On October 14 2025 16:44 Creager wrote: However, to be completely fair here: What did people expect Tim Morton to say at this point? This is as reflected and "self-critical" as he can be as the face of the company while still trying to come off as appealing as he can be for a potential future gig after FG shuts down, as I'm pretty sure they won't find additional funds for this studio.
It's definitely a tricky situation to navigate, especially when FG is still operating at least on theory and there are other people and their careers involved. Still, I don't think it's an awful look if you're able to come off insightful and reflective about the failures though.
There are also plenty of situations where you can't openly discuss the failure for various reasons. That can happen to most talented and hard-working people sometimes. However, maybe at that point it's not best to post weekly vague discussions on LinkedIn while maintaining zero-communication on the official game channels.
Different context, different timing, different merits and more time between the failure and the discussion, but here's Harvey Smith discussing Deus Ex: Invisible War's development.
On October 14 2025 16:44 Creager wrote:However, to be completely fair here: What did people expect Tim Morton to say at this point? This is as reflected and "self-critical" as he can be as the face of the company while still trying to come off as appealing as he can be for a potential future gig after FG shuts down, as I'm pretty sure they won't find additional funds for this studio.
Either say nothing or take actual responsibility and genuine self reflection, and not blaming the market and "oh if only I had another 100 million".
On October 14 2025 16:44 Creager wrote: However, to be completely fair here: What did people expect Tim Morton to say at this point? This is as reflected and "self-critical" as he can be as the face of the company while still trying to come off as appealing as he can be for a potential future gig after FG shuts down, as I'm pretty sure they won't find additional funds for this studio.
It's definitely a tricky situation to navigate, especially when FG is still operating at least on theory and there are other people and their careers involved. Still, I don't think it's an awful look if you're able to come off insightful and reflective about the failures though.
There are also plenty of situations where you can't openly discuss the failure for various reasons. That can happen to most talented and hard-working people sometimes. However, maybe at that point it's not best to post weekly vague discussions on LinkedIn while maintaining zero-communication on the official game channels.
Different context, different timing, different merits and more time between the failure and the discussion, but here's Harvey Smith discussing Deus Ex: Invisible War's development.
Agreed, as you've already rightfully pointed out it's an entirely different situation, though, so you won't be seeing this anytime soon from Timmy with the shat-on sheets being still on the bed as we speak.
On October 14 2025 16:44 Creager wrote:However, to be completely fair here: What did people expect Tim Morton to say at this point? This is as reflected and "self-critical" as he can be as the face of the company while still trying to come off as appealing as he can be for a potential future gig after FG shuts down, as I'm pretty sure they won't find additional funds for this studio.
Either say nothing or take actual responsibility and genuine self reflection, and not blaming the market and "oh if only I had another 100 million".
I'd also wish that, as a society, we could re-discover the value of honesty, also in our failures, but as we live in a success-driven world, I think it's kinda understandable why he acts the way he does. I can definitely imagine how hard it must be to come to terms with completely bombing a $40m project and admitting that you've essentially set yourself up for failure from the start and thus doomed your company in the process.
I think as most of us know it's pretty easy to sit at home and preach and I certainly like me some internet "drama" now and then, but at the end of the day people like Tim are also just people with all their flaws and shortcomings.
On October 14 2025 16:44 Creager wrote: However, to be completely fair here: What did people expect Tim Morton to say at this point? This is as reflected and "self-critical" as he can be as the face of the company while still trying to come off as appealing as he can be for a potential future gig after FG shuts down, as I'm pretty sure they won't find additional funds for this studio.
I guess people are expecting for him to say "I'm sorry, we fucked up."
At this point in time there really isn't too much to say anyway. The time for that is already past. They willingly went with their bad ideas, ignored feedback, had to re-do plenty of stuff without necessarily making it better etc. etc. This whole project is an exercise in futility.
On October 14 2025 16:44 Creager wrote: However, to be completely fair here: What did people expect Tim Morton to say at this point? This is as reflected and "self-critical" as he can be as the face of the company while still trying to come off as appealing as he can be for a potential future gig after FG shuts down, as I'm pretty sure they won't find additional funds for this studio.
It's definitely a tricky situation to navigate, especially when FG is still operating at least on theory and there are other people and their careers involved. Still, I don't think it's an awful look if you're able to come off insightful and reflective about the failures though.
There are also plenty of situations where you can't openly discuss the failure for various reasons. That can happen to most talented and hard-working people sometimes. However, maybe at that point it's not best to post weekly vague discussions on LinkedIn while maintaining zero-communication on the official game channels.
Different context, different timing, different merits and more time between the failure and the discussion, but here's Harvey Smith discussing Deus Ex: Invisible War's development.
Agreed, as you've already rightfully pointed out it's an entirely different situation, though, so you won't be seeing this anytime soon from Timmy with the shat-on sheets being still on the bed as we speak.
On October 14 2025 16:44 Creager wrote:However, to be completely fair here: What did people expect Tim Morton to say at this point? This is as reflected and "self-critical" as he can be as the face of the company while still trying to come off as appealing as he can be for a potential future gig after FG shuts down, as I'm pretty sure they won't find additional funds for this studio.
Either say nothing or take actual responsibility and genuine self reflection, and not blaming the market and "oh if only I had another 100 million".
I'd also wish that, as a society, we could re-discover the value of honesty, also in our failures, but as we live in a success-driven world, I think it's kinda understandable why he acts the way he does. I can definitely imagine how hard it must be to come to terms with completely bombing a $40m project and admitting that you've essentially set yourself up for failure from the start and thus doomed your company in the process.
I think as most of us know it's pretty easy to sit at home and preach and I certainly like me some internet "drama" now and then, but at the end of the day people like Tim are also just people with all their flaws and shortcomings.
Don't think the value of honesty has to be rediscovered. From my experience most people will accept it if you take responsibility. It doesn't have to be a detailed explanation of how he bombed the project. Just acknowledge it didn't work out and move on. Might be cultural though.
I can also see why he's acting the way he is. That doesn't change the fact that it's bad. He's only making it worse for himself.
It's still #19 on the all time top funded videogame list for kickstarter, There is still a decent market for RTS.
Even if you claim the market changed since the kickstarter, Taking the example of Starcraft 2 it shipped with a powerful map editor.People made all sorts of amazing custom (arcade) maps with it, many different styles.I probably played more SC2 mafia than the base game.
On October 14 2025 16:44 Creager wrote: However, to be completely fair here: What did people expect Tim Morton to say at this point? This is as reflected and "self-critical" as he can be as the face of the company while still trying to come off as appealing as he can be for a potential future gig after FG shuts down, as I'm pretty sure they won't find additional funds for this studio.
It's definitely a tricky situation to navigate, especially when FG is still operating at least on theory and there are other people and their careers involved. Still, I don't think it's an awful look if you're able to come off insightful and reflective about the failures though.
There are also plenty of situations where you can't openly discuss the failure for various reasons. That can happen to most talented and hard-working people sometimes. However, maybe at that point it's not best to post weekly vague discussions on LinkedIn while maintaining zero-communication on the official game channels.
Different context, different timing, different merits and more time between the failure and the discussion, but here's Harvey Smith discussing Deus Ex: Invisible War's development.
Agreed, as you've already rightfully pointed out it's an entirely different situation, though, so you won't be seeing this anytime soon from Timmy with the shat-on sheets being still on the bed as we speak.
On October 14 2025 18:06 Gorsameth wrote:
On October 14 2025 16:44 Creager wrote:However, to be completely fair here: What did people expect Tim Morton to say at this point? This is as reflected and "self-critical" as he can be as the face of the company while still trying to come off as appealing as he can be for a potential future gig after FG shuts down, as I'm pretty sure they won't find additional funds for this studio.
Either say nothing or take actual responsibility and genuine self reflection, and not blaming the market and "oh if only I had another 100 million".
I'd also wish that, as a society, we could re-discover the value of honesty, also in our failures, but as we live in a success-driven world, I think it's kinda understandable why he acts the way he does. I can definitely imagine how hard it must be to come to terms with completely bombing a $40m project and admitting that you've essentially set yourself up for failure from the start and thus doomed your company in the process.
I think as most of us know it's pretty easy to sit at home and preach and I certainly like me some internet "drama" now and then, but at the end of the day people like Tim are also just people with all their flaws and shortcomings.
Don't think the value of honesty has to be rediscovered. From my experience most people will accept it if you take responsibility. It doesn't have to be a detailed explanation of how he bombed the project. Just acknowledge it didn't work out and move on. Might be cultural though.
I can also see why he's acting the way he is. That doesn't change the fact that it's bad. He's only making it worse for himself.
Not to open this can of worms here and derailing the thread, I do think the notion of honesty and how it generates trust has been/is getting lost in our modern world, in western societies we are seeing this everywhere and it has never been more apparent IMHO, but that's also just subjective.
Yeah, it's bad, but is he actually making it worse for himself? Depends on whom you ask, I'd say.
On October 15 2025 18:53 iPlaY.NettleS wrote: It's still #19 on the all time top funded videogame list for kickstarter, There is still a decent market for RTS.
Even if you claim the market changed since the kickstarter, Taking the example of Starcraft 2 it shipped with a powerful map editor.People made all sorts of amazing custom (arcade) maps with it, many different styles.I probably played more SC2 mafia than the base game.
probably lots of people have moved on since that kickstarter
On October 14 2025 16:44 Creager wrote: However, to be completely fair here: What did people expect Tim Morton to say at this point? This is as reflected and "self-critical" as he can be as the face of the company while still trying to come off as appealing as he can be for a potential future gig after FG shuts down, as I'm pretty sure they won't find additional funds for this studio.
It's definitely a tricky situation to navigate, especially when FG is still operating at least on theory and there are other people and their careers involved. Still, I don't think it's an awful look if you're able to come off insightful and reflective about the failures though.
There are also plenty of situations where you can't openly discuss the failure for various reasons. That can happen to most talented and hard-working people sometimes. However, maybe at that point it's not best to post weekly vague discussions on LinkedIn while maintaining zero-communication on the official game channels.
Different context, different timing, different merits and more time between the failure and the discussion, but here's Harvey Smith discussing Deus Ex: Invisible War's development.
Agreed, as you've already rightfully pointed out it's an entirely different situation, though, so you won't be seeing this anytime soon from Timmy with the shat-on sheets being still on the bed as we speak.
On October 14 2025 18:06 Gorsameth wrote:
On October 14 2025 16:44 Creager wrote:However, to be completely fair here: What did people expect Tim Morton to say at this point? This is as reflected and "self-critical" as he can be as the face of the company while still trying to come off as appealing as he can be for a potential future gig after FG shuts down, as I'm pretty sure they won't find additional funds for this studio.
Either say nothing or take actual responsibility and genuine self reflection, and not blaming the market and "oh if only I had another 100 million".
I'd also wish that, as a society, we could re-discover the value of honesty, also in our failures, but as we live in a success-driven world, I think it's kinda understandable why he acts the way he does. I can definitely imagine how hard it must be to come to terms with completely bombing a $40m project and admitting that you've essentially set yourself up for failure from the start and thus doomed your company in the process.
I think as most of us know it's pretty easy to sit at home and preach and I certainly like me some internet "drama" now and then, but at the end of the day people like Tim are also just people with all their flaws and shortcomings.
Don't think the value of honesty has to be rediscovered. From my experience most people will accept it if you take responsibility. It doesn't have to be a detailed explanation of how he bombed the project. Just acknowledge it didn't work out and move on. Might be cultural though.
I can also see why he's acting the way he is. That doesn't change the fact that it's bad. He's only making it worse for himself.
Not to open this can of worms here and derailing the thread, I do think the notion of honesty and how it generates trust has been/is getting lost in our modern world, in western societies we are seeing this everywhere and it has never been more apparent IMHO, but that's also just subjective.
Yeah, it's bad, but is he actually making it worse for himself? Depends on whom you ask, I'd say.
I'd love to talk about how the value of honesty is being slowly eroded in western societies, but that's a massive derail. Let's just say I hope that the pendulum starts to shift again in the other direction before it's too late for all of us.
As far as Tim's behavior goes, I don't think it's doing him any favors. It's like he's doing the Stages of Grief thing (which I know isn't super scientific but it does have some validity from a strictly observational standpoint) but he keeps getting stuck on Bargaining.
This whole series of LinkedIn Postmortens has been a farce. He acknowledges that Stormgate failed to make money, but blames all sorts of external factors like the market or how difficult it was to get fundraising. He superficially takes responsibility for the blame at the beginning of these posts, but then immediately shifts into how Really It Was [the gamers, the markets, the money]'s Fault.
And always at the ready is the bargaining: he's looking for a "partner" to save the day. Someone to come in and shower money on Frost Giant so that he can Complete His Dream Game and Show Everyone How Wrong They Were.
But of course, it's ridiculous to expect that a magic fairy will just come along and agree to further fund a game that's already failed. So the bargaining pivots: maybe this "partner" will want to hire Frost Giant to make a brand new RTS using a popular IP? But that's also ridiculous, because why would a company pay another company (and not a cheap one!) to make something, when they could just make it themselves, as so many other game development companies are doing? Lots of RTS games are in the works, and none of them are hiring Frost Giant to do their work for them. Maybe they could just license out Snowplay? But that only works if companies are willing to pay lots of money for it, rather than just developing their own replacement. And, also, no companies are doing this. Nobody is buying their "engine".
So Tim comes to Bargaining Stage Three: what if Frost Giant just makes a totally new game? That could work, as he's raised money to make a game before. And then he can use the profits from his Brand New Incredibly Profitable Game to finally finish Stormgate and Show Everyone How Wrong They Were.
All this bargaining has stretched out for more than two months since the failed launch. There have been no other communications from Frost Giant employees, except for that bizarre outburst from Gobsmack. No updates to the game, not even a patch for bugs found at launch that are still in the game. And the players have dwindled to almost nothing.
So... like... is there anyone still actually at Frost Giant? Is anyone getting paid? We know their financials; we know they must be completely out of money by any conceivable calculation, and we know they have no income. So how is there still a company? And if there isn't, why is everyone still pretending that there is?
It's utterly bizarre, and it's all down to Tim's strange behavior. It's not just himself that he's hurting by refusing to acknowledge reality. The (former?) Frost Giant employees have to figure out how to pay their bills at some point.
On October 16 2025 12:43 Jeremy Reimer wrote: So... like... is there anyone still actually at Frost Giant? Is anyone getting paid? We know their financials; we know they must be completely out of money by any conceivable calculation, and we know they have no income. So how is there still a company? And if there isn't, why is everyone still pretending that there is?
Well, this guy is working for sure. https://imgur.com/a/eXhNxGh Now trees on the top of the building, which name and purpose I don't know, are not affected by team colors. The game is saved!
So Tim comes to Bargaining Stage Three: what if Frost Giant just makes a totally new game? That could work, as he's raised money to make a game before. And then he can use the profits from his Brand New Incredibly Profitable Game to finally finish Stormgate and Show Everyone How Wrong They Were.
Starting a new game without finishing the last one...I was foolish enough to buy Godus back in 2013 purely on the name of Peter Molyneux.The game promised a lot but the entire interaction was really just changing the elevation of terrain, thats pretty much all you did.
Last updated 2015 even though Molyneux claimed as late as December 2021 that updates were coming.Really wish i could get that $15 back.Anyway Molyneux has a new game on the way, his last one apparently.The discussion board on steam for it is pretty brutal.
On October 16 2025 12:43 Jeremy Reimer wrote: So... like... is there anyone still actually at Frost Giant? Is anyone getting paid? We know their financials; we know they must be completely out of money by any conceivable calculation, and we know they have no income. So how is there still a company? And if there isn't, why is everyone still pretending that there is?
Well, this guy is working for sure. https://imgur.com/a/eXhNxGh Now trees on the top of the building, which name and purpose I don't know, are not affected by team colors. The game is saved!
On October 16 2025 12:43 Jeremy Reimer wrote: So... like... is there anyone still actually at Frost Giant? Is anyone getting paid? We know their financials; we know they must be completely out of money by any conceivable calculation, and we know they have no income. So how is there still a company? And if there isn't, why is everyone still pretending that there is?
Well, this guy is working for sure. https://imgur.com/a/eXhNxGh Now trees on the top of the building, which name and purpose I don't know, are not affected by team colors. The game is saved!
Is this for real? lol
I'm still in the Discord hunting for crumbs. Yes it is.......
On October 16 2025 12:43 Jeremy Reimer wrote: So... like... is there anyone still actually at Frost Giant? Is anyone getting paid? We know their financials; we know they must be completely out of money by any conceivable calculation, and we know they have no income. So how is there still a company? And if there isn't, why is everyone still pretending that there is?
Well, this guy is working for sure. https://imgur.com/a/eXhNxGh Now trees on the top of the building, which name and purpose I don't know, are not affected by team colors. The game is saved!
Wow. Just wow.
I never knew that building (a redesigned one, by the way, so was the second time they spent resources making that building) ever had trees on it.
And when you think about it, it makes no sense. It's an infernal building. Demons, in general, are not big fans of trees and nature.
I don't know what the building does either. The Infernals are nothing but massive blobs of indistinguishable units when you fight them in the campaign, and the Infernal campaign will never exist.
But at least we finally took away team colors from that tree on that one building!
On October 17 2025 05:21 Miragee wrote: The idea was probably that the building would unearth from the ground and deroot the trees?
But... the tree doesn't exist until you make the building. And then it continues to exist, unless you destroy the building. Which would be amazing if an Infernal voice then yelled out "hah hah! I only made that building so that I could destroy it!" or something. But that will also never happen.
But it's not like Frost Giant doesn't love trees! On the contrary, they consider trees to be the single most important element of any game:
Yes, that was part of a major update that Frost Giant put out and produced a marketing image to specifically show off.
Something, something, seeing the forest for the...
EPT![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/whUwYIR.jpeg)
![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/vNsvikL.png)
