Many software projects lower their employee #s after product release. It should not be a big shock to see this happen with Stormgate.
It'll be interesting to see how Frost Giant navigates their expenditures once they move off of raising money from investors into generating revenue from consumers.
I do not think they will go from 65 employees to zero. I think They'll do the best they can with whatever revenue comes in.
It is pretty amazing what 5 people can pull off these days... So I remain open minded about the future of Stormgate.
Yeah I just don’t see Tim and Tim making that transition. Downsizing a bit, of course. But to go that lean, they’d have to be part of the content creating grinders themselves, rather than being in more of leadership roles. Who knows though. If it’s that or let the game die, who knows what extremes they’ll go to. I don’t think that’s what they envisioned at all when they founded the studio.
I would think whatever employees they cut, (and they should cut once the game is fully developed and just in maintenance) that they shift those resources into marketing/esports. I know they said their main circuit won't start until 1.0 release so maybe it'll happen around then. In a way, esports is often seen as a marketing strategy in itself for a game. A giant advertisement.
On July 02 2024 23:47 NonY wrote: Yeah I just don’t see Tim and Tim making that transition. Downsizing a bit, of course. But to go that lean, they’d have to be part of the content creating grinders themselves, rather than being in more of leadership roles. Who knows though. If it’s that or let the game die, who knows what extremes they’ll go to. I don’t think that’s what they envisioned at all when they founded the studio.
Pretty much this. No way the leadership is going to cut their own income. And i dont see many people paying 10$ per 3 missions multiple times.
This is Stellaris-level milking, but without a massive game.
On July 02 2024 23:47 NonY wrote: Yeah I just don’t see Tim and Tim making that transition. Downsizing a bit, of course. But to go that lean, they’d have to be part of the content creating grinders themselves, rather than being in more of leadership roles. Who knows though. If it’s that or let the game die, who knows what extremes they’ll go to. I don’t think that’s what they envisioned at all when they founded the studio.
Pretty much this. No way the leadership is going to cut their own income. And i dont see many people paying 10$ per 3 missions multiple times.
This is Stellaris-level milking, but without a massive game.
my understanding is they’re making unique unit models and animations, environments, voice acting, original music, they have cut scenes, there will be new abilities, etc. If it actually all comes together and is good and fun, that is a lot of valuable assets to make it worth the price to me. That’s a lot different than someone slapping together a mission in the sc2 editor using existing assets etc. Of course they could have all those great assets and it could fall flat anyway. But if it’s good, then definitely think a lot of people would like to periodically pay $10 for several hours of high quality RTS campaign
Interesting that the first “skin” they promote is for fog of war, something that is inherently for your screen only, not your opponent’s. Maybe the tiniest drop of hope that we will be able to set the skins for enemy units. Still I’d be shocked if they actually have the balls to do that.
Reaction to fog of war shader: cool idea but this one probably isn’t the one I’d choose. Would like to see it in more environments though.
Reading the last comments it’s making me think, maybe the strategy of marketing all along was to show and “release” little by little a shitty game, a boring game, underneath expectations to be politically correct, and then bam, in your face, supercool futuristic you ain’ t seen it before but you have to pay for every extra chunk.
In hindsight that would make sense, if someone at stormgate had the vision to do that, hats off to them, kinda underplaying it, doing the victim while hiding your true prize.
Until this post, that has not happened, so not cool until proven cool is my modus operandi about this game. I was hyped, I played the open beta, and before that followed the discussions. Until now, having played it, I would not give it even space on my hard disk, even thought I still have 700 gb free.
I do feel bad for the people who actually invested money into it, I hope that simply they will deliver on their promises of the fundraiser, even it that means three getting something that does not satisfy them artistically and gameplay wise, what is fair is fair. I was hyped at the time and debated if to pledge the 1 dollar idealistic support thingy. I did not, I decided to decide to buy the game when it came out, or something.
Remains to be seen what they can archive in the longest run, what is sure is that no matter what up until now people are still talking about this game, so marketing opportunities are always available when that is the case. Bad publicity is better than no publicity
On July 04 2024 06:04 NonY wrote: Interesting that the first “skin” they promote is for fog of war, something that is inherently for your screen only, not your opponent’s. Maybe the tiniest drop of hope that we will be able to set the skins for enemy units. Still I’d be shocked if they actually have the balls to do that.
Reaction to fog of war shader: cool idea but this one probably isn’t the one I’d choose. Would like to see it in more environments though.
i never understood the argument not allowing your opponent to set other skins or to disable them for your opponent all together. Even more so in a 1v1 RTS. Like i can see it more for say a game like dota but i still think you should be able to disable skins if you want to.
On July 04 2024 06:04 NonY wrote: Interesting that the first “skin” they promote is for fog of war, something that is inherently for your screen only, not your opponent’s. Maybe the tiniest drop of hope that we will be able to set the skins for enemy units. Still I’d be shocked if they actually have the balls to do that.
Reaction to fog of war shader: cool idea but this one probably isn’t the one I’d choose. Would like to see it in more environments though.
i never understood the argument not allowing your opponent to set other skins or to disable them for your opponent all together. Even more so in a 1v1 RTS. Like i can see it more for say a game like dota but i still think you should be able to disable skins if you want to.
I think a lot of the psychological motivation for people to get skins is seeing them as a status symbol that others see. If you know only you see them and everyone else just sees you as a normal player, that motivation is lost.
For me, I'd actually prefer the option to hide others' skins and would still buy skins myself. I like the visual variety skins bring and don't care terribly much whether anyone else can see them, and certain skins (zerglings with wings come to mind) I'd rather not have to see because they screw up my ability to read the game state. I think I'm probably in a small minority in having that preference set, though.
On July 04 2024 06:04 NonY wrote: Interesting that the first “skin” they promote is for fog of war, something that is inherently for your screen only, not your opponent’s. Maybe the tiniest drop of hope that we will be able to set the skins for enemy units. Still I’d be shocked if they actually have the balls to do that.
Reaction to fog of war shader: cool idea but this one probably isn’t the one I’d choose. Would like to see it in more environments though.
i never understood the argument not allowing your opponent to set other skins or to disable them for your opponent all together. Even more so in a 1v1 RTS. Like i can see it more for say a game like dota but i still think you should be able to disable skins if you want to.
I think a lot of the psychological motivation for people to get skins is seeing them as a status symbol that others see. If you know only you see them and everyone else just sees you as a normal player, that motivation is lost.
For me, I'd actually prefer the option to hide others' skins and would still buy skins myself. I like the visual variety skins bring and don't care terribly much whether anyone else can see them, and certain skins (zerglings with wings come to mind) I'd rather not have to see because they screw up my ability to read the game state. I think I'm probably in a small minority in having that preference set, though.
As a parent whose kiddo plays a bunch of games like Fortnite, that is definitely part of the appeal for sure. Although he’s not massively consumed by it as some of his peers are.
But I feel not all demographics are gonna have the same tastes, and certainly at least the existing RTS community I think broadly shares your opinion, I certainly do anyway
There’s additional wee annoyances that I feel go a bit understated. Devs are much better at colourblind-friendly settings in a base game, but sometimes the same care doesn’t quite get extended to skins, especially when there’s loads of them
It’s honestly intriguing social / psychological / game theory type experiment. If most people use skins because they want other people to see them (which is what people say), then most people would still be perfectly happy in a game where you can choose to see your opponent’s selections or make your own. That’s because they’d all cooperate with each other to see each others’ skins, right?
But wait, some people could be selfish and say “I want you to see my skins but I’m not gonna look at yours.” Such betrayal.
It makes me think that they should implement protection against betrayal. It’d be a simple matter of checking a box which says “if my opponent also has this box checked, we will see each others skins” but if either player does not check the box, then neither sees the others’ skins — they both see their own unit skins and default enemy unit skins (or whatever skins they select for enemy units).
Then I’d be curious what the skin meta turns out to be. Most people checking the box or not?
would probably depend if the skins effect gameplay in the smallest degree. Like in dota it sometimes felt the skins are slightly pay to win or pay to lose if they made it easier or harder to see the hero or abilities.
On July 04 2024 09:48 NonY wrote: It’s honestly intriguing social / psychological / game theory type experiment. If most people use skins because they want other people to see them (which is what people say), then most people would still be perfectly happy in a game where you can choose to see your opponent’s selections or make your own. That’s because they’d all cooperate with each other to see each others’ skins, right?
But wait, some people could be selfish and say “I want you to see my skins but I’m not gonna look at yours.” Such betrayal.
It makes me think that they should implement protection against betrayal. It’d be a simple matter of checking a box which says “if my opponent also has this box checked, we will see each others skins” but if either player does not check the box, then neither sees the others’ skins — they both see their own unit skins and default enemy unit skins (or whatever skins they select for enemy units).
Then I’d be curious what the skin meta turns out to be. Most people checking the box or not?
Isn't that what Whatsapp did for the longest time? If I want to see when you were online/ read my messages, I have to check the box that let's you see when I was last online/ read your messages.
Anyway, I think there are two different variants of skins: 1. These simply look awesome/ flashy / whatever and can be bought with this or that currency. These say "I have played a lot or I have money to spent" 2. These have to be earned/ achieved by playing X games with Y character/ race. Kind of a Mastery. These say "I am awesome! Bow before me"
On July 04 2024 06:04 NonY wrote: Interesting that the first “skin” they promote is for fog of war, something that is inherently for your screen only, not your opponent’s. Maybe the tiniest drop of hope that we will be able to set the skins for enemy units. Still I’d be shocked if they actually have the balls to do that.
Reaction to fog of war shader: cool idea but this one probably isn’t the one I’d choose. Would like to see it in more environments though.
i never understood the argument not allowing your opponent to set other skins or to disable them for your opponent all together. Even more so in a 1v1 RTS. Like i can see it more for say a game like dota but i still think you should be able to disable skins if you want to.
I think a lot of the psychological motivation for people to get skins is seeing them as a status symbol that others see. If you know only you see them and everyone else just sees you as a normal player, that motivation is lost.
For me, I'd actually prefer the option to hide others' skins and would still buy skins myself. I like the visual variety skins bring and don't care terribly much whether anyone else can see them, and certain skins (zerglings with wings come to mind) I'd rather not have to see because they screw up my ability to read the game state. I think I'm probably in a small minority in having that preference set, though.
I certainly share your opinion on that matter. Unfortunately, this "design choice" will remain money-driven for all but a handful of companies. In GW2 you can reduce effects and models to a minimum for example but it's the only example I can think off of the top of my head.
On July 04 2024 06:04 NonY wrote: Interesting that the first “skin” they promote is for fog of war, something that is inherently for your screen only, not your opponent’s. Maybe the tiniest drop of hope that we will be able to set the skins for enemy units. Still I’d be shocked if they actually have the balls to do that.
Reaction to fog of war shader: cool idea but this one probably isn’t the one I’d choose. Would like to see it in more environments though.
i never understood the argument not allowing your opponent to set other skins or to disable them for your opponent all together. Even more so in a 1v1 RTS. Like i can see it more for say a game like dota but i still think you should be able to disable skins if you want to.
Disabling skins for opponents is definitely off the table because it does nothing but make some people not want to buy skins. It doesn't incentivise people to spend more money, it incentivises some to spend less. It could maybe be in custom games for tournaments.
You wouldn't buy nice looking clothes just to wear them at home right? People want their units to look cool to others. That's a big part of skins in all games. Hell people in Fortnite made 'default skin' into a slur, which Epic Games was surely a fan of.
Then again people bought console skins in sc2, and a fog of war shader is in the same category as that.
Disabling skins for opponents is definitely off the table because it does nothing but make some people not want to buy skins. It doesn't incentivise people to spend more money, it incentivises some to spend less.
I can definitely relate. I was never in the market for Zerg or Terran skins. Setting enemy skins would’ve gotten me to buy more skins in sc2, not less. I’m also intrigued by the possibility of setting different skins for the mirror matchup. There are some units in SC2 where team color is insufficient, like a bunch of archons vs archons. SG has already suffered from this (although the graphics aren’t finalized so it’s not fair to judge yet). If I could set a different skin for my Brute and enemy Brutes, that could help immensely with readability.
You wouldn't buy nice looking clothes just to wear them at home right?
Yes we exist lol. I do my hair everyday even when I’m not going out. I’ve built muscle and leaned out just for myself, not to show off at the pool. I’d even argue at length that it’s healthier to be doing things just for yourself. As this relates to skins in a video game, I’d refer to the Reddit post. Like the fact that people buy skins for single player games and spend hours on customization in single player games. That is the same as doing your hair and makeup and wearing nice clothes but not going out, yeah? We don’t know how many of one type of person exists vs another, or how people would behave in a different environment (like how many people would actually buy fewer skins if some opponents might not see them). It’s simply untested and unknown.
Edit: I realized there’s a difference between putting on nice clothes you already own versus buying nice clothes that youll never wear out. Still I think this type of person exists and the principle can be applied to skins in video games.
It doesn't matter if all people buy skins to show off. It doesn't even matter if most do. As long as some people buy it at least partially with the motivation to show off, adding such a setting will devalue skins.
As long as skins are easy to read (and don't provide any unintended advantages), I'm good with not being able to disable them.
I'm thinking skins in OW were very popular and never detracted from gameplay (no instance that I'm aware of). In competitions they have designated skins, but for everyday ladder? It makes it more interesting visually (to me) to shoot Ana in her beach outfit.
On July 05 2024 00:37 _Spartak_ wrote: It doesn't matter if all people buy skins to show off. It doesn't even matter if most do. As long as some people buy it at least partially with the motivation to show off, adding such a setting will devalue skins.
...which is why skins aren't a great monetization choice for RTS. You're putting devaluing the GAMEPLAY as less important than devaluing skins.
It's already an annoying issue in mobas, and that's a case where you've got perhaps 7 enemy units you need to instantly recognize.