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On April 09 2024 22:43 _Spartak_ wrote:Show nested quote +Well, I don't think you need to pull of these numbers to become successful, at least not immediately...if it wasn't for their high expenses and thus need for money. They could have spent less for the same product to have more time to grow slowly. Sure but then you don't get to hire experienced Blizzard staff and if you don't get that pedigree, you don't get the $35m funding from investors or hundreds of thousands of wishlists in the first place.
The VC series a is primarily based on the cofounders resume and their initial prototype. Less on who they hire afterwards. Them hiring 50 employees with average salary expenses of 200K seems excessive.
Has there ever in a history been a single other startup studio with any type of salary expenses comparable to that? Perhaps John Romero Daikatana? But if he succeeded that could also have been a megahit. In contrast, the best case scenario for Stormgate is a "strong" niche.
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On April 10 2024 01:00 SoleSteeler wrote:
I don't think anyone will invest without knowing the risks. I'm surprised they think 50% of WoL players (on launch?) is realistic, although I guess I don't know how many people were playing WoL on launch? WoL sold 3 million copies in its first month.
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Filings say Tim Morten/Tim Campbell each getting paid 250k (and hold 17% equity) - that's the number they were okay publishing as if to say - hey look we are not being greedy here guys.
This seems way excessive as well. Where is the catch? You get paid somewhat close to market level salary while holding 17% equity???
Would it be impossible for them to make a decent living in LA at say 150K until the company has stablished itself?
I can't imagine any VC firm being particularly happy about this?
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I think what really bothers me is the (probably reasonable) human instinct to taper off negativity after so much time.
Like I can see people being like — "Oof this is tough news, while lets just hope everyone doesn't take it too seriously.  "
I can't understate how easy and what kid gloves Frost Giant is getting for what they've accomplished with this money. People keep saying equivalents of — "Well there's no experts in the room, lets just diffuse all this tension and pretend things are unknowable!".
I don't think that, I wish you all the energy to mount up enough mental resources to see this for what it is.
Here's the thing:
When the Infernal workers mine luminite, they walk up to the glowing rock and make a motion like they are collecting berries.
Hmmm yes, hm, yes very good.
Maybe you could say they whack it and tickle it with their hands. Then there's nothing in their hands and they walk back to the base with arms at their sides.
This is the first thing you see in the game. They do it on a big lake of mud that's the grey-beige colour scientists say is most representative of the concept of entropy (because if you add up all the colour in the universe it creates this particular shade of gray-beige, it is the iconic representation of slop).
The workers look sad. Like their emotions while working looks like someone leaving a startup that has 5 mths to make money or go under. Are the real workers of Stormgate sad?
That's all you really need to see. If you sit and think and consider the chain of reviews that the berry picking imps had to graduate through and people be okay with it — you will go mad. Imagine how many pairs of 250k earning eyeballs the beams of light carrying this dismal information had to bounce through.
Its the first thing you see in the game and there's not a thought of like, oh what the fuck does this even mean. Why are the imps slapping the gold mine thing, why didn't they even get any gold to carry.
CAN THEY GET A FUCKING GOLD SACK LIKE THE PEASANTS FROM WARCRAFT 1? HELLO?
Tim Morten and Tim Campbell get a sack of gold why not the fucking imps!
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Listen, the Stormgate reddit moderator saying this "(if they fail) then the genre is doomed anyway" is fucking whack.
Nothing about dipshits failing means anything about the possibilities of games, or RTS, or anything. Its just bullcrap, its the counter-swing of all the emotional manipulation behind this game. (SC2 is failing! this is the future for your favourite players and casters! We invented StarCraft kind of sort of!). Its intentional demoralization to try to cover a failure.
You should feel the opposite. Feel excited about how the truth makes fools out of people. When someone doesn't even look at their game closely enough to know what the fuck the workers are doing when they walk to a gold mine, then it means the people failed, its not proving some grim truth of life.
How much fucking money did they spend 'planning esports' (TORCH!) vs. what will actually end up in people's POCKETS. Every esports influencer who was misled to try to get something from this before launch is an imp thoughtlessly smacking a luminite rock and carrying nothing home.
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How much fucking money did they spend 'planning esports' (TORCH!) vs. what will actually end up in people's POCKETS. Every esports influencer who was misled to try to get something from this before launch is an imp thoughtlessly smacking a luminite rock and carrying nothing home.
Does anyone actually know or have any insights as to why Torch was hired several years before the game was to be launched?
I wonder how many of these types of hires they made back VC money were easy to get.
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RTS is not doomed. Starcraft. Warcraft . Age of empires are good games point. Good games are always going to be played. Stormgate failing just means the game wasnt good. There was a need for a new starcraft and Frosgiant sold it like this game will be almost their vision for a starcraft 3 and fixing the mistakes from the past. We are in Alpha or Beta so there is still a long way to go. Sadly they struggling atm with finances. So is not certain if we will ever see that vision. ( and from the little we have seen there is not much to be hyped about either. )
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it is getting easier and easier to make games. So making an RTS requires a smaller and smaller team. It ain't 1995 guys. The tools for making games these days are off-the-charts incredible.
C# is a an easy high level version of C++. You can make a multi platform games with Unity and C#. Its an easy walk in the park.
The AI artist tools are getting so good the Artists themselves know they're getting laid off.
To borrow a famous quote : "Making Video Games Is Super Easy, Barely An Inconvenience"
On April 10 2024 01:38 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +How much fucking money did they spend 'planning esports' (TORCH!) vs. what will actually end up in people's POCKETS. Every esports influencer who was misled to try to get something from this before launch is an imp thoughtlessly smacking a luminite rock and carrying nothing home. Does anyone actually know or have any insights as to why Torch was hired several years before the game was to be launched? I wonder how many of these types of hires they made back VC money were easy to get.
i think a huge portion of the money went to Tim Morten , TIm Campbell and whoever within Kakao that approved the big $20M deal.
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On April 10 2024 01:38 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +How much fucking money did they spend 'planning esports' (TORCH!) vs. what will actually end up in people's POCKETS. Every esports influencer who was misled to try to get something from this before launch is an imp thoughtlessly smacking a luminite rock and carrying nothing home. Does anyone actually know or have any insights as to why Torch was hired several years before the game was to be launched? I wonder how many of these types of hires they made back VC money were easy to get.
VCs back then liked esports, no?
They do have other really dubious hires. Towards the end of last year they hired Vincent Bitetti, former CEO of TDK, who is now "Vice President of Licensing" at Frost Giant. Why did they hire an old executive from the entertainment industry as VP of licensing for Stormgate?
How is something like that not mentioned in the SEC filing, if they think that the Stormgate IP is so good that they can license it out to produce other media and justify this certainly not cheap of a VP hire? At this point they already knew that they run out of money.
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On April 10 2024 02:47 megun wrote:
How is something like that not mentioned in the SEC filing, if they think that the Stormgate IP is so good that they can license it out to produce other media and justify this certainly not cheap of a VP hire? At this point they already knew that they run out of money.
GameReplays.org is the TL.Net of the C&C Universe. Tim Morten's Victory Games hired the owner and founder of GameReplays.org weeks before Victory Games was closed. I felt bad for the owner//founder guy of GR.Org.
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via Vincent Bitetti's linkedin.
"Mr Bitetti was recruited because of his ability to identify popular video game content/characters prior to the Intellectual Property entering the mainstream. Shrek, the UFC, Pirates of the Caribbean, Babe the pig. In addition he was instrumental in bringing Star Trek, The Twilight Zone, I Love Lucy, Saturday Night Live and other well known properties into interactive before their resurgence decades after their heyday."
to make the I Love Lucy of RTS you have to assemble the right team
Every recommendation for this man on linkedin is from another 70 year old man who is retired.
Why is their fucking game studio dustier than a sarcophagus?
Remember when they signed on for the Mansfield rule publicly? (see Rooney Rule) Can they add BELOW THE AGE OF 50 to the interviewing quotas?
Also when you google this man you just find his WEED business that failed. Do you think he has some cool business development ideas for stormgate sativias, or other fun named strains?
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To make a profitable game on a small budget what you do is you hire guys as talented as Samwise Didier and Bob Fitch when they are 20.
You do not hire them when they are in their 50s because they are all charging $250/hour minimum. Most of the guys with whom I graduated are making 10X what they made two years after they graduated.
Also, once you get a bit of real world experience you are better able to avoid projects you can tell are doomed. 20 year olds will do anything.
They gotta be paying Samwise Didier a giant pile of cash.
On April 10 2024 03:10 MegaBuster wrote:
"Mr Bitetti was recruited because of his ability to identify popular video game content/characters prior to the Intellectual Property entering the mainstream. Shrek, the UFC, Pirates of the Caribbean, Babe the pig. In addition he was instrumental in bringing Star Trek, The Twilight Zone, I Love Lucy, Saturday Night Live and other well known properties into interactive before their resurgence decades after their heyday."
"Jane You Ignorant Slut!". SNL has been garbage for a very very long time.
The only reason I know SNL exists is because of Andy Kaufman. Otherwise, I'd have no clue what it was and most people under 40 share my view.
My 76 year old grandmother watches I Love Lucy reruns. Sadly, My grandmother plays video games more hours per week than I do. She plays some kind of Candy Crush game and a competitive form of Tetris and a competitive form of Scrabble on her tablet.
I don't really see my grandma picking up an RTS game though.
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On April 10 2024 02:35 JimmyJRaynor wrote:
it is getting easier and easier to make games. So making an RTS requires a smaller and smaller team. It ain't 1995 guys. The tools for making games these days are off-the-charts incredible.
I don't understand this complaint at all. Frost Giant's entire deal is making the next generation RTS, and that isn't cheap. If you disagree with that goal and would rather they make their little indie game with an existing engine and p2p matchmaking then fair enough, but then there would be complaints they didn't innovate enough or advance the genre.
A reminder of their goals:
- Brand new engine made specifically for RTS, that can easily handle giant unit counts
- 4 supported gamemodes, 1v1, 3v3, 3vE, campaign, all with their own dev teams
- The best RTS editor to date, with support for community customs and map creation
- Next gen RTS network that uses rollback to allow for global matchmaking
- Esports and tournament integration all within the client
- Live replays streamed in game, support for thousands of observers to join games at any point
None of the other upcoming games are doing any of this, obviously Gates of Pyre and Zerospace don't need Stormgate's budget.
You can make a good RTS with existing engines, or even in the sc2 editor if you really wanted to, but you couldn't make "The RTS of the future". It's insane to think you could do all of this without spending tens of millions.
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On April 10 2024 04:31 Fango wrote:Show nested quote +On April 10 2024 02:35 JimmyJRaynor wrote:
it is getting easier and easier to make games. So making an RTS requires a smaller and smaller team. It ain't 1995 guys. The tools for making games these days are off-the-charts incredible. I don't understand this complaint at all. Frost Giant's entire deal is making the next generation RTS, and that isn't cheap. If you disagree with that goal and would rather they make their little indie game with an existing engine and p2p matchmaking then fair enough, but then there would be complaints they didn't innovate enough or advance the genre. A reminder of their goals: - Brand new engine made specifically for RTS, that can easily handle giant unit counts - 4 supported gamemodes, 1v1, 3v3, 3vE, campaign, all with their own dev teams - The best RTS editor to date, with support for community customs and map creation - Next gen RTS network that uses rollback to allow for global matchmaking - Esports and tournament integration all within the client - Live replays streamed in game, support for thousands of observers to join games at any point None of the other upcoming games are doing any of this, obviously Gates of Pyre and Zerospace don't need Stormgate's budget. You can make a good RTS with existing engines, or even in the sc2 editor if you really wanted to, but you couldn't make "The RTS of the future". It's insane to think you could do all of this without spending tens of millions. "No one else is doing this" is rarely a good argument for doing something. There is often a very good reason no one else is doing it.
Step 1 is work within your means. If SG fully releases and makes a bunch of money and supports their game for years to come then good for them and good for the RTS genre. But right now it looks like they are running out of money this summer, are scrambling to find additional investors and if the EA launch doesn't hit the ground running they are not going to deliver on any of those promises because they will be dead and closed down within the year
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On April 10 2024 01:18 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +On April 09 2024 22:43 _Spartak_ wrote:Well, I don't think you need to pull of these numbers to become successful, at least not immediately...if it wasn't for their high expenses and thus need for money. They could have spent less for the same product to have more time to grow slowly. Sure but then you don't get to hire experienced Blizzard staff and if you don't get that pedigree, you don't get the $35m funding from investors or hundreds of thousands of wishlists in the first place. The VC series a is primarily based on the cofounders resume and their initial prototype. Less on who they hire afterwards. Them hiring 50 employees with average salary expenses of 200K seems excessive. Has there ever in a history been a single other startup studio with any type of salary expenses comparable to that? Perhaps John Romero Daikatana? But if he succeeded that could also have been a megahit. In contrast, the best case scenario for Stormgate is a "strong" niche.
They didn't only raise seed funding. Their seed funding was 4.7m, followed by a 5m round. They raised most of their funding when they built the fundamental tech for their game and people like James Anhalt would have played a big role in both building thay tech and attracting investors for the Series A round with their resume.
This type of model is relatively new but pretty much all of the recent VC-backed studios that split off from AAA companies will have similar salary expenses. A similar studio, Theorycraft Games, raised $87.5m in funding without even showing a similar market traction as FG did. Second Dinner had a 30 million budget for building a card game. The appeal of these startups is that they are studios that employ a lot of experienced developers who worked on AAA studios and that means high salary expenses. This is not something that will come as a shock to their investors.
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Northern Ireland25862 Posts
On April 10 2024 04:52 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On April 10 2024 04:31 Fango wrote:On April 10 2024 02:35 JimmyJRaynor wrote:
it is getting easier and easier to make games. So making an RTS requires a smaller and smaller team. It ain't 1995 guys. The tools for making games these days are off-the-charts incredible. I don't understand this complaint at all. Frost Giant's entire deal is making the next generation RTS, and that isn't cheap. If you disagree with that goal and would rather they make their little indie game with an existing engine and p2p matchmaking then fair enough, but then there would be complaints they didn't innovate enough or advance the genre. A reminder of their goals: - Brand new engine made specifically for RTS, that can easily handle giant unit counts - 4 supported gamemodes, 1v1, 3v3, 3vE, campaign, all with their own dev teams - The best RTS editor to date, with support for community customs and map creation - Next gen RTS network that uses rollback to allow for global matchmaking - Esports and tournament integration all within the client - Live replays streamed in game, support for thousands of observers to join games at any point None of the other upcoming games are doing any of this, obviously Gates of Pyre and Zerospace don't need Stormgate's budget. You can make a good RTS with existing engines, or even in the sc2 editor if you really wanted to, but you couldn't make "The RTS of the future". It's insane to think you could do all of this without spending tens of millions. "No one else is doing this" is rarely a good argument for doing something. There is often a very good reason no one else is doing it. Step 1 is work within your means. If SG fully releases and makes a bunch of money and supports their game for years to come then good for them and good for the RTS genre. But right now it looks like they are running out of money this summer, are scrambling to find additional investors and if the EA launch doesn't hit the ground running they are not going to deliver on any of those promises because they will be dead and closed down within the year
It gets somewhat circular because one can kind of argue that Frost Giant gained as much hype and initial funding as they did because of their stated goal to be the next big RTS. AA RTS games that are fun for a play through, probably make a modest profit are dime a dozen.
But yeah as you say the financials really look rather worrying from the outside, and it may be a case of them biting off more than they could chew. Or were merely unlucky, which does also happen. There’s a general squeeze in many areas of the industry which has claimed some cherished studios whole, or seen layoffs so it’s probably a less than ideal time to be trying to get a new one up and running.
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On April 10 2024 04:52 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On April 10 2024 04:31 Fango wrote:On April 10 2024 02:35 JimmyJRaynor wrote:
it is getting easier and easier to make games. So making an RTS requires a smaller and smaller team. It ain't 1995 guys. The tools for making games these days are off-the-charts incredible. I don't understand this complaint at all. Frost Giant's entire deal is making the next generation RTS, and that isn't cheap. If you disagree with that goal and would rather they make their little indie game with an existing engine and p2p matchmaking then fair enough, but then there would be complaints they didn't innovate enough or advance the genre. A reminder of their goals: - Brand new engine made specifically for RTS, that can easily handle giant unit counts - 4 supported gamemodes, 1v1, 3v3, 3vE, campaign, all with their own dev teams - The best RTS editor to date, with support for community customs and map creation - Next gen RTS network that uses rollback to allow for global matchmaking - Esports and tournament integration all within the client - Live replays streamed in game, support for thousands of observers to join games at any point None of the other upcoming games are doing any of this, obviously Gates of Pyre and Zerospace don't need Stormgate's budget. You can make a good RTS with existing engines, or even in the sc2 editor if you really wanted to, but you couldn't make "The RTS of the future". It's insane to think you could do all of this without spending tens of millions. "No one else is doing this" is rarely a good argument for doing something. There is often a very good reason no one else is doing it.
So just don't do anything? Don't try to make a modern RTS and let SC2 be the pinnacle of the genre (technologically speaking) forever?
My point is simply that commentators around here are using 'other studios can make RTS for cheap" as some kind of dig at Frost Giant being bad with money. I'm trying to say that's silly because no other studio is doing anything of the same scope.
If you disagree with Frost Giants goals or think they won't be able to fund such a big concept, then fair enough. But you can't say they could have made Stormgate for cheap or with a small team like (comparatively) Zerospace or Gates of Pyre are
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On April 10 2024 05:01 _Spartak_ wrote:Show nested quote +On April 10 2024 01:18 Hider wrote:On April 09 2024 22:43 _Spartak_ wrote:Well, I don't think you need to pull of these numbers to become successful, at least not immediately...if it wasn't for their high expenses and thus need for money. They could have spent less for the same product to have more time to grow slowly. Sure but then you don't get to hire experienced Blizzard staff and if you don't get that pedigree, you don't get the $35m funding from investors or hundreds of thousands of wishlists in the first place. The VC series a is primarily based on the cofounders resume and their initial prototype. Less on who they hire afterwards. Them hiring 50 employees with average salary expenses of 200K seems excessive. Has there ever in a history been a single other startup studio with any type of salary expenses comparable to that? Perhaps John Romero Daikatana? But if he succeeded that could also have been a megahit. In contrast, the best case scenario for Stormgate is a "strong" niche. They didn't only raise seed funding. Their seed funding was 4.7m, followed by a 5m round. They raised most of their funding when they built the fundamental tech for their game and people like James Anhalt would have played a big role in both building thay tech and attracting investors for the Series A round with their resume. This type of model is relatively new but pretty much all of the recent VC-backed studios that split off from AAA companies will have similar salary expenses. A similar studio, Theorycraft Games, raised $87.5m in funding without even showing a similar market traction as FG did. Second Dinner had a 30 million budget for building a card game. The appeal of these startups is that they are studios that employ a lot of experienced developers who worked on AAA studios and that means high salary expenses. This is not something that will come as a shock to their investors.
Hmm, so on that note, these level of expenses were actually somewhat normal. Theorycraft raising an additional 50M in 2022. And I guess stormgate thought they could have raised similar amounts and based their spending based on that. However, the tech-"crash" happened and now it's much harder to raise funds.
On that note, one could perhaps criticize Stormgate for not reducing expenses faster when it became clear that funding wasn't gonna be easy? I assume they kept hiring in late 2022 and 2023.
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On April 10 2024 04:31 Fango wrote:Show nested quote +On April 10 2024 02:35 JimmyJRaynor wrote:
it is getting easier and easier to make games. So making an RTS requires a smaller and smaller team. It ain't 1995 guys. The tools for making games these days are off-the-charts incredible. I don't understand this complaint at all. Frost Giant's entire deal is making the next generation RTS, and that isn't cheap. If you disagree with that goal and would rather they make their little indie game with an existing engine and p2p matchmaking then fair enough, but then there would be complaints they didn't innovate enough or advance the genre. A reminder of their goals: - Brand new engine made specifically for RTS, that can easily handle giant unit counts - 4 supported gamemodes, 1v1, 3v3, 3vE, campaign, all with their own dev teams - The best RTS editor to date, with support for community customs and map creation - Next gen RTS network that uses rollback to allow for global matchmaking - Esports and tournament integration all within the client - Live replays streamed in game, support for thousands of observers to join games at any point None of the other upcoming games are doing any of this, obviously Gates of Pyre and Zerospace don't need Stormgate's budget. You can make a good RTS with existing engines, or even in the sc2 editor if you really wanted to, but you couldn't make "The RTS of the future". It's insane to think you could do all of this without spending tens of millions.
Is the goal too ambitious though? would it have been better with a more narrow focus? Do one thing well at the time before moving onto next project?
On the note of the RTS of the future. I don't think gamemodes matter, I don't think esport integration really matters. I don't think live replays matter. I think you need a great engine and really well thought out and executed game design. They did the first part well but imo failed on the latter.
With a more "agile" focus show early stages of gameplay to the broader target group (and not just the narrow segment who are already die hard RTS fans and want it to succeed) and evaluate their feedback. Do they find it addictingly fun or exciting? If not, you need to reevaluate and rework the game. .
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On April 10 2024 06:43 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +On April 10 2024 04:31 Fango wrote:On April 10 2024 02:35 JimmyJRaynor wrote:
it is getting easier and easier to make games. So making an RTS requires a smaller and smaller team. It ain't 1995 guys. The tools for making games these days are off-the-charts incredible. I don't understand this complaint at all. Frost Giant's entire deal is making the next generation RTS, and that isn't cheap. If you disagree with that goal and would rather they make their little indie game with an existing engine and p2p matchmaking then fair enough, but then there would be complaints they didn't innovate enough or advance the genre. A reminder of their goals: - Brand new engine made specifically for RTS, that can easily handle giant unit counts - 4 supported gamemodes, 1v1, 3v3, 3vE, campaign, all with their own dev teams - The best RTS editor to date, with support for community customs and map creation - Next gen RTS network that uses rollback to allow for global matchmaking - Esports and tournament integration all within the client - Live replays streamed in game, support for thousands of observers to join games at any point None of the other upcoming games are doing any of this, obviously Gates of Pyre and Zerospace don't need Stormgate's budget. You can make a good RTS with existing engines, or even in the sc2 editor if you really wanted to, but you couldn't make "The RTS of the future". It's insane to think you could do all of this without spending tens of millions. Is the goal too ambitious though? would it have been better with a more narrow focus? Do one thing well at the time before moving onto next project? On the note of the RTS of the future. I don't think gamemodes matter, I don't think esport integration really matters. I don't think live replays matter. I think you need a great engine and really well thought out and executed game design. They did the first part well but imo failed on the latter .
Gamemodes definitely matter
With sc2, the most popular gamemodes are campaign and coop, they're also the most profitable. 1v1 falls far behind despite the online community being all about it. If FG want to make the money needed to support competitive play, they need to sell a good campaign and tap into the coop market.
I agree that good game design and a good engine/editor are the most important aspects, but realistically the engine/network are what takes the longest to develop anyway. Everything else that will separate Stormgate form other RTS all feed out of that.
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On April 10 2024 06:37 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +On April 10 2024 05:01 _Spartak_ wrote:On April 10 2024 01:18 Hider wrote:On April 09 2024 22:43 _Spartak_ wrote:Well, I don't think you need to pull of these numbers to become successful, at least not immediately...if it wasn't for their high expenses and thus need for money. They could have spent less for the same product to have more time to grow slowly. Sure but then you don't get to hire experienced Blizzard staff and if you don't get that pedigree, you don't get the $35m funding from investors or hundreds of thousands of wishlists in the first place. The VC series a is primarily based on the cofounders resume and their initial prototype. Less on who they hire afterwards. Them hiring 50 employees with average salary expenses of 200K seems excessive. Has there ever in a history been a single other startup studio with any type of salary expenses comparable to that? Perhaps John Romero Daikatana? But if he succeeded that could also have been a megahit. In contrast, the best case scenario for Stormgate is a "strong" niche. They didn't only raise seed funding. Their seed funding was 4.7m, followed by a 5m round. They raised most of their funding when they built the fundamental tech for their game and people like James Anhalt would have played a big role in both building thay tech and attracting investors for the Series A round with their resume. This type of model is relatively new but pretty much all of the recent VC-backed studios that split off from AAA companies will have similar salary expenses. A similar studio, Theorycraft Games, raised $87.5m in funding without even showing a similar market traction as FG did. Second Dinner had a 30 million budget for building a card game. The appeal of these startups is that they are studios that employ a lot of experienced developers who worked on AAA studios and that means high salary expenses. This is not something that will come as a shock to their investors. I don't think much changed tbh. Maybe they thought they would be able to get some more venture capital, which got harder due to the financial issues in the gaming industry and increased interest rates. But I think the overall plan was always to launch early access and become profitable shortly after. I don't think there was a pivot. Hmm, so on that note, these level of expenses were actually somewhat normal. Theorycraft raising an additional 50M in 2022. And I guess stormgate thought they could have raised similar amounts and based their spending based on that. However, the tech-"crash" happened and now it's much harder to raise funds. On that note, one could perhaps criticize Stormgate for not reducing expenses faster when it became clear that funding wasn't gonna be easy? I assume they kept hiring in late 2022 and 2023.
I don't think much changed tbh. Maybe they thought they would be able to get some more venture capital, which became harder to do due to the financial issues in the gaming industry and increased interest rates. But I think the overall plan was always to launch early access and become profitable shortly after. I don't think there has been a pivot.
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