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uummpaa
238 Posts
if they release a decent game with a good engine id still check it out, i think its rather certain now that the cell- to smart phone leap for RTS wont be with stormgate, but it still can be a good time and maybe it will be an intermediate step to the actual next big thing | ||
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MegaBuster
167 Posts
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WombaT
Northern Ireland27230 Posts
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MegaBuster
167 Posts
So everything Blizzard has done from the WoW-era onward (aka the sociopath era) is about taking shit. They call it being good at 'polish' or 'honing'. For some reason you could have the exact same shit outside the company that someone inside the company said 5 years ago but they won't pursue it until somebody else did it. The only tiny points of light that get through this system is those key individual figures who had some kind of pushing power (Metzen). It just gets the wheels turning for them in incredible ways to see someone else succeeding with something. I worked for someone at Blizzard on a very teensy tiny modding thing where just the slightest bit of either them making a decision, or giving me the power to make a decision would have multiplied the usefulness of what was produced by like 100x. I would email them like "HEY - can I do it like this? Or can you choose a way to do it?" And they would respond with a mousy squeal of "OH GOSH" and ghost my emails for a month. That same person at any earlier time, when I was a doing events for StarCraft, took an entire event I did, went to Blizzard and worked with Blizzard themselves to clone my work down to the fine details. They busted ass and launched something with a corporate sponsor real fucking fast, and to my knowledge it was the only time Blizzard ever made anything for a StarCraft event that used custom maps in it. (shy of like some Archon mode stuff). Same person — when they were stealing they were decisive and deadly — when they had to make new creative work they were terrified and timid. Somehow they select for these behaviors amongst the people at these companies (Blizzard and now Frost Giant). This is why its obvious to me the only thing that fulfills this kind of mission statement for Stormgate 'to heighten the skill ceiling and lower the skill floor' is the stuff they could look at in TotalBiscuit's Axiom mod and then put in their game. They just refuse all innovation unless someone else did it first. Once its been done they can somehow quickly motivate themselves to sidestep the bureaucracy and just clone that thing from the market, in this case their own mods. Its almost like procrastination in a way — they need to wait until the decision has been made for them to finally act. That's why they want the modders fucking outside the company where they may be harvested from rather than inside the company where they would add the terrible tension that comes from creativity. It works for modern Blizzard but for a startup its a different story. At Frost Giant you have a group of 'honers' and 'polishers' very out of their element. | ||
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LunarC
United States1186 Posts
On May 28 2024 09:34 MegaBuster wrote: The fundamental problem of Blizzard and its imitators is that they can not puncture their endlessly layered baklava-like internal bureaucracy with any argument nor prototype, but they are deeply persuaded by things that are succeeding in the market. So everything Blizzard has done from the WoW-era onward (aka the sociopath era) is about taking shit. They call it being good at 'polish' or 'honing'. For some reason you could have the exact same shit outside the company that someone inside the company said 5 years ago but they won't pursue it until somebody else did it. The only tiny points of light that get through this system is those key individual figures who had some kind of pushing power (Metzen). It just gets the wheels turning for them in incredible ways to see someone else succeeding with something. I worked for someone at Blizzard on a very teensy tiny modding thing where just the slightest bit of either them making a decision, or giving me the power to make a decision would have multiplied the usefulness of what was produced by like 100x. I would email them like "HEY - can I do it like this? Or can you choose a way to do it?" And they would respond with a mousy squeal of "OH GOSH" and ghost my emails for a month. That same person at any earlier time, when I was a doing events for StarCraft, took an entire event I did, went to Blizzard and worked with Blizzard themselves to clone my work down to the fine details. They busted ass and launched something with a corporate sponsor real fucking fast, and to my knowledge it was the only time Blizzard ever made anything for a StarCraft event that used custom maps in it. (shy of like some Archon mode stuff). Same person — when they were stealing they were decisive and deadly — when they had to make new creative work they were terrified and timid. Somehow they select for these behaviors amongst the people at these companies (Blizzard and now Frost Giant). This is why its obvious to me the only thing that fulfills this kind of mission statement for Stormgate 'to heighten the skill ceiling and lower the skill floor' is the stuff they could look at in TotalBiscuit's Axiom mod and then put in their game. They just refuse all innovation unless someone else did it first. Once its been done they can somehow quickly motivate themselves to sidestep the bureaucracy and just clone that thing from the market, in this case their own mods. Its almost like procrastination in a way — they need to wait until the decision has been made for them to finally act. That's why they want the modders fucking outside the company where they may be harvested from rather than inside the company where they would add the terrible tension that comes from creativity. It works for modern Blizzard but for a startup its a different story. At Frost Giant you have a group of 'honers' and 'polishers' very out of their element. Sounds like a highly risk averse way of operating, which I suppose makes sense for a public company but not a start up. It sounds primarily like an issue with the leadership and game designers because by all accounts their engineering appears quite solid. Do you think there's a chance leadership recognizes they need to hire more disruptive design talent or focus resources into the map editor so a talent pool may be discovered and hired from? | ||
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MegaBuster
167 Posts
you would have been a better director though — do you come from a high-born southern Californian bloodline? OKAY NOW I need you to get excited! Their ROADMAP to a ROADMAP just dropped: Roadmap steps taken so far: 1. Gather milestone info from the dev team 2. Dev team feedback compiled while they work really hard on the game 3. Draft initial road map 4. Share first draft with dev team 5. More feedback compiled We are here: 6. Hand off to team member with design skills who will create revised road map 7. Share revision with leadership for final approval 8. Final/latest feedback compiled 9. Lock in “final” Road Map v1 10. Share final Road Map v1 with community on Discord/Reddit 11. Include Road Map (or text version) in Early Access build (cross our fingers as this is one of many UX requests) The road map was first teased with the crowd equity campaign announcement about 4 months ago so things are ploughing ahead. | ||
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uummpaa
238 Posts
also none of the above is in any way special for blizz, every big company tends to "buy innovation" instread of doing their own r&d. its a simple numbers thing to stick with gaming, there are multiple orders of magnitude moreindie game devs/modders/ppl in forums with ideas than any r&d department ever could come up with, of course youll find more (and therefore better) innovation in the former. bigger corps tend to just yoink that and idealy improves upon that (which takes another, more hidden type of innovation btw). blizzard was famous for their supirior engines in their games, thats just because of their talent working on it. of course one can discuss if FG shlould act like a AAA studio, but its an enviroment that worked very well for them in the past, there is no natural law saying how a start up studio has to be structured and to be frank, IF they would have hired modders aross the board, the same ppl here would complain how they burned their money on some modders with no real dev experiance, and lack of foucs on core mechanics etc if one has already decided they already like/dislike something its very easy to twist anything fitting to their pov, wether or not thats a good way to pass ones time is another thing | ||
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Harris1st
Germany7326 Posts
Uncapped games reveal on Summer Game Fest June 7th Stormgate 3rd race reveal on PC Gaming Show June 9th | ||
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6KAI6EL6
5 Posts
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Branch.AUT
Austria853 Posts
On May 29 2024 19:04 6KAI6EL6 wrote: I'm a little confused. Why is this game kickstarter/indiegogo funded when it is backed by venture capital? Seems like scumbag capitalist double dipping to me, asking the fans to fund a game you already secured millions in funding for. Because running a company and paying employees is expensive. Especially if the company offers the employees attractive compensation and benefits. Even more so, for very specialized and highly skilled employees. | ||
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gingerfluffmuffnr2
107 Posts
On May 29 2024 19:04 6KAI6EL6 wrote: I'm a little confused. Why is this game kickstarter/indiegogo funded when it is backed by venture capital? Seems like scumbag capitalist double dipping to me, asking the fans to fund a game you already secured millions in funding for. Cause they are burning a cool mil/month. | ||
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_Spartak_
Turkey459 Posts
On May 29 2024 19:04 6KAI6EL6 wrote: I'm a little confused. Why is this game kickstarter/indiegogo funded when it is backed by venture capital? Seems like scumbag capitalist double dipping to me, asking the fans to fund a game you already secured millions in funding for. What's the purpose of the Kickstarter and StartEngine campaigns? The Kickstarter campaign primarily funded physical collector’s editions and offset server costs to provide wider beta access. The Kickstarter was highly successful (thank you all so much for your support!) and also generated some surplus, which Frost Giant is investing directly back into development. https://playstormgate.com/news/frost-giant-business-faq | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland27230 Posts
On May 29 2024 19:04 6KAI6EL6 wrote: I'm a little confused. Why is this game kickstarter/indiegogo funded when it is backed by venture capital? Seems like scumbag capitalist double dipping to me, asking the fans to fund a game you already secured millions in funding for. I think one can argue that they both weren’t super tight with their finances, but equally market conditions have changed quite a lot in the sector. I mean when they started raising capital they seemed to not have too many issues, whereas this last year or so is pretty characterised with storied, successful studios being closed down every second week. So in that sense I don’t find it particularly egregious if they’re seeking alternate avenues of funding if expected ones have shrivelled up. On the flip side I think there is a lack of transparency on this particular issue so I can understand some annoyance. Particularly the pivot from messaging being that the game was fully funded, or the implication thereof changing to ‘funded until early access’ I’m unsure if the plan was, after early success to get more traditional investment to get the project done, and that became much harder for them to do, or if the initial capital investments were anticipated to be sufficient and they’ve burned money and are now scrambling for some more. And I, like others are likely to be a lot more sympathetic to one scenario than the other | ||
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MegaBuster
167 Posts
And for the rounds they were looking for its really damn generous to only talk about the market. They were showing people the actual game and its early reception was available! They probably showed Marc Andreesen a greybox prototype, he googled the response to their first trailer, rubbed his bald head like a genie lamp and said no. Griffin Gaming (one of their funds) absolutely unloaded on a 100 mil round for Marvel Snap post-launch so there was more freaking money. They are also going to do another WarChest right out the gate with some heavy emotional baggage around paying for esports so look out for that on the roadmap. | ||
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_Spartak_
Turkey459 Posts
Griffin Gaming (one of their funds) absolutely unloaded on a 100 mil round for Marvel Snap post-launch so there was more freaking money. Yeah, companies tend to be more willing to invest in games that have proven to be a success after their launch. | ||
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Miragee
8690 Posts
Why are you posting this? The original statement (obviously) said nothing about a surplus and the fact they are running out of money was just a rumor back then. Then it came out and Frost Giant changed the FAQ, stating they are going to use the money for development as well. In another statement they also said they are going to use the extra money from kickstarter and crowd equity for advertising. At this point it's pretty clear the reasons they listed when they launched the kickstarter where mostly a cover-up for their finicial situation. I think just linking a FAQ from a company that just recently lied to its customers and fans without mentioning any of that is missleading for new people chiming into the discussion. | ||
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_Spartak_
Turkey459 Posts
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MegaBuster
167 Posts
From the SEC Filings — 2023 Salaries: 8.67 mil 2023 Other Operating Expenses: 4.73 mil 2022 Salaries: 6.62 mil 2022 Other Operating Expenses: 3.89 mil How the fuck is the 25% Overhead? You going to believe anything in that FAQ? | ||
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WGT-Baal
France3509 Posts
On May 29 2024 17:43 Harris1st wrote: Big week ahead: Uncapped games reveal on Summer Game Fest June 7th Stormgate 3rd race reveal on PC Gaming Show June 9th so if it m reading that right in about 10 days we (and by we i mean y all) can then discuss the mysterious 3rd race here yes? | ||
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Miragee
8690 Posts
On May 30 2024 03:16 _Spartak_ wrote: This is the original statement and it hasn't been changed. Yeah, I worded that incorrectly. What I meant was, they said nothing about spending the money on development when they launched the kickstarter (i.e. original statement). The FAQ came a bit later and they changed their original statement to what it is in the FAQ. Later on, they said they are also going to use the money for advertisments, which was stated neither in the kickstarter campaign nor in the FAQ. On May 30 2024 03:55 WGT-Baal wrote: so if it m reading that right in about 10 days we (and by we i mean y all) can then discuss the mysterious 3rd race here yes? Yes. | ||
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