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On September 02 2025 04:26 Manit0u wrote:
Also, this game reeks a bit too much of the soulless corporate focus group approach. It just feels all too safe. Stylized/cartoony graphics, familiar mechanics and units and so on. It might be ok to do so for an n-th iteration of an established IP but when you want to put something new out there you really need this wow factor that will put you apart from the competition and existing stuff. They didn't have any wow factor at all.
Absolutely this, 100%. For every decision, at every turning point where they had to choose A or B, Frost Giant played it safe and chose "Why not both?"
Starcraft sequel or Warcraft sequel? Why not both? We can have trees and gold mines and creep camps with our Starcraft units, why not?
Heroes or no heroes? Why not both? You can have heroes in co-op and the mythical 3v3 mode, but not 1v1! That's a hero-less mode.
Clone existing factions or make new ones? Why not both? You have budget Terran, Demons, and shiny gold high-tech Angels! New and yet also familiar!
1v1 focus or campaign focus? Both! Co-op modes or 3v3? Both! Bespoke maps or custom maps? Both!
It's as if the leadership team at Frost Giant thought the real problem with video game development was that teams made too many bold choices.
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Well, it's now one week down since Tim Morten said that he would hopefully reveal the results of his "encouraging conversations" with "potential partners" in the "weeks ahead".
Is there any news? Well, Tim has gone into a full reflective mode:
Why do games fail in the market? At the most basic level, it's because they are not good enough. Part of my job is to make sure Frost Giant's games are good enough, so I'm putting a lot of thought into how I missed.
Seems like he's internalizing Stormgate's failure.
On a game-by-game basis, we blame particular aspects of each game, and to a great extent, that's fair. I certainly plan to share thoughts on specific hurdles for Stormgate in the future. But zooming out, I believe there's a broader market trend in play that deserves attention.
But wait... perhaps it's not his fault? Maybe there are larger market forces at work here...
Part of my job is to recognize trends like this and adapt, so Stormgate's underperformance is absolutely my responsibility. How does a studio adapt to oversaturation?
He's still taking responsibility, which is nice. But instead of Stormgate not being good enough because it didn't hit a quality bar, now it's because it there were too many other games.
Which is true, I guess. But it might be missing the point.
So any news about the "partners"? About saving Frost Giant? What about Stormgate? It's been nearly a month after launch without any updates from the team.
I'm continuing to pursue a path forward for Frost Giant, with these current market challenges in mind. More thoughts and updates to come.
No. No news.
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That's actually really interesting. He states "there is market oversaturation and will pursue a path forward for Frost Giant with these market challenges in mind"
Does that mean Frost Giant is going to try and develop another game in a different genre? Are they going to lean heavier into the 3v3 moba thing? How exactly can these two things be true at the same time?
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On September 02 2025 10:12 CicadaSC wrote:
That's actually really interesting. He states "there is market oversaturation and he will pursue a path forward for Frost Giant with these market challenges in mind"
Does that mean Frost Giant is going to try and develop another game in a different genre? Are they going to lean heavier into the 3v3 moba thing? How exactly can these two things be true at the same time?
I don't think Frost Giant can develop another game in a different genre. They're out of money! That's why he's looking for partners to bail him out, and hinting that there might be interest for developing an RTS using an established IP but using Frost Giant's "Snowplay" technology, which is a set of libraries for writing RTS games in Unreal Engine 5.
I think he's just saying "I'm going to try and keep the company going in a difficult market".
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On September 02 2025 06:25 JimmyJRaynor wrote:Show nested quote +On August 30 2025 00:48 _Spartak_ wrote:On August 29 2025 23:39 qwerty4w wrote:
I remember Tempest Rising's lead designer Wayward Strategy and Sins of a Solar Empire 2's lead designer Sovereign Echo both mentioned their dev team's size and budget are only a fraction of Frost Giant's. I don't think you need 3x or 5x resource of those AA games to make a really successful RTS, most if not all of the bigger RTS titles around mid to late 2000s likely cost less than that, such as the original SoaSE. You don't need a massive budget to make a successful RTS, yeah. You do need it if you want to make a Blizzard style RTS and want to appeal to a large audience. That audience has a higher bar of quality. Tempest Rising released with no replays, no observer mode, no fully customizable hotkeys, no map editor, no co-op mode and no 3rd faction. It still had positive reception from the C&C community. While they can be praised for prioritizing correct things and managing the scope of the game well, it also tells a story about different levels of expectation from different RTS fanbases. Frost Gate or Storm Giant or whatever they're called set the expectation levels sky high by continually referring to themselves as the spiritual successor to SC2. Don't imply it is the "delusional fan base". If an RTS streamer promises everyone he is the spiritual successor to Tastosis in order to gain people's initial attention... he better be damn good for me to take him seriously. I didn't imply delusion. The quality bar that has to be hit being high is a natural result as the Blizzard RTS community is expected to such standards. But you need that community interested in the game for an SC2-like to succeed. It seems like you either succeed getting that community interested in your game by convincing them that you have what it takes to make a spiritual successor (like with Stormgate) or they are not going to be interested in your game at all (Battle Aces, ZeroSpace, Immortal). You either get poor user reception, or you get few users. So it is highly unlikely that we will ever see an RTS of this style be a big success.
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I think you're overfitting data for cases that are all just ultimately hyperderivative and thus not worth the time investing in. Pretty simple.
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"Blizzard style RTS" is a vague and artificial category and likely didn't include RTS/RPG hybrids before Warcraft 3 was announced.
The design space for RTS games is vast and complex, I'm sure you can find some interesting niches with market appeal that are no further from the RTSs developed by Blizzard than Warcraft 3 is from StarCraft or the original Warcraft.
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On September 02 2025 15:04 _Spartak_ wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2025 06:25 JimmyJRaynor wrote:On August 30 2025 00:48 _Spartak_ wrote:On August 29 2025 23:39 qwerty4w wrote:
I remember Tempest Rising's lead designer Wayward Strategy and Sins of a Solar Empire 2's lead designer Sovereign Echo both mentioned their dev team's size and budget are only a fraction of Frost Giant's. I don't think you need 3x or 5x resource of those AA games to make a really successful RTS, most if not all of the bigger RTS titles around mid to late 2000s likely cost less than that, such as the original SoaSE. You don't need a massive budget to make a successful RTS, yeah. You do need it if you want to make a Blizzard style RTS and want to appeal to a large audience. That audience has a higher bar of quality. Tempest Rising released with no replays, no observer mode, no fully customizable hotkeys, no map editor, no co-op mode and no 3rd faction. It still had positive reception from the C&C community. While they can be praised for prioritizing correct things and managing the scope of the game well, it also tells a story about different levels of expectation from different RTS fanbases. Frost Gate or Storm Giant or whatever they're called set the expectation levels sky high by continually referring to themselves as the spiritual successor to SC2. Don't imply it is the "delusional fan base". If an RTS streamer promises everyone he is the spiritual successor to Tastosis in order to gain people's initial attention... he better be damn good for me to take him seriously. I didn't imply delusion. The quality bar that has to be hit being high is a natural result as the Blizzard RTS community is expected to such standards. But you need that community interested in the game for an SC2-like to succeed. It seems like you either succeed getting that community interested in your game by convincing them that you have what it takes to make a spiritual successor (like with Stormgate) or they are not going to be interested in your game at all (Battle Aces, ZeroSpace, Immortal). You either get poor user reception, or you get few users. So it is highly unlikely that we will ever see an RTS of this style be a big success.
The issue with Stormgate and the games you mentioned in general is simple:
They just don't look fun. They look like generic low budget SC2 "clones"... Like the tons of RTS that came out on the backs of SC/BW, Age of Empires, Total Annihilation and Command and Conquer back in the day. Most of them looked and played totally uninspired or/and had major flaws. I remember a few of them kinda fondly but they all had tons of issues and there is a giant pile of them that everyone has forgotten for good reason by now.
This wasn't a reciepe for success in the late 90ies/early 00 and shockingly it also isn't today.
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On September 02 2025 15:24 Uldridge wrote:
I think you're overfitting data for cases that are all just ultimately hyperderivative and thus not worth the time investing in. Pretty simple. My initial comment in that chain was about the relative success of Tempest Rising, which is arguably more derivative than Stormgate and definitely more derivative compared to Battle Aces or ZeroSpace. Yet it had a positive reception. My point is, it is much harder (probably impossible) to make a derivative SC2-like and succeed because the expectations of that community are much higher.
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United Kingdom20297 Posts
I don't agree, Stormgate just took so many dumb losses for no good reason (like the campaign requiring a rootkit on your computer to handshake with a proprietary server). The bar isn't high, and success was the default outcome with the whole community rallying behind them.
The biggest problem was the feedback and community environment created by FG and they still refuse to admit that anything was ever wrong on that front.
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This is an extremely challenging time to be an indie studio.
Feel like you forfeit the right to call yourself an indie studio when you take on $40M in investment. Kinda loses the whole "independent" vibe when you're owned by shareholders.
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Stormgate is a lot less aesthetically cohesive than Tempest Rising or Iron Harvest, which is fairly important for selling a game. Battle Aces can't find a viable monetization model and it's a micro arena game with bland unit designs and only one map.
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SG is a AAA game by their own words. https://imgur.com/a/RsOtnsj
You can just maket your game as AAA when you need more sales, and then tell it's indie when you need to make excuses or appeal to gamers.
They are an indie company when they need money from KS.
They are a $150m company when they need money from investors.
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Stormgate was probably pitched to the investors as a very accessible truly social highly monetizable game with appeal to both the traditional Blizzard RTS audience and the Fortnite audience. It got $40m investment means some investors really liked the idea, but it's hard to make a focused and cohesive RTS with it.
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I think it is also genre dependent on what is a good sales image. Stormgiant art and poster pulls me in the direction of Dota Auto Chess or similar games. It feels like something Riot would put out as belonging in the LoL universe. I don't think that is what you want to appeal to for a high APM game though. So the people you pull in with art bounces when they see what the game is.
(I have now read more than 200 posts about this game in this thread. I have seen 5+ games. I have yet to consider playing it, even if it is free. Tempest Rising I replayed the campaign in, I want RTS campaigns. The discussion for this game seems to be about PvP which I will likely not play in any RTS I don't love the single player in.)
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On September 03 2025 02:39 Yurie wrote:
I think it is also genre dependent on what is a good sales image. Stormgiant art and poster pulls me in the direction of Dota Auto Chess or similar games. It feels like something Riot would put out as belonging in the LoL universe. I don't think that is what you want to appeal to for a high APM game though. So the people you pull in with art bounces when they see what the game is.
(I have now read more than 200 posts about this game in this thread. I have seen 5+ games. I have yet to consider playing it, even if it is free. Tempest Rising I replayed the campaign in, I want RTS campaigns. The discussion for this game seems to be about PvP which I will likely not play in any RTS I don't love the single player in.)
I think he nails it though. I've been arguing for a simpler way of thinking - although coming from a different angle. "Stormgate needs to be able to produce highlights/awesome moments that make the target group desperately want to play it".
Stormgate has never been able to do that - big battles are kinda bland/boring to watch.
And looking at these posters, it's a somewhat similar issue. How can you even market this game? In Blizzard there were people who understood this concept and took care of it. To me it feels like Tim Morten has no clue how to make something look and feel awesome.
Now ofc even if they created awesome posters and an awesome hype trailer, it still wouldn't have mattered because the gameplay isn't there. But it's still shows a key issue with Frostgiant's lack of understanding of the target group.
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Blizzard RTSs generally have relatively weightless unit physics to make units "responsive" for Blizzard style high APM micro, as a result battles in these games tend to look a bit more abstract, so I think they are probably more dependent on their art direction to look cool to average players than Company of Heroes or C&C3 or Total Annihilaton etc.
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On September 03 2025 01:48 Manit0u wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2025 18:31 qwerty4w wrote:
Stormgate is a lot less aesthetically cohesive than Tempest Rising or Iron Harvest, which is fairly important for selling a game. Battle Aces can't find a viable monetization model and it's a micro arena game with bland unit designs and only one map. Not just less cohesive but even whole gameplay aside when you look at Tempest Rising or Iron Harvest it just looks cool. I bet quite a lot of their sales were not because of people with competitive mindset but just people who thought it might be cool and got it with the intention of playing the campaign alone. ![[image loading]](https://insider-gaming.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Stormgate-Base.jpg) ![[image loading]](https://www.noypigeeks.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Tempest-Rising.jpg) ![[image loading]](https://www.pcgamesn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/iron-harvest-operation-iron-eagle.jpg) Which of the 3 gameplay pictures looks the most generic to you? Which of those would you not pick up? Same with the cover/poster art for those games. ![[image loading]](https://cdn.oneesports.gg/cdn-data/2024/01/Gaming_Stormgate_KeyImage_1-1536x864.jpg) ![[image loading]](https://assets-prd.ignimgs.com/2022/08/13/tempest-rising-button-01-1660358697242.jpg) ![[image loading]](https://www.mobygames.com/images/covers/l/747211-iron-harvest-windows-apps-front-cover.jpg) Which one of them looks the most boring to you? Pretty much the same principles apply here as with website design. 75% of users will leave your website after 3 seconds and never go past the header section if your presentation is bad. You have to capture them within those 3 seconds and with your opening presentation. StormGate just fails to build any form of curiosity to find out more about it when you look at the screenshots and cover (at least for me).
Iron harvest 100% looks the most boring from the posters. Stormgate has problems with its design not being good, which is very much a problem, but Iron Harvest's design also looks like shit based on that picture. The screenshot is the best, the poster is the worst.
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Both the key art and in-game screenshot for SG are also outdated. It is fair to say those are from the early access build and that's where the first impressions came from but discussing the reasons why Stormgate released early (both for early access and "official" launch) is beating a dead horse at this point.
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EPT
