EPTStormgate/Frost Giant Megathread - Page 283
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iamperfection
United States9646 Posts
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Miragee
8661 Posts
On October 29 2025 13:56 Gescom wrote: Frostgiant cross-posted this to the Stormgate Kickstarter today: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2805850/Atre_Dominance_Wars/ So again proving they haven't lost the keys to the castle, they're just intentionally being weird af and saying nothing intentionally. That looks pretty cool, although 4X, and there is playtest going on right now. Gonna check it out, thanks! On October 29 2025 14:21 iamperfection wrote: If I was the atre ppl I would decline that endorsement. Why? You think because many people will smell "scam" because it gets endorsed by a company that is seemingly scamming people? Idk, I don't think many people think that far. And for a good reason because it's quite far fetched imho. Most people will just see the notification, look at the game (or not) and then decide. | ||
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Jeremy Reimer
Canada1142 Posts
On October 28 2025 02:52 Gorsameth wrote: To anyone wanting to read it, warning. you will not get the 10 seconds of your life back that it took to skim through it. It has nothing to do with Stormgate or Frostgiant. Its just generic "ai exists now and will change some stuff, maybe." www.linkedin.com God knows why this man is still posting this stuff He's just trying to keep up appearances after the complete collapse of all of his grand plans for Stormgate, and by extension, himself. Perhaps he's trying to lay the groundwork for his next act. Maybe he sees himself as being part of the charge for a new round of cheap-ass games made mostly with the help of AI for almost no money. The industry does seem to be trending this way, sadly. Amazon just announced 14,000 layoffs (and more to come) including the shuttering of all their game development studios. They cancelled the upcoming LOTR MMO, and are ceasing development on New World and preparing to shut it down in 2026. But they are still moving ahead with AI slop games like "Courtroom Chat with Snoop Dog" (I wish I was making this up) Meanwhile reports have come out that Microsoft accountants have been forcing their game division to achieve 30% profit margins since 2023, a figure only achieved by Activision (and only once, during Covid) and occasionally Nintendo. This explains some of the more idiotic decisions coming out of Redmond lately, like increasing the price of both the XBox and Game Pass, bizarre and confusing marketing campaigns that proclaim "Everything is an XBox" (so I guess nothing is an XBox?) and putting XBox games on Playstation. Expect more layoffs in the future from their gaming division. We live in the worst timeline. | ||
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Miragee
8661 Posts
On October 30 2025 04:44 Jeremy Reimer wrote: The industry does seem to be trending this way, sadly. Amazon just announced 14,000 layoffs (and more to come) including the shuttering of all their game development studios. They cancelled the upcoming LOTR MMO, and are ceasing development on New World and preparing to shut it down in 2026. But they are still moving ahead with AI slop games like "Courtroom Chat with Snoop Dog" (I wish I was making this up) Meanwhile reports have come out that Microsoft accountants have been forcing their game division to achieve 30% profit margins since 2023, a figure only achieved by Activision (and only once, during Covid) and occasionally Nintendo. This explains some of the more idiotic decisions coming out of Redmond lately, like increasing the price of both the XBox and Game Pass, bizarre and confusing marketing campaigns that proclaim "Everything is an XBox" (so I guess nothing is an XBox?) and putting XBox games on Playstation. Expect more layoffs in the future from their gaming division. We live in the worst timeline. These are the two most depressing, game-related paragraphs I have read in a while. Remember people were ecstatic about Microsoft's acquisition of Blizzard? Well, here's some news: It doesn't matter which garbage multi billion dollar company is in charge. It all comes down to the same, which is terrible decisions for consumers in favour of greed. At least there are still indie studios out there making great games. | ||
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AmericanUmlaut
Germany2594 Posts
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Jeremy Reimer
Canada1142 Posts
On October 30 2025 04:56 Miragee wrote: These are the two most depressing, game-related paragraphs I have read in a while. Remember people were ecstatic about Microsoft's acquisition of Blizzard? Well, here's some news: It doesn't matter which garbage multi billion dollar company is in charge. It all comes down to the same, which is terrible decisions for consumers in favour of greed. At least there are still indie studios out there making great games. Yeah, sorry about that. I felt the need to rant about the industry I used to work in. I feel like the AAA gaming industry is in a similar position to the huge studios in Hollywood in the late 1950s and early 1960s, making expensive epic musicals that bombed over and over, losing touch with what audiences wanted, before the renaissance in the late 60s and early 70s where smaller and younger filmmakers gradually figured out what people actually wanted to see. It's not exactly the same situation, of course. Ironically, the out-of-touch era in Hollywood was the last gasp of the independent studios (run by actual filmmakers) before they all got gobbled up by uncaring global megacorporations. All the AAA studios are already part of uncaring megacorps, and yet these multi-trillion dollar companies don't seem to care about destroying all the value they've acquired. But despite my bitterness, I don't really mind that much. There are enough great indie titles to last me for a lifetime. None of this relates to Stormgate, which was a desperate and hopeless attempt to turn back the clock by a group of former Blizzard execs who apparently had no idea what made Starcraft so great in the first place. | ||
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ChillFlame
263 Posts
Indie is in the best spot ever. You can make games as a solo dev and win the competition with AAA studios (Factorio, Stardew Valley, etc.) AAA studios (and the video game industry in general), are just too inflated because of the video game boom of the 00s. Some of them will go broke. It's not that important. The important thing is we're getting more high-quality games than ever. Supergiant Games and Eremite Games, for example. Hades 1/2 are the best isometric action games. Against the Storm is the best City Builder (and one of the best games in general, IMO). These and lots of other studios make better games (than AAA) in terms of gameplay, visuals, artistic vision, and even polish (QA). | ||
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ChillFlame
263 Posts
In the different times when gaming was for geeks, RTS were big. Geeks were the target audience even for big studios. Studios made licensed RTS games on popular franchises (SW, LotR, etc). SC Korean phenomenon changed the industry (and country) forever. When gaming started to become more accessible, normal people quickly outnumbered geeks and became the mainstream target audience. Normal people just don't find classic RTS games interesting because of how their brain works. You have to constantly keep tracking multiple locations, keep build orders, counters, and tech trees in mind. Keep doing micro and macro simultaneously. It's just too taxing for the brain. Now, RTS games have found their niche. They're not mainstream anymore, but it's OK. We were lucky to have an RTS boom in the late 90s-00s in the first place. | ||
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Slydie
1935 Posts
On October 30 2025 14:00 ChillFlame wrote: RTS is the other story. In the different times when gaming was for geeks, RTS were big. Geeks were the target audience even for big studios. Studios made licensed RTS games on popular franchises (SW, LotR, etc). SC Korean phenomenon changed the industry (and country) forever. When gaming started to become more accessible, normal people quickly outnumbered geeks and became the mainstream target audience. Normal people just don't find classic RTS games interesting because of how their brain works. You have to constantly keep tracking multiple locations, keep build orders, counters, and tech trees in mind. Keep doing micro and macro simultaneously. It's just too taxing for the brain. Now, RTS games have found their niche. They're not mainstream anymore, but it's OK. We were lucky to have an RTS boom in the late 90s-00s in the first place. Don't forget that times and geeks change too. My feeling is that a lot of previously would-be RTS players are found in Minecraft now, which has a even better sandbox creative potential than the map editor. RTS games are also not social enough compared to MOBA, MMORPG and Battle Royale games. | ||
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JimmyJRaynor
Canada17504 Posts
in teh comments. "The round is underway - so bitkraft is leading and we'll know how much they raised once it completed. They've been offering rounds for forever, but the bad interest rate environment has made it very hard" The man is the nostradomas of Stormgate. THOSE DAMN INTEREST RATES! ALLAN GREENSPAN is wrecking video games! ! ! On October 30 2025 13:45 ChillFlame wrote: It will be fine. Indie is in the best spot ever. You can make games as a solo dev and win the competition with AAA studios (Factorio, Stardew Valley, etc.) AAA studios (and the video game industry in general), are just too inflated because of the video game boom of the 00s. Some of them will go broke. It's not that important. The important thing is we're getting more high-quality games than ever. Supergiant Games and Eremite Games, for example. Hades 1/2 are the best isometric action games. Against the Storm is the best City Builder (and one of the best games in general, IMO). These and lots of other studios make better games (than AAA) in terms of gameplay, visuals, artistic vision, and even polish (QA). there is also nothing wrong with just playing the old stuff. the only "problem" is that "the industry" makes zero dollars off of it. | ||
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ChillFlame
263 Posts
On October 30 2025 21:38 JimmyJRaynor wrote: there is also nothing wrong with just playing the old stuff. the only "problem" is that "the industry" makes zero dollars off of it. Exactly. I had different working schedules. Sometimes I had 3-4 months of holidays. Sometimes I play for 16 hours per day. I've never run out of games to play. I have tons of games in queue, and it's only getting bigger. Remarkably, I haven't played a single (new) Ubisoft or EA game in the last 10 years. "Industry" can screw itself, it has nothing to do with good games nowadays. It's remasters at best. Sometimes it's something like SC or D2. Sometimes it's WC3R or GTA DE. If big companies can't deliver a polished and complete experience, what's the point of their existence? Indie gamedev does everything else better. Sometimes indie devs deliver the quality, unreachable by big studios, like Against the Storm or Factorio, which I mentioned earlier. | ||
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Manit0u
Poland17743 Posts
On October 31 2025 00:20 ChillFlame wrote: Exactly. I had different working schedules. Sometimes I had 3-4 months of holidays. Sometimes I play for 16 hours per day. I've never run out of games to play. I have tons of games in queue, and it's only getting bigger. Remarkably, I haven't played a single (new) Ubisoft or EA game in the last 10 years. "Industry" can screw itself, it has nothing to do with good games nowadays. It's remasters at best. Sometimes it's something like SC or D2. Sometimes it's WC3R or GTA DE. If big companies can't deliver a polished and complete experience, what's the point of their existence? Indie gamedev does everything else better. Sometimes indie devs deliver the quality, unreachable by big studios, like Against the Storm or Factorio, which I mentioned earlier. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/4hgW257ATj4 Good summary on the state of the industry and players nowadays. | ||
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jztjughjghf
2 Posts
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Slydie
1935 Posts
On October 31 2025 04:18 jztjughjghf wrote: Why do you take companies responsible when its the playerbase who decided that League of Legends and its garbage microtransaction is the future? Especially in its early years, League of Legends was dreadful. People just had to drop the game. Since they didnt, people are obviously happy with this kind of shit, or? The companies are responsible for only trying to catch "whales" who shell out $$$$$ for bs in their addictive games, instead of making a good, fair one-time purchase. Addicts are never happy, but they usually make someone rich. Games can be very profitable without being good in any way except making money. | ||
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Jeremy Reimer
Canada1142 Posts
I'm going to try and take a real break from all of this Stormgate stuff for a bit. Maybe I'll check in at the end of November, when Frost Giant has to start repaying that $2 million loan. | ||
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ETisME
12714 Posts
They are trying to secure a big profit margin by making the game more expensive to build and market it harder. That's why we end up with a game that is more "accessible and safer", they can't just target a niche market. But if they go cheaper in cost and do more double A and indies, they don't really have many advantages in an extremely competitive market. Not to mention 30% profit margin on a lower budget cost, is unlikely to cover the bloated gaming department unless it's a mega hit. Plus triple A titles have higher chance to create IPs which are almost just as valuable as how much money it makes. Licensing merch, shows etc. | ||
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JimmyJRaynor
Canada17504 Posts
On October 31 2025 07:42 Jeremy Reimer wrote: Well, Stormgate is reaching peaks of 27 players per day and lows of 8, the Stormgate Reddit is completely dead, and this thread is only kept alive by talking about how great indie games are and how terrible AAA games have become. I'm going to try and take a real break from all of this Stormgate stuff for a bit. Maybe I'll check in at the end of November, when Frost Giant has to start repaying that $2 million loan. The StormgateArchive is still running on TWitch.tv https://www.twitch.tv/stormgatearchive | ||
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Jeremy Reimer
Canada1142 Posts
On October 31 2025 10:59 JimmyJRaynor wrote: The StormgateArchive is still running on TWitch.tv https://www.twitch.tv/stormgatearchive With three whole viewers, including me! At least for a few seconds. Yesterday they reached a peak of five. If I'd watched then, they would have had six. | ||
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Manit0u
Poland17743 Posts
Pretty crazy stories. Guys that did Goat Simulator previously now made a game for a jam, liked the concept and went with it. Game done and released in 3 months, over a million copies sold, thousands of concurrent players (and it's a 4-5 player game)... | ||
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JimmyJRaynor
Canada17504 Posts
Sony would not put the game out on PC or XBOX. This gave Super Mega Baseball the opening it needed. You can adjust the settings in Super Mega Baseball to make it an arcade instant pick up game. YOu can adjust the settings to make it the most hard core in depth baseball management sim you could ever dream of. In 2018, Sony only permitted MLB The Show on Playstation. in 2018 Drader/Zuger managed to put Super Mega Baseball on the NIntendo Switch. It was easily the best baseball game on the Nintendo Switch. They put SMB on as many platforms as they could. You do not need PS5 level graphics to make a great baseball game. MLB The Show has better hair physics. In every other aspect Super Mega Baseball is a better game. | ||
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