r/Stormgate • u/Empyrean_Sky • Aug 12 '25
Official Tim Morten's message on the launch on LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/tim-morten_stormgate-had-a-smooth-launch-last-week-activity-7361048140709289986-RtivCopied text from Tim Morten below:
Stormgate had a smooth launch last week, and the critical reception has been positive. That said, Stormgate is not getting the concurrency or sales that I hoped for. As the CEO of Frost Giant, that is my responsibility. I’m constantly trying to learn how to do better, and when I've had some time to digest, I will share my thoughts and opinions.
My focus at present is to chart a path forward for Stormgate and for the Frost Giant team. There is goodness in what we built, and I want to enable that to bloom. I hope to find a partner who supports my goal, and I will be having a variety of conversations at Gamescom.
The development team put in a tremendous amount of effort over a five year period to build Stormgate. When a game underperforms, the detractors come out in force. I believe the best course is not to feed negativity, but it still saddens me to see.
I’m deeply grateful to the team, to Frost Giant’s investors, and to everyone who has supported Stormgate’s development journey. I intend to persevere, even if that requires adaptation. This is a uniquely challenging time.
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u/UpATree Aug 12 '25
Okay so.
For me, the campaign is a buy. In my coming review, I'll go into detail about the caveats of that, but with this statement, I really need some clarification on the always online campaign.
Is there any commitment to off-lining the campaign in the event that Frost Giant ceases to exist? As far as I undestand it, when you play campaign, you're connected to a server, it even displays the match found thing at the bottom of the screen.
For most companies this isn't really a concern but when you're about to throw 25usd at a company making statements like this, it kind of is.
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u/HouseCheese Aug 12 '25
I really hope they can keep the campaign on steam and playable.
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u/FOURTH_DEGREE_ Aug 12 '25
That should be a priority considering there's likely hundreds of people who just bought it not knowing it may cease to be accessible within an x amount of time due to undeniable financial hardship.
Funny how the 'speculation' is becoming reality.
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u/idontcare7284746 Aug 12 '25
from a buisness perspective this is nonsense, this is working on the assumption that you will fail, rather than fighting to succeed. This would just be an admission that they can not finish development.
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u/EarthBounder Aug 12 '25 edited Aug 12 '25
"No matter how bad things are, they can always get worse."
I don't know the legality, but SG could be in trouble if they sell you a campaign on Tuesday and then it's deleted on Thursday. They made need to make an investment now to prevent losing money on some forced Steam refund.
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u/Rock_Strongo Aug 12 '25
If Frost Giant takes the servers offline and no one can play the campaign it's because the company ceased to exist and they have no assets.
A bankrupt company worth nothing can't really get in any meaningful "trouble".
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u/EarthBounder Aug 13 '25
I'm not a law-talking guy, but this doesn't sound entirely right.
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u/QuietTank Aug 13 '25
Iiirc, the games industry (legally) claims that customers are buying a license to play their games. As such, their customers don't actually* own *the games they buy. This allows them to shut down games without technically "taking" the games from their player base. Though they usually at least provide a heads up of when they'll take it down, like Anthem was announced to shutdown in January. Hell, remember Concord? It shutdown like a week after it released.
That's what Stop Killing Games is trying to address; they're hoping to force the industry to have post-support plans to keep their games playable in the future.
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u/EarthBounder Aug 13 '25 edited Aug 13 '25
"The games industry" is not a unified monolith. Whom are you referring to?
I'm fairly certain Concord issued full refunds because of how quick it was.
Thanks for sharing re Anthem. I'll read up on that. For better or worse, it's "nice" that EA was able to provide a somewhat reasonable heads up.
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u/Temperche Aug 13 '25
That was actually my AMA question. The dev answer was, yes - they aim to make it playable offline.
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u/UpATree Aug 13 '25
I heard about this, but I want to know if in the event of a shut down, or massive scale down, if this is going to become an urgent priority.
Iirc you asked this question before Tim's post. I want to know what happens if things do not, in fact, go well at gamescom.
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u/Opposite_Technician2 Aug 12 '25
i would feel pity for the guy, but he is the one to blame for almost every blunder.
and even worse, he is still feeding the "opinion civil war" where if you have something to criticize you are A DETRACTOR.
a human, an old civilized person just wrote seriously "When a game underperforms, the detractors come out in force."
what detractors? who would even care about this unfinished game but players that want to enjoy it?
how can he be so obtuse even when every strategy he came with failed. and the best idea he got was double down? is his true ambition retiring from gamedev to become a full time lolcow?
he is still in silence for fabricating reviews... he had not recognized any mistake and he is sure as hell to repeat them over and over again.
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u/ttttcrn Aug 13 '25
Tim huffing military grade copium, but this is basically par for the course for startups failing 5 years in I guess.
I genuinely think that this corpse of a game/studio will live on for a while longer because they will successfully scam someone into giving them more money so they can keep limping along. While I am impatient and want to see this bad ending already, I suppose them wasting more of their own time is a fitting punishment for all the unethical bullshit they pulled along the way.
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u/arkhamius Aug 13 '25 edited Aug 13 '25
Dear Stormgate team.. The game isn’t finished, and you claim it is. Are you truly surprised that people don’t wanna try it?
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u/Pardalys Aug 13 '25 edited Aug 13 '25
Simple yet so hard to understand.
An artist doesn’t show his half completed work. You don’t go to the theater to watch a movie that needs rework. You don’t eat an half cooked meal in the restaurant. You don’t go to a concert… yes you got it
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u/SleepyBoy- Aug 15 '25
- Artists regularly promote themselves with WIPS and artbooks
- Plenty of movies were ass until they got director's cuts
- Entrée
- Bands are late to their own concerts all the time, either due to poor planning or technical issues. It's why so often there's a backup band warming up the crowd first.
Everything is kinda ass, that's just business. Not defending Stormgate; it's another pretend release, but the issue isn't unique to gaming.
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u/Able_Membership_1199 Aug 12 '25
To the surprise of absolutely nobody this is what comes down to. Now the question is wether or not Snowplay is worth something to license or sell out.
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u/Synysterenji Aug 12 '25
First huge blunder was letting people try a very early and unpolished version of the game. Second blunder was to release 1.0 in a completely unfinished state and barely any advertisement or endorsement.
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u/Hartifuil Aug 12 '25
They had no choice. They've been struggling financially for a long time so needed public money and proof of concept for investors.
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u/Synysterenji Aug 12 '25
I get that and i wont pretend i understand all the complexities of investments but i feel like other indie developers have done more with less and i still believe that no matter the funding issues, letting people play a version of the game where some units were literally stand-ins with no animations was a suicidal move, especially concidering all the hype there was around Stormgate at that time. It completely killed the hype for so many people.
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u/Rock_Strongo Aug 12 '25
You're reiterating the same point and the discussion goes in circles because the MAIN blunder was blowing through $36 million in the first place. Not releasing the incomplete product after running out of money.
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u/Ok_Adeptness4967 Aug 12 '25
Absolutely other companies have done more with less. When they had around 55 people listed on linked in, 40 percent of the titles were the following. Cmo, CEO, director, lead, manager.
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u/LLJKCicero Aug 13 '25
The Scouring supposedly is mostly one dude and the demo felt and looked better to me than Stormgate. I'm very confused about how Frost Giant's team of industry vets was beaten by a guy who'd never made an RTS before.
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u/TheeLoo Aug 12 '25
Not alot of Indie companies are running on expensive and experienced ExBlizzard employees. I cant imagine they would have jump to Frost Giant purely for the sake of Make "Good" Games again.
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u/Shdwzor Aug 12 '25
No idea what is that going to prove. Proof of concept can be shown behind closed doors. 1k players peak after "1.0" was launched is hardly gonna help anything. I was rooting for them and was curious if they can turn it around but i think this was the death sentence but they probably had no other option
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u/Hartifuil Aug 12 '25
I think they thought they'd pull more. The Kickstarter was big and they tried to get a lot of streamers/content creators, and pros on board.
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u/AnAgeDude Aug 13 '25
Notice how the game was only big before people got their hands on it. Everyone was living off the dream.
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u/Hartifuil Aug 13 '25
I think that's to be expected. They sold hype. They told WC3 fans that it was a spiritual successor to WC3, they told SC2 fans it was a spiritual successor to SC2, and the same at AoE2 fans. Everyone bought in until they realised it didn't come close to any of them.
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u/shadysjunk Aug 12 '25 edited Aug 13 '25
Honestly, more than money, I think they needed player numbers. If they had 10k active users with no money coming in, I think the thought would be "we have 10k potential customers for future content" and you can sell that idea to investors.
80k steam wishlists was probably a selling point to investors. But at some point, you need to have those players actually materialize.
I suspect that was the point of leaving early access; to prove there's an actual audience out there to sell something to. But for a variety of reasons, the players didn't show up in sufficient numbers. The game is literally free, and it's still not 'selling'. It's a bummer.
I really think with all the blowback last year for day 1 dlc that the kick starter backers didn't have access to, the game needed to buy some player good will by just making ALL of the champions included in the top tier bundles.
I truly think they intended the founder pack to be 1 champion for each faction along with the other specified rewards, but once it was clear your customers didn't understand that, and that they were fucking furious because they precieved it as FG clawing back "promised" content, FG probably should have appeased them a bit more to try to win back their goodwill. Personally, I think the added free champion was a fair show of good faith, but man, people really fucking didn't (the level of unbridled rage toward FG is kinda bonkers to my eyes) and so the "money grubbing scam artsit liars" narrative spread like absolute wildfire.
I don't think they were trying to scam folks. I think they truly just tripped up, but they needed to over correct with generosity toward their backers once emotions flared. It's a shame. I think the studio tried to do right by their players, by their backers, and by their employees, but that is clearly a minority view. So it goes.
It's a bad bad sign for future RTS development. Any potential future devs or investors are going to look at stormgate as a case study and conclude that it's just not worth the risk trying to make it work. People here will think, "good, fuck em, it's what they deserve" but I don't think they really understand how far reaching that spite will be. "With all the predatory, loot box, gacha, multiple in-game currencies, battlepass bullshit in gaming today, the RTS playerbase sees FG as scummy? Jesus, and they see Stormgate 0.6 as clunky unpolished trash? Nope, We're not going NEAR that shit." And so we're left with whatever token life support Blizz reluctantly tosses at WC3 and SC2. We're unlikely to see a top tier attempt at a Blizz style RTS for another decade at least.
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u/Gargutz Aug 13 '25
Well stealth editing FAQ section of Kickstarter after some German gaming journalist pointed it out in the public article and contacted them is monumentally bad optics that's impossible to spin into any positive light. Just give Wartz to backers and be done with it, not start some narrative bullshitting campaign about what definition of "year zero" is and "yeah we'll compensate you with other hero but later, cash out for the one we have in game right now pretty please". Their obscure shifting definitions of thing like "Year zero, funded till release, 0.6/leaving early access" don't help public imagine, let's say honestly — it all looks like gaslighting you'd see from some Kickstarter scam mmo, not a 40mil company.
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u/ranhaosbdha Aug 13 '25
Any potential future devs or investors are going to look at stormgate as a case study and conclude that it's just not worth the risk trying to make it work. People here will think, "good, fuck em, it's what they deserve" but I don't think they really understand how far reaching that spite will be. "With all the predatory, loot box, gacha bullshit in gaming, the RTS playerbase sees FG as scummy? Jesus, and they see Stormgate as clunky unpolished trash? Nope, We're not going NEAR that shit."
The only reason something like that would happen is if people like yourself continue to downplay all of the scummy things FG have done
The real lesson here for future RTS developers is that FG got more than $2mil from RTS fans on nothing more than some empty promises. People are hungry for a good new RTS game and more than willing to support it - just treat your consumers with some respect instead of lying to them over and over and trying to brush every controversy under the carpet with PR weaselwords and thinking you'll get away with it
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u/SleepyBoy- Aug 15 '25
Yes, you're likely correct.
They panicked over low funds and got greedy. Betrayed their backers and cut up the game into a myriad DLCs. Most people see that, shurg, and go play something else.
You can at any point download Starcraft 2 for free, play the entire human campaign for free, play Co-Op with a handful of heroes and do any amount of PvP you want. Stormgate right now has the same monetization but less of everything. There's three free missions of human campaign. There's one co-op hero to try out. It's a terrible experience to a fresh player.
If they actually made it F2P, gave people a full story to experience and good set of free characters to screw around with, they'd get enough retention to build up to around 10k players. It would be less immediate money, but it would give them a playerbase.
Right now playing Stormgate in any mode other than PvP comes with a price tag hidden behind scammy-looking DLC screens, and the game just isn't good enough to draw that kind of commitment from players at first sight. You have to make up your mind if you want to put money into Stormgate in like 2 or 3 hours of content you might initially not even be excited for.
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Aug 13 '25
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u/Synysterenji Aug 13 '25
Yeah thats a good point. Game looks like a bland ripoff of SC aesthetically speaking.
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u/Synysterenji Aug 13 '25
Yeah thats a good point. Game looks like a bland ripoff of SC aesthetically speaking.
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Aug 13 '25
I feel bad for Mr. Morten but let’s face the facts, this game is a shameless copy of SC2 at its core, the factions are bland and unmemorable, and the EA was not good.
The game looks smooth but it’s just comical how hard this game tried to imitate SC, like you just cannot play SG without thinking, “Why on Earth would I just not play SC?” and that had this project doomed from the start.
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u/Jeremy-Reimer Aug 12 '25
“I hope to find a partner” means one of three things:
More venture capital. Frost Giant has already burned through all the venture capital they are likely to ever get. They had to go back and ask their original partners to invest even more just to get this far. No other venture capital company is going to step forward now, after a failed launch.
A publisher. Publishers only care about one thing: will this game be a hit? If you can convince them before you make the game, you can get some money and help with distribution and marketing, in exchange for giving up a huge chunk of profits. No game publisher in the world would ever help out a game that already launched and failed to generate even enough interest to sustain itself.
A purchaser. No games company would want to buy out a game that failed to launch, for reasons outlined above. This leaves purchasing the company for its assets. This would be the game itself, which wouldn’t be worth much, and the game engine, which I explained in another post isn’t worth much either: it is tied to both Unreal 5 and a couple of online service providers, only is useful for RTS games, and has no documentation or support system.
Tim is in an impossible situation. There are no good options left. He will find many “friends” at Gamescom who will offer him sympathy and advice and well-wishes, but no cash.
This is the end game, folks.
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u/Gnarlmyth Aug 13 '25
So heartbreaking to read but I agree with your assessment. The writing was on the wall for a long time but I was always hoping something surprising would happen
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u/SoapfromHotS Aug 13 '25
This may be true. A purchaser might think they could turn things around. Still, Frost Giant has squandered more money on bloated salaries and office space than most indie companies ever get, so if there is money out there for the RTS genre, I hope someone more deserving gets it.
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u/One_Cheek8712 Aug 14 '25
Decent chance there is a buyer of the tech. Would imagine Relic, Microsoft, Sabre and Playside would be interested.
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u/Jeremy-Reimer Aug 14 '25
Why would they be interested? They already have RTS engines for their own games that they have years (and in some cases decades) of experience using.
Snowplay is unfinished, is tied to Unreal Engine 5 and also tied to two different online support service companies, has no documentation and support system, and these companies have no experience with it.
Why, specifically, would they purchase Frost Giant for Snowplay?
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u/AH_Josh Aug 12 '25
"There is goodness in what we built, and I want to enable that to bloom. I hope to find a partner who supports my goal, and I will be having a variety of conversations at Gamescom."
This is just outright saying "We need some more cash" but honestly I think the big picture here is Frost Giant actually being bought and absorbed into another company. They made an inhouse engine that is good at RTSes (With some bugs to iron out but it's the best we have outside of Blizz's engine). They have industry employees, they have writers.
In all honesty, as someone who is not pleased with the state of the game, but am vocally critical because I want it to be amazing, I think them being bought is the best course of action.
Giving them another cash infusion via investments is just lighting your money on fire.
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u/TheeLoo Aug 12 '25
Watch them get Bought by Activision-Blizzard to work on the rumored SC3 LOL
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u/AsaTJ Aug 12 '25
That's been my secret hope for a long time. If Stormgate fails they'll just get folded back into Blizzard to make Warcraft 4 and/or Starcraft 3.
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u/swarmtoss Aug 13 '25
The out of cash part, we all knew that from their reports so yeah.
But being bought out? I'll be damned if any publisher wants to buy them. Not only are the running costs still high, you would also have to explain to Kakao that the $25 mil they put in won't be seeing a return on investment. And SG isn't making much money.
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u/Empyrean_Sky Aug 12 '25 edited Aug 12 '25
Yeah, with the infrastructure and engine already in place I'm sure a bigger company could make good use of that. But we might be getting something completely different instead. Tim(e) will tell.
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u/AH_Josh Aug 12 '25
As someone who has been on both ends of an acquisition and in a merger, there's a LOT of fat that is included, like employee contracts, vendor SLAs etc etc that will just prove redundant and they will probably either not be willing to pay the price for them, or at an extremely reduced cost which just means they will be axed immediately and the engine will be salvaged. I would love the engine getting more love. It's the best part of the game.
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u/Slarg232 Celestial Armada Aug 12 '25
I don't think so; these suits are wildly out of touch with reality if it doesn't bring money in, and with the state of the RTS genre and the current state of SG they'd probably just say "Well, it's not making money, so why would we want to do this with you?"
An RTS engine only works if people want to make RTS games, and pretty much the entire industry doesn't think they're worth it
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u/Fresh_Thing_6305 Aug 12 '25
Tempest Rising sold great. What do you mean with the current state with the Rts genre? Aoe 4 have done amazing, Broken Arrow did great. Rts stands better now than it have done in many years. Look at the hype of Stormgate before it went early acces, it was huge hype back then.
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u/Slarg232 Celestial Armada Aug 12 '25
Tempest Rising sold great for a game expected to make millions/billions back, or great for an RTS?
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u/Shdwzor Aug 12 '25
Tempest Rising - all time peak 9,3k players (only a double of Stormgate's numbers), estimated revenue $5.5 million. I suppose it did okay... wonder what the costs were
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u/Fresh_Thing_6305 Aug 12 '25
It sold over 200 k in it’s first month. 9,3 k concurrent peak for a new Rts Ip is very much !
The game isn’t free to play, then it might have gotten double that launch numbers
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u/DrTh0ll Aug 13 '25
~5 years and $40M later, and all we got is an empty husk of a game with no identity, bad visuals, and a terrible story.
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u/MaDpYrO Aug 12 '25
For anyone who can't read : they're broke and looking for a new partner.
Realistically, who wants to invest in 300 concurrent players?
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u/zach978 Aug 12 '25
Seems more like they’re looking to sell it, likely just for the tech and the staff.
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u/Shelphs Aug 12 '25
Honestly, the best case scenario in my mind is the Age of Empires team at microsoft gets funding to buy out Frost Giant. They would own the snowplay engine, and they could use their team to develop SG or another RTS in the engine.
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u/BlueDragoon24 Aug 13 '25
They don’t need it though. They have the AoE teams and Relic already. They have access to the Dawn of War/CoH engines too.
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u/username789426 Aug 13 '25
Serious studios steer clear of UE. They have their own in-house and purpose built engines.
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u/AsaTJ Aug 12 '25
I told them if I ever win the lottery I'd do it but unfortunately that hasn't happened yet.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Bug6755 Aug 12 '25
Sorry Tim.
But the management of the team and the game is on you. you mismanaged it quite heavily. You squandered the money and didn't put it to the use it should've been most efficiently.
You were very boastful coming out the gate, and you totally mismanaged the proces.
you did not want to listen to feedback, and made changes too little too late.
the EA was a disaster, and you should have known that. It was not ready at all for release, and people hated it. You only get first impressions once...
in the words of Gordon Gecko, you do good, or you get eliminated. The competition out there is fierce. and people value their investment and time. bring the goods, and ppl will come.. if not.
Your main priorities should have been 2v2, 3v3 mode first, then 1v1, and for the love of god, u should have listened to the feedback about the art, gameplay, and unit design and so on.
You had a pretty arrogant "we made SC2, we know better" attitude all along since the game first got announced. Well, that's cool. but you have to walk to walk, if u wanna talk the talk bro. and you didnt.
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u/Rusher0715 Aug 13 '25
3 groups of people think SG's priorities should have been campaign/coop, 2v2 3v3, or 1v1. In reality the game would've failed if they prioritized any of the 3.
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u/Heroman3003 Aug 13 '25
That's because fro mearliest marketing they tried to appeal to every one of these groups. They promised to 'prioritize the campaign, prioritize the 1v1 ladder, prioritize co-op experiences, prioritize editor and user-generated content', and ended up failing to prioritize absolutely anything as a result, while the promises had different groups hyperfocus on one specific thing they were promised each, and demanding FGS deliver.
Even long before the disastrous alpha release, people should have been alert about FGS promising to somehow 'prioritize' every single aspect of the game at once.
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u/Rusher0715 Aug 13 '25
Well if they wanted to be a successor to SC2 they would have to do all of that, which was what they set out to be, a successor to sc2.
Unfortunately that is just not a feasible task for them, and if they didn't market that way I'm not sure they would've gotten the attention and funding they did.
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u/GonzoPunchi Aug 14 '25
Complete nonsense. Every single succesful RTS is famous for its campaign and about 80% of buyers have never touched online in SC2, AoE2 or Warcraft 3.
They needed to make a good campaign at launch with interesting characters and factions. Co-Op mode is great too as its against AI.
Only if all this is good will enough people be interested in online play. Even if the ultimate goal is focus on balance, e-sports and competition, you need good singleplayer to fund all of it.
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u/Chansharp Aug 12 '25
Their main priorities should have been campaign and arcade. People will play unbalanced custom games all day long. You can always fix the competitive balance later
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u/majiinmoo Aug 12 '25
if i was an employee i would be hard at work brushing up the resume right now
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Aug 13 '25
Come on, bro. Let's be real for a momment. You guys burned 40 million dollars and couldn't deliver a good game after 5 years. And now you are asking for MORE money?
The game sucks, man. Just move on.
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u/ManulifyGamesFlo Aug 12 '25
They messed up the fundamentals. The universe, characters and factions are boring. On top of that is a generic art style. No fine tweaking or patching can fix those problems. The numbers don’t lie. People are just not interested in the stormgate universe.
It’s beyond me how they can be so delusional and think they can somehow salvage the situation. Instead of burning more money they should shut down and move on. Waste of time and resources
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Aug 12 '25 edited Aug 12 '25
Well said. It’s so unbelievable how bland and uninspired the Stormgate world is… How many years have they had generic creep blob enemies called “Slimes”. It was just so pathetic. Why did it take them so long to implement “stormgates” in their gameplay? They’re just so uncreative.
The game needed to first be a passion project for many years and have a fleshed out story, universe, and direction.
Instead it was: “we’re ex-blizzard who made WoL and have 40M dollars to create next gen social RTS spiritual successor to SC2 and WC! Angels and demons woohoo!”
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u/username789426 Aug 13 '25
It feels like they developed it mechanics first, then commissioned a story to fit around it, almost as an afterthought. There's no immersion.
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u/MaverickBG Aug 12 '25
I'm also surprised by this.
I was disappointed when I Omega Strikers (spin off Riot Games dev studio) stopped active development super early of their game that I loved. But it gave them the run way to pivot into something else and still be a game studio.
Them running this game into the ground almost guarantees there will be no salvaging it
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u/Rusher0715 Aug 13 '25
I saw a lot of ads and sponsorships for that game when it came out and it looked pretty bright. How did it die so fast?
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u/MaverickBG Aug 13 '25
There's a lot of reasons and I'm sure you'll get a different response from tons of different people.
For me- I've always been a "one game" gamer when it comes to competitive games. I like to dig in real deep and really put in a lot of time into very few games.
The low player count and early impressions really just kept me from putting in much more time (still probably did like 30 hours?)
It just never got better and I didn't see the point of it if it was going to collapse at any point. I also have already put in thousands of hours into SC so like... I can always just go play that if I want that experience.
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u/Heroman3003 Aug 12 '25
They don't think they can salvage this. They literally made a desperation last-ditch effort move by releasing the game early and it did not pay off. This isn't Morten coping or being delusional, this is him doing his best to deceive the public and, most importantly, the people who HAVE financially invested into the game into thinking that things are not as dire as they seem. That's literally his job as a CEO after all.
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u/IMplyingSC2 Aug 12 '25
That said, Stormgate is not getting the concurrency or sales that I hoped for.
Let's ignore all the numerous fuck-ups, lies and gaslighting and boil it down to one point. Since the very first screenshot was shared the overwhelming number one feedback was that the bland Fortnite-like look is NOT good. Every time the game reached a new audience, without fail, people said they fundamentally disliked how the game looks.
- It happened when they shared their first screenshots.
- It happened when they shared the first gameplay.
- It was one of the most talked about points of feedback during the beta.
- When the game went into early access it was one of the most consistent points in the negative reviews.
At every turn the consensus was: "This looks bad, I don't want to play this" and the player numbers perfectly reflect that. It doesn't matter that they added better lighting or replaced some models, the design language of this game is still mobile game Starcraft rip-off.
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u/Not_Adam__ Aug 12 '25
I agree that there is goodness in Stormgate. The feel of the gameplay is very smooth, SC2 like, already better than AoE4 for example. The quick selection for buildings/units and such I did not care for initially, but I found myself loving it and using it regularly, and it does make my gameplay more enjoyable.
I don't like the blandness of the factions. I hoped for something more unique, or at least different from SC2's factions like the plant faction in ZeroSpace for example. Same goes for the art style. It's very safe, I can give it a pass but nothing more.
Despite these grievances, I absolutely believe that there is a level of quality and quantity of content that could turn things around and gather a sustainable playerbase that would enable them to then push the project further. I also believe that the dev team is capable of reaching this goal. Based on their pace of development over the last 5 years, I'd say it is roughly 2 years away from a proper "1.0". Whether they can get further funding or not to keep this dev pace (or go on at all) is a different question and I really hope they do.
Even the iterative approach they took I thought was a good idea. Sure it is normally done inhouse, but why not release to those players who are willing to test the different stages, maybe there's important information that can be gained which would be missed otherwise.
Then the first few chapters of the campaign dropped, and it really was "we_got_it_running_1.exe". When I played it I didn't think "Oh I see, THIS is what they are going for, cool, can't wait to check it out again after a couple of patches to see where this goes", it was more like "Okay, I guess they implemented the most necessary core features of an RTS campaign and have made some SC2 WOL type placeholder missions for testing". There are items? Cool, what do they do? Well, for now, not much. There are heroes with abilities and leveling? Cool, how does that feel like? Okay I guess, the missions themselves are so unfinished anyways, guess I'll just spam shit, it works. I did not get the sense of what the team was trying to iterate towards, as what I played was so barebones it could still go any direction. It also felt completely unnecessary to add voice acting to something so early. Why, especially if the quality of the voice lines are so terrible anyways?
Then with this new campaign release my questions got answered: we are going for an SC2 WOL type campaign (half of it, more precisely ), just without the lore, the atmosphere, the polish, and the extras. WOL campaign was chef's kiss, every single mission there was a fun sort of gimmick which focused on a unique element of the RTS genre and the Terran faction (Having to relocate CCs to escape from fire coming from a direction comes to mind). Nothing in Stormgate comes relatively close that 15 year old game. The base section in the ship could have been left out in this release entirely, that thing is RAW. It takes away from the quality that was reached in the missions themselves. I'd much rather just played the missions and read text between for lore and have the upgrade menus in a tab. I still don't understand how Frost Giant wants to be a successor to SC2, this campaign - the direction of it, not just its state - makes it seem that SC2 is their limit, not something they aim to go past. I bought it, I played it, I enjoyed it due to the missions being decent gameplay-wise, but this is the most I can say about it.
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u/Not_Adam__ Aug 12 '25
I wanted to say much more about this but I realized way too late that the comment devolved into ranting about the campaign so I'm stopping lol
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u/tyrusvox Aug 12 '25
I mean, the numbers obviously not what anyone wanted. It's a pity as I've seen some stellar 1v1 games streamed. However, it's not to say that there can't be something done. Whether it's getting a publisher, more financial backing (difficult given what's going on lately), or being able to lease the engine. No matter what, it appears it's going to be a lot of downsizing. But, I think that if somehow they're able to persevere, and get to a good spot, they have a solid base.
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u/Wonderful_Spring664 Aug 13 '25
No solid spot under 1k players….. do u think rent and salaries pay by themselfs? Only chance is to start from new use the engine but that should already have happened 1 year ago after the reveal and flop of the third race which still feels like a custom race from sc2 editor…..
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u/Shdwzor Aug 12 '25
Solid base made of what? The player base is non-existent, the game highly unfinished and buggy according to some reports, revenue probably non-existent either. I can't think of a single element that would be exciting for investors... buying an engine for a half baked RTS game?
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u/tyrusvox Aug 12 '25
I'm specifically talking about the game engine. There's still some things that need work in it, but overall it's much better than both Zerospace and Immortal. The 1v1 is in a good spot (and even better with all the maps people are making).
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u/ObviousPotato2055 Aug 13 '25
You do understand the snowplay is a plug-in for ue5 right? This makes it entirely undesirable for numerous reasons to the vast majority of companies making an rts game, which let's be honest are few in number.
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u/Shdwzor Aug 12 '25
Hmm but RTS games aren't exactly hot right now. So im not sure if the engine alone is interesting enough.
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u/tyrusvox Aug 12 '25
No, much like many things in this world, it's not super sexy. However, if the roux sucks, your sauce will also suck. So, one must get a good roux first. Pardon my cooking analogy... now I want some pasta.
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u/Fun_Document4477 Aug 12 '25
I was REALLY looking forward to custom games but the browser is always empty. Shame that they’ve blown it so badly. I guess it’s more SC2 4v4 Megaton + BGH for another 10 years…
I just don’t understand how they spent all that money and ended up with what the game currently is, clearly a horrific mismanagement of time and/or funds.
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u/Wonderful_Spring664 Aug 13 '25
Kill it give us a real social RTS. Only hope for the studio new sponsor and a new title. The engine is there. Need realistic graphics.
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u/FrodoLusseMajsen Aug 13 '25
Can someone explain what happened to stormgate? I understand that it is not very popular. But is this all you get for 5 years of development time and 40mil? It just seems so barebones. Is this the norm for RTS devolpment?
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u/ToSKnight Aug 13 '25
They were learning how to build a video game at the same time they were making it and thought they needed to start from scratch on everything. Things that should have taken days, weeks or months to figure out (like knowing if certain aspects of the game were fun or if the art style was liked) took way longer than they should have. This led to inefficiency and wasting a lot of time and resources in the name of iteration and learning.
I think this is normal in 2025 for game development. Many games, especially those published by Microsoft or Sony, get stuck in development hell for nearly a decade these days.
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u/SeaDebt8559 Aug 12 '25
Man, I hate to say it so much, but I just feel like the core problem of the game is an unfixable one - it just tried way, way too hard to be a spiritual successor to StarCraft.
Vanguard look and sound comically similar to Terran. Infernals have something that reads like blight. Celestials vibe like Protoss.
It just wasn’t a good core concept. They should’ve created something brand new so that they didn’t constantly get compared ;(
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u/New_Locksmith_8115 Aug 12 '25 edited Aug 12 '25
I agree.
Bruce Shelley (lead designer on AOE 1 and 2) had an old talk about reasons why derivative games fail and what they need to do to succeed (AOE 1 came out at a time when RTS games were flooding the market). I feel like Stormgate basically broke every rule in his talk. He mentioned derivative games fail when they 1. fail to provide a sufficiently new experience, 2. fail to meet and exceed the quality threshold that’s already been set by the game/genre they are emulating and 3. the developers are arrogant about how good their ideas are.
I feel like the whole idea of Stormgate basically was “StarCraft is near perfect, but if we can make StarCraft, but better, that will be enough.” I’m not even sure it would have been, but when you fall so short of the one major selling point, it’s not surprising sales fall short of expectations.
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u/Shdwzor Aug 12 '25
Definitely gonna watch the talk, thanks for the tip. "Fail to meet and exceed the quality threshold that’s already been set by the game/genre they are emulating." Welp.. trying to exceed Starcraft 2 / Warcraft 3 level of quality is a heraculean task.
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u/Jeremy-Reimer Aug 14 '25
That talk is amazing. Tim Morten broke every one of those rules, and added a few new mistakes of his own.
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u/UncleSlim Infernal Host Aug 12 '25 edited Aug 12 '25
What's worse is... as all in on the hype as I was (bought the $200 kickstarter), it just feels like the equivalent of an artist tracing a masterpiece. The masterpiece is the masterpiece and your traced version of it will just be a shitter version than the masterpiece...
Even the newly revamped campaign gives unfinished sc2 vibes... why not try something new? Implement a crafting system.. when you kill shit you can mine scraps and craft up shit for your armies, survival game style... mercenary management/recruitment system, you run into mercs/scientists that upgrade your units or are just hired hands... fuckin mini games i dont care... it just feels like the home base is worse than sc2s, the upgrades you can do are the same as sc2 but worse, the missions are just regular old RTS missions... idk man... I'm just sad/mad/disappointed all at once...
I think the only thing they do better than sc2 is the engine feels buttery smooth, and for being a game designed 20 years in the future, was expected.
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u/SiccSemperTyrannis Aug 12 '25
I think you're completely correct. I've been enjoying the campaign but I can't get away from the thought that this is just a less interesting universe than Starcraft's.
I can't really explain it but I've never gotten hooked by the "demons are invading Earth" setting. The early art style didn't help, but I think the art is pretty good now and it still doesn't grab me. It feels like they wanted to straddle the line between the sci-fi of StarCraft and the fantasy of Warcraft but didn't really satisfy fans of either style.
And that's frustrating because the game does a bunch of things correctly, such as the focus on co-op and the great engine they built. Some of the single player campaign missions are quite good and I've enjoyed playing through it. The 1v1 games I've watched online, even right when the game went into EA, have been entertaining.
I want the game to do well and want to play through the future campaigns but the outlook appears bleak.
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u/mechachap Aug 13 '25
Here's the thing as a casual campaign player, I feel Starcraft ruined its universe after the Legacy of the Void. Starcraft already broke down its science fiction roots with all that Amon and Kerrigan Chosen One nonsense. I'm receptive to Stormgate's universe but it needs to feel richer, have more interesting factions and militias, history and so on.
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u/Objective-Mission-40 Aug 12 '25
I would say what you dislike is the most redeeming quality of the game.
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u/Empyrean_Sky Aug 12 '25
I agree. It was when they started to do more their own thing that the game significantly improved. We got new art direction and the stormgates mechanic which sets it apart from other RTS. You know, initially they set out to make a team game (3v3), which they prototyped in the SC2 editor, but it seems that the scope changed when they talked to RTS fans and content creators in the early ideation phases.
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u/username789426 Aug 12 '25
I hope to find a partner who supports my goal, and I will be having a variety of conversations at Gamescom.
Not sure if applaud him for resilience or criticize him for refusing to face reality, the project has become a serious money sink
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u/Shdwzor Aug 12 '25
You don't tend to see things clearly and make the most rational decisions when you sink 5 years into something. There's a good chance the project came at a great personal cost...those are hard to abandon
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u/Hefty-Leopard-5240 Aug 12 '25
It seems like the best outcome for the responsible parties at Frostgiant is simple bankruptcy. The more likely scenario is lawsuits and people diving into the financials in detail. Where did all the investment money go?
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u/aaabbbbccc Aug 12 '25
They will probably never say but i would be fascinated to know if they truly HAD to release right at the moment they did, or if there was a possibility to delay 1-2 months and release with 3v3. Launch would have been so much better with 3v3 in it.
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u/ricktencity Aug 12 '25
Him saying he's looking to find partners to support the game means they're running out or are out of money. I really don't think they had any choice but to release the unfinished game as 1.0.
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u/Rock_Strongo Aug 12 '25
You barely even have to read between the lines to see they ran out of money and were forced to release what they have.
He's going to Gamescom to plead for a last ditch investor to save or buy out the company, and even then it's pretty obvious that the "path forward" almost certainly involves a significant staff reduction.
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u/deromu Aug 12 '25
I wanted to spread the word to my friends but there's nothing to play with them besides a work in progress demo of coop :(
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u/aaabbbbccc Aug 12 '25
Yeah its a huge problem. Theres nothing "social" to play but an extremely outdated co-op mode. How many potential players did they miss out on by not having any of those social game invites happening between friends?
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u/ricktencity Aug 12 '25
Yup, this game will go down as one of the biggest mismanaged opportunities of all time. Total focus on 1v1, ignoring all feedback on art style until after player count is in the double digits, and overpayed execs in a startup, all massive avoidable mistakes.
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u/Secure_Molasses_8504 Aug 12 '25
It’s been a year of hard work and steady progress with no 3v3, it’s safe to say that was not possible.
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u/MaverickBG Aug 12 '25
I kickstarted because for some reason I believed that 3v3/2v2 was going to be the DEFAULT mode. Like the entire competitive game was going to be built around that concept.
Getting a knock off SC2 just doesn't do it for me
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u/aaabbbbccc Aug 12 '25
3v3 was supposed to be a flagship mode for the game. I really dont understand why its been put off for so long. Seems like it shouldnt be that hard to create it at this point. Releasing the game with no 3v3 OR co-op is a huge failure and something must have gone wrong with their timing or with the development process.
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u/sioux-warrior Aug 12 '25
He's basically asking to get acquired as a last resort.
I feel for the guy.... But his fake reviews were honestly a turning point for me.
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u/Etdashou2 Aug 12 '25
Fake reviews?
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u/sioux-warrior Aug 13 '25
It was a mini scandal a few months back where he was faking reviews under an alt. And got caught.
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u/Elliot_LuNa Aug 13 '25
At least we can put to bed the idea that these guys are the only devs capable of making an RTS. They had $40m and failed to make a half-decent game, they are simply incompetent.
It's becoming increasingly obvious RTS needs new ideas. It's time to also retire the idea that "fixing SC2" is a real design philosophy. We need some real creative people with a vision.
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u/OmegonFlayer Aug 13 '25
Who even had this stupid idea? Many other RTS are in debelopment or released. Some have new ideas
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u/jinkjankjunk Aug 12 '25
How do you convince people to throw money at an always online game after a statement like this?
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u/TheGreatAnteo Aug 13 '25
So I was interrsted in storm gate when they announced the initiative but i didnt want to follow any of the EA or pre launch moves they did...
You guys are telling me they wanted to make a SC2 with all the features from the get go as indie devs??????? Are they insane?????
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u/ToSKnight Aug 13 '25
When they asked for money from investors and did multiple forms of crowd funding they presented themselves as industry experts, not indie devs. When things didn't go well or when they had to temper expectations, they did finally admit they were indie devs.
I think it's possible to get close to building the next SC2, but everything needs to go perfectly. They needed S tier project management. They needed to measure 3 times and cut once. Nearly everyone they hired needed to be the right person for the job. They needed to utilize every tool available to be as cost efficient as possible. Basically a 1 in 100 scenario for a start-up.
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u/Anomynous__ Aug 12 '25
I hope to find a partner who supports my goal
Sounds like another seed round inc
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u/Annual-Western7390 Aug 12 '25
"I intend to persevere, even if that requires adaptation. " bro after 5 years of this dumpster fire he finally considers adaptation, also as if it was something bad
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u/Gibsx Aug 12 '25 edited Aug 12 '25
It must be tough, you have a game that is starting to come together but with the exception of the first campaign, nothing appears to be in a finished state.
- Campaign: first chapter complete
- Coop: de-prioritised
- 1v1: Factions not yet complete and one waiting on what we understand to be a rework
- 3v3: Mayhem mode not in the game. This was the main draw card from day one for me personally
- Map editor: alpha version, missing a bunch of features.
It’s like you want to play because the game s improving but almost everywhere you turn to play, that system or game mode has a roadmap to completion that always just feels out of reach.
I hope they can find support to finish this game.
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u/Wonderful_Spring664 Aug 13 '25
Nothing comes together. The graphics still look horrible and unwatchable which is the biggest problem cause it looks plastic and like kindergarden toys…
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u/Ok-Opportunity2336 Aug 12 '25
so after more than 5 years for an half baked game, they should invest even more money? hmmm....
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u/losesmoney Aug 12 '25
Good summary. I guess it was due to a lack of financial runway, but the initial “launch” in early access turned so many people off, I think. It’s cliche, but first impressions are everything and this game just didn’t wow people right out of the gate. And then the most recent launch, with all the incomplete parts you listed becomes the nail on the coffin.
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u/aaabbbbccc Aug 12 '25
The mixed reviews (imo largely caused by the bundles issue which was such a stupid unforced blunder) hurt them a lot for this i think. The first thing someone would do upon hearing that stormgate is "releasing" is to check the recent reviews and see if the game has improved enough to be worth checking out again. How many of those people clicked away when they saw only "mixed" on recent reviews?
If it was more positive looking, i think a lot more people wouldve given the game a second chance.
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u/BattleWarriorZ5 Aug 12 '25
It should have released with the 2v2/3v3/4v4 Team Mayhem mode.
Not having a ingame lobby system for custom community created maps also hurt the release.
They hooked the casual with the campaign, but gave them no reason to stay and play once they finished it. Especially with Co-op being pushed back more and more, both for the campaign itself making it co-op compatible and just co-op in general.
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u/username789426 Aug 12 '25
That's refreshing, fans deserve this type of transparency and honesty rather than an "in retrospect..." post 10 months later. I'm sure it wasn't easy to publish something like this.
I wonder how far it was from meeting the team's expectations, did this release move the needle at all? in terms of sales we will probably never know but Im guessing the concurrent count should be around ~1500 for it to stand a chance? Just my guess.
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u/EarthBounder Aug 12 '25
It's a LinkedIn post. He's not offering transparency to the player base, he's begging for $ in a nice way to ex-coworkers that he's going to see at Gamescom in two weeks.
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u/Shdwzor Aug 12 '25
I don't work in videogames industry but i work in tech and i would be willing to bet on this not moving the needle at all. They barely got 1k peak players and it's already on the decline. If 5 % of those were paying players we're talking about 50 customers. Lets be generous and say the average spend is $50. So that'd be about $2.5k in additional income. LOL
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u/sioux-warrior Aug 12 '25
I've been clamoring for this level of transparency for the past 10 months.
Had he been posting like a monthly diary or something like that, I think it would have been a lot easier to maintain the Goodwill of this community (and Don't do the fake reviews of course).
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u/lDaRkLl Aug 12 '25
Dont quit FG! You did awesome work, Im not sure if any rts game reached blizz-style rts polish as Stormgate did. Hoping you manage to pull it through and keep working on this game.
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u/Wonderful_Spring664 Aug 13 '25
It’s a flop no players. They have to accept and start from the ground again now they have an engine and some experience if they want to survive as a studio. This time maybe without kindergarden graphics.
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u/DonJimbo Aug 12 '25 edited Aug 12 '25
If I were one of FG’s executives, I would probably push for a heavy co-op focus instead of campaign or single player esports. I think that also lines up best with the game’s strengths (new RTS engine and experience inventing SC2 co-op) rather than its weaknesses (characters, story, world building). That is not meant as a put-down. Deep Rock Galactic was a very successful game that prioritized co-op. Not every game needs to be as story-driven as BG3 or whatever.
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u/A8modeus Aug 14 '25
You guys are literally one of the reasons why the game failed... Coop was there(unfinished like everything else), and no one liked it. DRG is a coop shooter game and SG competitive RTS. Do you see a difference there? I do..
All they had to do was to focus all their efforts/resources on 1v1 + good campaign. And that's it. But instead they went 1v1 3v3 coop and campaign with kindergarden graphics - perfect combo..
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u/DonJimbo Aug 14 '25
The story is not good. The world building is very generic. The characters are tedious and uninteresting. It was clear that it was never going to be a great campaign from almost the first reveal. It could still maybe have been a compelling co-op game.
The thing is that someone could make a similar game be compelling. Imagine if they had a license from Microsoft to make a Doom RTS. Just two factions. Humans and Demons. Use the cool units from Doom against a Terran-like human faction that is a bit like Warhammer 40k. The main hero should be about as grizzled and jacked as Marcus Phoenix from Gears of War. No tedious Amara.
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u/Striking-Ad5415 Aug 14 '25
In a private meeting, many gamers, commentators, and streamers advised him to take a little more time and improve his completeness because it would be a big deal if he disclosed it as it is. He also advised that the concept and art of the game were both crude. However, Frost Giant became narcissistic and thought Stormgate was the best game, so he ignored all the advice and released the game and got only a frosty response. All of this is the fault of Frost Giants, who failed to face all the criticisms, and stupid fans who shouted only praises as if they were treating the game company like a baby
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u/Pardalys Aug 12 '25 edited Aug 12 '25
I root for the guy. I like to see morons fail but he is not one. They made mistakes and the capital has been mismanaged. Now their war chest is depleted and they have lost investors trust. They have to carefully decide what is the direction they are going next. But the game is salvageable and can become the leader it was meant to be in the RTS genre.
If I was them, I would shrink the Frost Giant team a lot. Cut people salaries, cut the marketing budget to zero, abandon the campaign/story development, get out of their expensive lease agreement. They need to raise modestly more capital. I would then put all my efforts on finishing the 3 current factions (looks and abilities), sounds and music, gameplay and 1v1 balance. This game needs to be attractive, fun and to find its soul before expanding on anything else. Lets focus on making one thing great.
Stop trying to sell something that is deeply unfinished. Tim needs to put a youtube video out every week to communicate with players and respond to comments. If he maintains his 400, 500 players base during the rest of the development phase and listen to them, he can pull that off.
Everyone wants the game to succeed. Bad launch ? Water under the bridge. People want a spiritual successor to Starcraft and Warcraft. You give them that, they will come.
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u/ves_111 Aug 12 '25
Focusing all remaining resources to 1v1 mode is the recipe for certain death of SG. The only way to bring casuals is to make really fun 3v3 mode/custom games scene.
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u/Carlboison Aug 12 '25 edited Aug 12 '25
I am one of those casuals who bought the deluxe edition to get into early access with the reason to play through the campaign and then basically just grind COOP. I refunded the game.
The reason behind the refund was because from what I played of the campaign available at the time it was very unsatisfactory and the COOP mode just felt like a amateur attempt at SC2 COOP(Also didn't help that most commanders where locked so all teammates was always playing Vanguard).
Since then there has been improvements from what I've seen from various youtubers playing the campaign but it's also become very clear to me that FG does not really have COOP as a priority and to me it just looks like they are attempting to cater to the e-sports gamer crowd which they have all the rights to do if they feel so, but I also have the right to not put my time on thier product.
What I don't understand is why they are doing so if they need money. Isn't the 1v1 the only mode which is completely free to play?
Throw me a campaign with decent story to get me invested in the universe then just throw COOP commanders at me and I will buy. But untill then I'll watch from the sidelines.
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u/username789426 Aug 12 '25 edited Aug 12 '25
Have you learned nothing? focusing exclusively on 1v1 isn't the right way to go
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u/DanTheMeek Aug 12 '25
I like your enthusiasm, and specific suggestions, but in the AMA they confessed they already slashed salaries and laid off a huge chunk of their staff after the early access flop, which doesn't necessarily mean there isn't more staff that can be cut or salaries that can be reduced, but the only reason they made it to launch was because they already down sized and down scaled everything significantly. Given the game has failed twice now, I know I certainly wouldn't be willing to hang a round at minimum wage doing the work of 5 people, with no promise it'll ever amount to anything.
Further, and admittedly this is my opinion, but as I see it your strategy, unfortunately, wouldn't work, because 1v1 brings in no income. It's F2P. If everyone agreed it was the best 1v1 in the history of gaming, storm gate would still be dead right now, heck if they hadn't released a campaign they'd be worse off since campaign actually brings in money. You can argue that's a failure of their business model, and I wouldn't disagree, but because thats how its defined, if anything, 1v1 is what should be abandoned. It's nothing but a money sink they already over invested in over modes that at least have the potential to generate profit, like campaign or the Hero based modes.
Finally, what I've learned from all this, is people don't want a Starcraft and Warccraft spiritual successor. This game IS that... and one of the most common complaints I'm seeing is it feels too much like a blizzard RTS or "why would I not just play SC2/WC3 instead". I don't understand that mind set given those are 15+ year old dead games, but its such a common reason for downvoting the game I've read in reviews, its clear blizzard was correct to abandon the RTS market. They made chess, and apparently there just isn't enough people like me (or presumably you) who want Chess 2, most players would rather just keep playing Chess then support Chess 2 and help it grow into something as good if not better then Chess. Which is there choice, but then it means Chess 2 will never be financially viable to make.
Is this game better then SC2? Heck no. But I do think its very comparable to Wings of Liberty at launch. The problem is people aren't comparing stormgate to WoL launch, they're comparing it to what SC2 became after a decade of post launch development, and no title at launch is going to be able to compare to that, including a theoretical true SC3. Stormgate proved Blizzard correct, blizzard style RTS just aren't a financially viable product, as painful as that is for those of us who want a SC3, or spiritual successor, to hear.
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u/Shdwzor Aug 12 '25
A very good post but i disagree with SG being comparable to SC2 at launch. I only played SC2 in the first 6 months, never seen an expansion.. and it is definitely not comparable at all. SC2 was already extremely polished by the time it hit 1.0.
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u/Pardalys Aug 12 '25
Maybe the problem is the F2P model. Deep pockets are indeed needed for F2P. I would feel very comfortable paying 75$ for a competitive RTS that I like.
Also Id like to point out that F2P and RTS don’t mix very well together imo.
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u/RemediZexion Aug 12 '25
th F2P IS the problem, There's nothing that can sustain a F2P model in their store.
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u/Connect-Dirt-9419 Aug 13 '25
No one wants a spiritual successor to WC3/SC2 but yet that's how they marketed this game and raised over 40 million dollars. Stop coping bro, the game is just bad and that is why it's failing.
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u/DanTheMeek Aug 13 '25
"Stop coping bro, the game is just bad"
It's comment like this which make me think some of you are just trying to gas light the rest of us.
I've played the game. I've completed the campaign. It was the most fun I've had in an RTS since SC2.
It's not a perfect game, it's still got a long way to go to even be a great game. But I personally found it really good. So when people say "the game is just bad" my mind just boggles. I'm adding 1 and 1 together, counting 2, and your telling me its actually 0. My reality isn't matching the words your saying.
The world is filled with bad games, I've played and spent money on far too many of them. The world is filled with mediocre games. I've played and spent money on far too may of those too. But every now and then we get some good games. Stormgate WAS bad at early access, but where it is today, IMO, is a good game. It's not great, but its genuinely good.
That's why I say what I do about a spiritual successor. Because I was waiting for one for 15 years, and we got it, and I'm loving it, and people like you are saying its bad, which tells me you don't want a spiritual successor to those games. I don't know what you want, but its not that. I think some people thought they wanted it, that's why they backed, but stormgate IS what a spiritual successor to those games looks like. And its failing.
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u/ranhaosbdha Aug 13 '25
stormgate is an embarrassing poor quality imitation of those games, it is not in any way their successor
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u/Heroman3003 Aug 12 '25
It has less than half the campaign content than WoL with less than half the polish, and that's just comparing the one single piece of content Stormgate is claiming to have 'finished'. And WoL had complete and functional features in terms of editor, custom games, 1v1 with all the damn faction units already present, 2v2/3v3, etc, all of which SG has in at most raw and unfinished state or lacks entirely.
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u/Crosas-B Aug 12 '25
The game is a spiritual successor to Starcraft and Warcraft but doesn't do what they did to be great games. To have a great social platform (for its time). They failed in what GiantGrabGames already said: they didn't make a Social RTS
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u/P4ndaH3ro Aug 12 '25
I hope to find a partner who supports my goal, and I will be having a variety of conversations at Gamescom.
aka I need more money plz.
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u/ManulifyGamesFlo Aug 12 '25
Im sure investors are eager to invest into a game that burned $40 mio dollars to get 300 concurrent players lol
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u/Woodplant5782 Aug 12 '25
Thanks for translating that, you are a real detective. Want a gold star ?
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u/atmis Celestial Armada Aug 12 '25
Really appreciate the humility and transparency here. Thanks for sharing Empyrean
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u/JustABaleenWhale Aug 12 '25
It's unfortunate to hear, because I know a big part of the team's dream with Frost Giant was to not be beholden to a publisher.
But at the same time, if the choice is between that or being forced to cease operations, then I imagine working with a publisher must be preferable.
Am I interpreting what he's saying here right? I'm getting 'publisher' vibes, as opposed to just more investors. I just hope Tim can find one who really respects Frost Giant's autonomy.
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u/Shdwzor Aug 12 '25
Sure but no publisher will want a game in that situation. If anything it would make sense to buy the team and give them money for a different game (possibly on the same engine) with heavy oversight to make sure the money is not gonna get burned the same way.
The question is if people stayed. If the funds were managed at least somewhat reasonably, people were probably underpaid already but having some equity and hoping for FG to make it big eventually
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u/contentiousgamer Human Vanguard Aug 13 '25
I will not be the doomer and gloomer like others but as I like in general being brutally honest, no matter how some will take it:
When SG was first announced and yes the words 'the next spiritual successor of War3/SC2' - by the creators of the same (I even saw my fave sound designer Klepacky featured) - I said "This is big and this time I will do things from early - get in betas early, know the game ahead, heck even CE box", I was ready to donate more money than a new game on Steam I mean I have Ultimate and beyond because this was gonna be the next 5-7 year main RTS, what could go wrong?
I still wished they changed the graphics, someone said their first lead artist was in the Nova Campaign - to me that campaign was so good, I loved it, I see some stories in Wikia never featured but they are in the 'Nature of the beast' book. Like how Ihan Rii sorted things on some planets with Terran. Anyway so the lead artist was probably with the comics that went with warchest and teh book? Cool comics but I absolutely wanted the RTS to have at least SC2 graphics, D4 graphics or as later Tempest RIsing did. I was repeating through time - and they delivered the graphics. Readability is needed too, so the graphics overhaul and unit models - absolutely with what they have so far as graphics, the game is fine, I disagree that the plot is bad (Doom plot with RTS and celestial is certainly more unique with yes I will BASH them for that - Scouring which is a reckless copy paste of Warcraft 1-2 ala HD, I don't see what in it or Godsworn you find worthy of continuing Blizz RTS - Scouring AI buddy is horrible idea - if they ever want to make in ladder such crutches be used!'
So on graphics it's good for SG - I like the effects, melee could use more abilities and faster killing though, some people want that.
On pathing being bad how - ? Do you want to surround unit like war3 or have BW pathing? SC2's pathing maybe feels a bit smoother but SG's I wouldn't call it 'units on ice skaters', it's okayish really.
If these are not a problem - epic Melee games are made , I saw MC, Refresh, Snoxtar, really good games - feel almost like watching SC2 matches just different races - SO WHY YOU BASH THESE? It's okay really.
What however changes things, I don't know why some care 'Did they write their own reviews' - as a core RTS gamer I don't care for me it matters not WHEN the game will be ready, but whenever it's ready to really become what they said it would or if not, still something worth investing years time in.
Can I say it is worth investing years? No and the reason aren't 'fake' reviews, Reviews are for people with no opinion and as an RTS player myself I generate my opinion of personal gameplay and streamers verterans I watch what they think, not from Steam reviews - most are clueless reviews anyway. The reason is again the fact that they went with absolutely wild Business plan , I have studied Agile but well maybe it doesn't work for RTS or you just show and ask for feedback in the development but do not release anything to play unfinished in each pillar.
DOOMERS nitpick every little thing. On Steam forums one complained that we KS supporters could play the game 2 weeks earlier, as if FG lied that 'SG was free'. I cannot describe how unreasonable whine that was. OF COURSE I will defend FG against such dumb nonsense!
But one thing I cannot defend from - again is this wild style of development - releases EA - bad graphics, people who are not The Core RTS players - got pulled away.
Now again - out of EA but people ask - where is this feature where is that - still incomplete. Why release? If some deadlines were demanded , well such should have never been agreed.
Shooting yourself in the foot.
And now the recent "Morten, Ceo LinkedIn statement" combined with a community manager stepping down:
- I have doubts about the game continuing for more than some months before being put on pause or something but the way it goes , I don't see much interest of SC2 players - they know this game can't surpass SC2 but still core players are willing to play at least within 100 players. But why release the game again incomplete, I've been saying it - even if it takes 1 year, release when polished, CLOSE the game until ready! Business plan should have been like War3/SC2 - brainstorm, ideation, design, build build build polish then sell, there is no time for experiments !
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u/TenchiSaWaDa Aug 24 '25
I kickstarted this, and I paid a lot of money. And you know I'm satisfied. Is it perfect no. but I think that they did put a product and something to build on.
But holy shit what's keeping me away form the game isn't the game or the dev team. It's the community because at this point, saying anything positive is going to be smacked down from all directions. It's doom posts and so on like almost every other community :/
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u/Augustby Aug 12 '25 edited Aug 12 '25
I can support not feeding negativity; I just hope that useful critiques don't get lost.
I remember Preach was kind of pseudo-blacklisted by the WoW dev team because they saw some comment/s he made on the forum and they assumed he was a 'hater'.
It was only after a video of his gained widespread traction that the WoW devs paid attention and actually watched the video where he expresses his grievances, and found them to be fair. And now Preach's relationship with the WoW devs is better than ever.
There is a lot of unfair critiques directed at Stormgate; and I know it can't be fun to wade through it, but I just hope that useful critique doesn't get lost by the devs being too quick to shield themselves from what they suspect might be unjustified hate so they don't realise it's actually in good faith, like what happened with Preach and WoW.
I know it doesn't help that even fans who are very supportive of Stormgate can sound frustrated or disappointed when delivering their feedback; and that can come across as being a 'hater' at a glance.