that Sony is paying, why was it deemed acceptable to run the Kickstarter as it was run, and only reveal this partnership after public money had been accrued via some very large personal donations? I could start throwing around a lot of strong terms here, but – if only because I don't know exactly how the balance of funding will play out – I won't. I'll very carefully draw the line at 'misleading', and leave it at that.
Seems the most egregious example yet of using Kickstarter to snooker people into thinking they were funding an independent project.
