Stormgate/Frost Giant Megathread - Page 267

On September 18 2025 00:47 ChillFlame wrote:

I find SG the most insulting game I've ever seen. It's not like I'm an intellectual, but their stupid attempts to lie and cover their mistakes really insult my intelligence.

The game was a constant source of butthurt for me.
For example, "Founders get all year 0 heroes" situation.
Ok, they fucked up and stated that Kickstarted Ultimate backers get all of the EA heroes. They didn't mean to do this, I get it.
But why, for the love of Jesus, would they ninja edit this, then lie that it was always like this? Do they think we are THAT stupid?
Like, why? What did they try to achieve? They expected to milk people who already gave them $60 for an additional $10-$30? At what cost? They just pissed off their most loyal player base, and they didn't even get any substantial amount of money out of that. Their late "apology" as 1 free hero felt like yet another insult. Of course, no one will be happy if you take away 3 heroes, apologize, and give away only 1. It's like they made heroes out of gold and diamonds, and they can't afford to throw them away.

Why don't they give every backer all the heroes and farm additional reputation? These people would likely buy all the next heroes and lots of skins.

I've never seen such a mix of greed and stupidity in the game dev. Not only that, but they also think EVERYONE is stupid just like them. Stupid enough not to notice fucking ninja editing and gaslighting.

I am 100% positive this is the most insulting game I've seen. Peter Molyneux, with his stunts, is not even close. Damn, even Homeworld 3 is not close. It's astounding in some ways.

I was disheartened to see a negative headline from my previous posts. Even though I've made an effort to explicitly accept responsibility, Windows Central said: "Starcraft successor Stormgate is a flop; creator blames gamers". That was definitely not my intention, but I'm reminded that sometimes good intentions are still perceived negatively. I'll touch on this again, but I want to start by taking a step back.

Great games often take time. StarCraft II had over 7 years before Wings of Liberty. Some of the best games from the past year had long dev cycles, including Black Myth: Wukong, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, and Hollow Knight: Silk Song. It's hard to precisely plan for how long it will take to "find the fun" or to achieve the level of polish that produces greatness. I've wished for more time on every game I've ever worked on, even though some have turned out well.

There have been many valid specific criticisms of Stormgate's Early Access, but the bottom line is that the release was undercooked. Before this gets construed as deflecting, the reasons are my responsibility: scope, which I covered last week; velocity, in that progress didn't happen quickly enough, particularly for the campaign; and finally, funding, in that I failed to raise enough capital to provide the team more time.

Frost Giant had a successful crowdfunding campaign, but the Kickstarter was for new additions: a physical collector's box and broader access to the closed beta. These added costs: physical goods and network infrastructure. The Kickstarter was oversubscribed and did supplement the budget, but factoring in the new costs, the addition was modest.

Unfortunately, the Kickstarter also generated negative sentiment. This first stemmed from a disconnect about what constitutes "launch". The team thinks of "launch" as the moment that anyone in the world can buy and play the game, and 24/7 live service begins. Some others think of "launch" as the moment a game exits Early Access. Both definitions are understandable, but when the description referenced being "funded to launch", it created controversy. As soon as that disconnect was evident, we issued a statement, but the harm was done.

The second incident was the result of fixing an error. The Stormgate Kickstarter was consistent in multiple places about the contents of the offering, with one exception: a FAQ made an inconsistent and erroneously broad statement. When the team member who wrote that section found out, they corrected the error without posting an explanation. This is bad practice reflecting inexperience, and once again, harm was done.

Between the undercooked build, the ambitious surface area, and Kickstarter communication mishaps, Stormgate's Early Access landed poorly. In the year that followed, much effort went into trying to recover, but the negative outcome persisted. Next week, I'll make an effort to tie these reflections together into conclusions that I hope might benefit others.