if they're as inept and incompetent as you're painting them it bodes ill for the actual product
False equivalency here, and I think you probably know that too. I'm also neither painting them as inept or incompetent, but when you partner with say - a publisher, and especially in a market you're not based in or familiar with, you should expect some level of protection and benefit of their awareness. I'm not sure that was applied, or at least in a way that the full force of repercussions were explained. Or maybe even Deep Silver didn't anticipate such a large push back.
Is it your opinion that this is Shibuya Productions/Ysnet's decision that was poorly informed by information from Deep Silver or a Deep Silver decision that has been thrust upon Ysnet?
I couldn't tell you honestly. But the idea that anybody was sat there scheming like a Saturday morning cartoon villain is... I mean it's nuts, and least of all Yu Suzuki.
Doesn't pass water given even what I know as an outside observer, let alone the people who've met him and become friends with him over the last four years. The man cried with joy backstage at the Sony press conference, and again on the closing livestream for the KS campaign. The walls of the Ys Net offices are covered in tokens and gifts he's brought back from around the world since development began, with a huge Shenmue community banner hanging in their meeting room. He allowed fans creating a documentary about Shenmue into their offices twice for unprecedented access to staff and development materials, and that's just the stuff I can talk about publicly.
This is conjecture, but I think if the severity of the backlash was understood (which may only be recognised in retrospect, I dunno), and under the conditions it wasn't necessary for business reasons, I don't think the EGS deal would have been done. Hindsight is 20/20 though.
What happened to Shibuya Productions? I thought them an Ys Net were super close an got even helped get this whole thing off the ground. They're a western company who I would have thought would be there ta help suss out cultural unknowns such as this. But anyway small, japanese, independent, whatever. Ya they should have know. They launched this on a global stage with by far the majority of funding coming not from japan. On a western focused crowdfunding site no less! Speaking of crowdfunding when ya go to the public to ask for money ya should know you're gonna be under much more demanding scrutiny than usual, so they should've been on their dang A game. Also still yes cause surely they have someone working for 'em that isn't part of the games development but instead part of the companies management. An if not then seriously who's running Ys Net if every hand they got is on the game an nothing else?
Deep Silver is the overriding private partner, ultimately. Shibuya Productions stepped aside on certain matters to relinquish some responsibilities to them, and I think on some level there is some friction there (not hugely relevant in this context). But they're not really guaranteed to understand the ins and outs of this platform war either, if they're even in a position to influence the decision; which looks unlikely considering Cedric Biscay has more or less told people to ask either via the Kickstarter or Deep Silver for details. They may have even been in favour of it for reasons neither you or I will ever know.
I can't tell you about the management structure to either confirm or deny your biases here, but you've got people on this very forum you think Ys Net should be reading, with no real clue what the deal is with EGS. You know what I mean? It's not a given to be intimately acquainted with the issue at any level.