On June 06 2026 01:06 Jeremy Reimer wrote: Everyone knows that Tim was bad at leadership, at running a company, and at game design. But he was supposed to be the "money man", a guy who knew how to handle finances. Except he was super bad at that .... This is all part of the financial wizardry and money-savvy abilities of Tim Morten.
This is heartbreaking for all the computer science nerds out there... Having a good money man is just as important as having a great software product.
Finding a Bobby Kotick type is critical for anyone who loves making cool software.
On June 06 2026 01:06 Jeremy Reimer wrote: Everyone knows that Tim was bad at leadership, at running a company, and at game design. But he was supposed to be the "money man", a guy who knew how to handle finances. Except he was super bad at that .... This is all part of the financial wizardry and money-savvy abilities of Tim Morten.
This is heartbreaking for all the computer science nerds out there... Having a good money man is just as important as having a great software product.
Finding a Bobby Kotick type is critical for anyone who loves making cool software.
I mean, you always need money if you want to do big projects. People praised Tim Morten for raising so much money for Frost Giant, but he did so in 2020-2022, during the easiest time to raise money for video games in all of human history. A small earthenware pot wearing a wig could probably have raised $40 million in such an environment.
Right now he's raising no money at all. In his latest LinkedIn post, he's singing the praises of Star's Reach, some kind of space MMO thing. It ticks all the boxes:
* Founded by a "legendary" developer of a beloved game from far in the past? Check. (Ultima Online, Star Wars Galaxies) * Underwhelming trailer full of mobile graphics, janky animations, and unclear gameplay? Check. (Thousands of planets! Everything is player-driven!) * Going into Early Access years before it's ready, despite the protestations of all the playtesters? Check. (Probably out of money.)
I was too vague in my post. I will clarify. It isn't just the money. Navigating government regs and tax laws, employment laws, all that stuff is best handled by the money person. This allows one to clear away all brain space to just make a great product.
On June 06 2026 02:43 JimmyJRaynor wrote: I was too vague in my post. I will clarify. It isn't just the money. Navigating government regs and tax laws, employment laws, all that stuff is best handled by the money person. This allows one to clear away all brain space to just make a great product.
That's right, you just gotta keep them away from decision making. If your accountant changes the number of starting workers in your game, you're doing it wrong.
A competent Tim Morten could have done the money stuff and made product decisions too, but those decisions should have been geared toward getting something complete and coherent out the door. Worker count is probably too deep in the weeds, but he could have, for example, demanded the team forget about a third race until the first two were in a good spot.
It's interesting that we've never seen any sign of resentment toward the Tims within Frost Giant. It's more evidence that the leadership just didn't care enough about the crucial hard choices they were facing. I certainly would like a boss who lets me screw around with my pet rollback code, instead of ruthlessly identifying and cutting out everything that isn't building toward The First Truly Social RTS, but that's how we got all the gaffes and low-quality work that we did.
On June 07 2026 08:11 crablogic wrote: instead of ruthlessly identifying and cutting out everything that isn't building toward The First Truly Social RTS, but that's how we got all the gaffes and low-quality work that we did.
ahhh... ruthless honesty... one of my favourite concepts.... it can be a self esteem builder.... or ... when abandoned.. .a confidence killer.
"What we need then is an orientation of self-examination and self-awareness—of consciousness directed inward as well as outward. Part of living consciously is being on guard against the sometimes seductive pull of unconsciousness; this asks for the most ruthless honesty of which we are capable."
Stormgate Central is gone. No announcement.. no anything ... just gone. It is a cruel world.
Actually, Stormgate Central released a video two months ago explaining that he was done with Stormgate and was now changing the name of his channel to Ghost Gaming Insider:
Formerly Stormgate Central said: Hey guys, it's been a long time. Welcome back to what was formerly known as the Stormgate Central channel. We haven't spoken since the launch of Stormgate. And I think at this point, we all know how that went. And unfortunately, it wasn't the launch that the game needed to sustain either itself or really my efforts to make content around the game.
On June 08 2026 04:19 Jeremy Reimer wrote: So we at least know the answer to this mystery.
I always learn something new on TL.Net. thanks for this great info. The great thing about abrupt financial decisions impacting video game franchises is they leave all kinds of lore story threads hanging forever. Like the glowing briefcase in Pulp Fiction...
And when I get time I'll post about the comeback of offline xbase in the programming thread.
On June 11 2026 06:25 JimmyJRaynor wrote: I am still waiting for Bonfire Studios to announce they are shutting down. I'm giving them 6 months.
It's still a mystery to me why they ripped off Stunlock Studios games to the fucking logo. Spite? Cynicism?
Is it really the same logo, though? They're both chunky swirls, but Stunlock's logo is two interlocking blue swirls that spiral out in a circular pattern, and Bonfire Studios is a single beige swirl that has a circular pattern for a while but then pushes straight up, evoking a flame.
As an aside, I have a weird obsession with logos that's not unlike my weird obsession with Stormgate and Frost Giant Studios.
One of my greatest joys ever at work was two jobs ago, when I took over the task of customizing our company's web-based product for various construction companies. I realized that, for the first and possibly the last time ever, other people's stupidity was directly making my life easier. Because there was always a dumb website somewhere where some dumb web admin uploaded a MASSIVE logo directly from a designer at the company, and then just relied on the HTML "width" and "height" tags to resize it, instead of doing the smart thing and resizing it in Photoshop or Paint.NET so that people didn't have to wait for a long download for a tiny image. But this massive image was great when I needed to resize it to fit in our web app, because of course if you try to resize a small image to a slightly different resolution, you come down with a case of the fuzzies.
On June 11 2026 11:49 Jeremy Reimer wrote: Is it really the same logo, though? They're both chunky swirls, but Stunlock's logo is two interlocking blue swirls that spiral out in a circular pattern, and Bonfire Studios is a single beige swirl that has a circular pattern for a while but then pushes straight up, evoking a flame.
They changed to the double swirl recenently, it was like this for a long time.
On June 11 2026 06:25 JimmyJRaynor wrote: I am still waiting for Bonfire Studios to announce they are shutting down. I'm giving them 6 months.
Their first game is about to drop right? I played it a while back in a larger test end of last year. It wasn't my cup of tea but it's had decent numbers no? https://steamdb.info/app/3401450/charts/#1y
On June 11 2026 06:25 JimmyJRaynor wrote: I am still waiting for Bonfire Studios to announce they are shutting down. I'm giving them 6 months.
Their first game is about to drop right? I played it a while back in a larger test end of last year. It wasn't my cup of tea but it's had decent numbers no? https://steamdb.info/app/3401450/charts/#1y
For these studios that take forever to make games the publisher must make a big expensive decision whether or not to release the game fully. This is when the rip chord gets pulled. Effectively, that happened to Stormgate, whatever Artillery Games made, that EA Moba that took forever, the C&C Online thing that Morten was the head tech guy. etc etc. I suspect the funding gods will look at it and say "no" OR it will hit Steam as a free game and not make enough money and quickly be shut down.
It is fascinating watching all the ex-Blizzard guys leave ATVI and pull in all this cash. A big aspect of their funding pitch is that ATVI was holding back their creativity. Given the freedom of leaving the horrible, terrible, evil ATVI they could spread their wings and fly high in the sky... like a lesbian seagull.
On June 11 2026 11:49 Jeremy Reimer wrote: But this massive image was great when I needed to resize it to fit in our web app, because of course if you try to resize a small image to a slightly different resolution, you come down with a case of the fuzzies. Anyway. Logos. I love them.
if you are looking to minimize page load times https://icomoon.io/ i helped this guy with documentation when it was first getting off the ground 15 years ago.
On June 11 2026 06:25 JimmyJRaynor wrote: I am still waiting for Bonfire Studios to announce they are shutting down. I'm giving them 6 months.
Their first game is about to drop right? I played it a while back in a larger test end of last year. It wasn't my cup of tea but it's had decent numbers no? https://steamdb.info/app/3401450/charts/#1y
A peak of 3,122 concurrent users doesn't seem that big for a public test of a highly-anticipated game from the "former lead designer of World of Warcraft".
I looked at a gameplay demo video and I don't see how this would have any kind of mass appeal. Apparently it won't be free-to-play, so that's one good decision they made. But it appears to be PvP-only, which seems bad, and maybe incompatible with a pay-to-play model these days? I'm not sure.
What I did notice is that it was Diablo-style isometric graphics, but the combat seemed to require you to constantly be spinning your camera around like crazy. Just watching it for a few minutes started to make me feel dizzy, and I'm a VR guy.
I don't know. The name is hard to remember. The game setting seems generic as hell, like even Stormgate had more personality than this. The graphics seem... fine, nothing special. The gameplay is... okay? But the spinning camera makes me never want to play it.
EPT
![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/jsydBz4.png)
![[image loading]](https://cdn.stunlock.com/press/2021/05/11144117/1_Main_Stunlock_Logo_White-1.png){kind=logo}
![[image loading]](https://gamesbeat.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Bonfire_White_Logo_1200x675.jpg){kind=logo}
