The advertisement/marketing part was about StartEngine funds, not Kickstarter.
Stormgate/Frost Giant Megathread - Page 124
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_Spartak_
Turkey344 Posts
The advertisement/marketing part was about StartEngine funds, not Kickstarter. | ||
MegaBuster
167 Posts
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JimmyJRaynor
Canada15890 Posts
Regarding the Morten interview. IMO, Zork is awesome and Kotick did a great job resurrecting that IP. Its cool that Tim Morten has chosen not to throw Kotick under the bus due to unsubstantiated rumours. His loyalty is commendable. Even if the game bombs... at least ... during this whole process we got to hear Tim Morten's life story. It is pretty interesting. For the Kickstarter people.. I'm not sure his life story was worth $40 though. On May 30 2024 07:07 MegaBuster wrote: they should put a button on the back of the kickstarter action figure that when you push it he has recorded voice lines reading all the financial FAQs and crowd equity contract stipulations ya, but they'd need a union voice actor for that and you know how quickly that level of voice production can get very expensive. I think the way they did the Kickstarter was fine. Most people know there is risk associated with Kickstarter... many Kickstarter projects have failed badly in the past. | ||
CicadaSC
United States1090 Posts
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Hider
Denmark9311 Posts
With campaign release they can probably bring in a bit more money to keep it going for some additional months. But my expectations is that player base will be small and probably declining after the initial release --> no VC's are interested in further financing it and they are running on net deficit without any cash reserves. Immortals Gates of Pyre and plausibly Zerospace (although this runs on much lower budget so more likely to be sustainable at a niche) are likely to run into a similar destiny. When we look back 12-18 months from now I hope the learning is that you can't take the existing RTS genre and merely make small modifications to it while reducing the skill-cap. Crossing my fingers that David Kim will succeed - based on early feedback I am more optimistic on behalf of his game than I ever been on any of the other 3 RTS games. | ||
LunarC
United States1186 Posts
On June 02 2024 16:53 Hider wrote: I think it's likely Frostgiant closes operations a year from now. I struggle to see the path for success with their expenses + the little hype/interest in the game. With campaign release they can probably bring in a bit more money to keep it going for some additional months. But my expectations is that player base will be small and probably declining after the initial release --> no VC's are interested in further financing it and they are running on net deficit without any cash reserves. Immortals Gates of Pyre and plausibly Zerospace (although this runs on much lower budget so more likely to be sustainable at a niche) are likely to run into a similar destiny. When we look back 12-18 months from now I hope the learning is that you can't take the existing RTS genre and merely make small modifications to it while reducing the skill-cap. Crossing my fingers that David Kim will succeed - based on early feedback I am more optimistic on behalf of his game than I ever been on any of the other 3 RTS games. Why do you assume you'll like David Kim's game? When I listen to what is said in their documentary video, it sounds like a game in the vein of Clash Royale or Warcraft Rumble. Which I wouldn't blame them for making. They would be in good company. Marvel Snap by former Hearthstone lead Ben Brode probably made more money than all indie RTS games from the last few years combined. Don't get me wrong, it will probably be fun. But it probably won't replace Dota for me (which I regularly play Ranked mode). | ||
_Spartak_
Turkey344 Posts
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MegaBuster
167 Posts
It'd be like when we all have to watch Day9 bomb an hour of comedy on this PC Game Show and to think afterwards — wow its impossible for anyone to be funny. | ||
uummpaa
238 Posts
On June 02 2024 20:16 _Spartak_ wrote: I have the opposite assessment of Stormgate and Uncapped RTS when it comes to their chance of success but the good thing is both will be released and we will see which path succeeds. As long as one of them succeeds, then that's good news. If neither succeeds, then there is a good chance that there was no way for an RTS with a brand new IP would succeed and it was never about what direction they were going to go with. ehhm considering there were RTS games that made a decent profit in the last few years, that might be one of the worst takes ive seen here | ||
SoleSteeler
Canada5369 Posts
There have been others that seemed pretty cool but most were single player. That said, If Uncapped Games, Zerospace and Stormgate all fail at being the next big multiplayer RTS, it probably just means they weren't good enough to dethrone the current popular RTSs, not that a brand new RTS IP can't succeed. | ||
_Spartak_
Turkey344 Posts
On June 02 2024 23:56 uummpaa wrote: Success is of course relative. Since the aim of both of these games is to become the next big thing in the RTS space, that's the bar in this context, not whether they will be able to turn a small profit or have a thousand concurrent players or something.ehhm considering there were RTS games that made a decent profit in the last few years, that might be one of the worst takes ive seen here | ||
Comedy
443 Posts
On June 02 2024 20:16 _Spartak_ wrote: I have the opposite assessment of Stormgate and Uncapped RTS when it comes to their chance of success but the good thing is both will be released and we will see which path succeeds. As long as one of them succeeds, then that's good news. If neither succeeds, then there is a good chance that there was no way for an RTS with a brand new IP would succeed and it was never about what direction they were going to go with. why would this be your opinion? You really think we can't do better than what stormgate has shown so far? I can't comment on what david kim comes up with, but I would be shocked if people think stormgate is actually the best we can do. | ||
WombaT
Northern Ireland22137 Posts
On June 03 2024 02:39 Comedy wrote: why would this be your opinion? You really think we can't do better than what stormgate has shown so far? I can't comment on what david kim comes up with, but I would be shocked if people think stormgate is actually the best we can do. Can we do better? I mean sure Will people keep funding projects of a particular focus in a genre that perpetually fail is a whole other question entirely It wouldn’t be the first genre that this happens to and it’ll be far from the last | ||
Hider
Denmark9311 Posts
On June 02 2024 17:32 LunarC wrote: Why do you assume you'll like David Kim's game? When I listen to what is said in their documentary video, it sounds like a game in the vein of Clash Royale or Warcraft Rumble. Which I wouldn't blame them for making. They would be in good company. Marvel Snap by former Hearthstone lead Ben Brode probably made more money than all indie RTS games from the last few years combined. Don't get me wrong, it will probably be fun. But it probably won't replace Dota for me (which I regularly play Ranked mode). This is a comment from Waxangel: Maybe I'm on the edge of NDA territory here but some of the barrier-to-entry/beginner friendly rhetoric just feels like lip service. IMO, in a real time game, all you can do is REALLOCATE clicks/attention to different sectors. And, indeed, nothing about the playtest made me feel that it was "easier"—I just had to focus on different things. That's exactly what I am looking for. (reduce/remove macro APM and further reward micro APM) And Artosis was really high on the game. While he initially was pessimistic about it, after a while it clicked and he said t he couldn't stop thinking/theory-crating about the game afterwards (or something along those lines). David Kim comes in with a vision. An idea for the type of game he wants that he couldn't/wasn't allowed to make at RTS. Stormgate in contrast never had a vision for their game besides some idea of the game-modes they wanted. And unfortunately it shows. | ||
uummpaa
238 Posts
On June 03 2024 00:27 _Spartak_ wrote: Success is of course relative. Since the aim of both of these games is to become the next big thing in the RTS space, that's the bar in this context, not whether they will be able to turn a small profit or have a thousand concurrent players or something. thats all nice and well but it still doesnt change that the success of those games has little to do with the possibility of RTS games being a thing the early buzz that stormgate was generating shows that people still want those games. if anything FG messed up with a way to ambitious plan for release and just poor marketing overall, but those things dont say anything about the viability of RTS games for the future, which was what i was commenting on your previous post | ||
_Spartak_
Turkey344 Posts
Similar is the case for Uncapped RTS. If the formula for success is to reduce macromanagement significantly and keep the scope of the game focused on competitive (so not be as ambitious as FG), then they are the best positioned to hit the mark. If they don't, I don't see anyone else doing it either. | ||
MegaBuster
167 Posts
If you gave Frost Giant 'the budget a real Blizzard RTS would get' you'd just be watching the Tims explain why there's 6 campaign missions at launch but in this timeline they have bristling perfect hair plugs and their twin Bugattis are framed up in the backdrop of the altverse Start Engine video (yea they'd still have done it). I am enjoying the subtle goal post shifting in anticipation of some kind of slaughterhouse David Kim Summer Games Fest announcement. Not to bubblepop but I think the fact that Uncapped's preview video could have featured Philomena Cunk appearing at any time is probably sort of troubling. As much as Artosis pretends an RTS can be different types of grey squares fighting — that's not going to do it. And well I didn't see David Kim experiencing much growth towards filling in any of the essential softer skillsets that his old buddy cop partner Dustin Browder used to provide. Still I think when Frost Gigante shows off the third faction it'll be pretty clear that they did exactly what they wanted to do and their success or failure is not based on any exterior circumstances. It is going to be an absolutely deep set view of who they really are. | ||
KingzTig
155 Posts
On June 03 2024 06:23 _Spartak_ wrote: You have to be ambitious if your goal is to make an RTS that is going to be considered the next iteration of Blizzard RTSes. The budget Frost Giant got for it is nowhere near as big as the budget a real Blizzard RTS would got but it is still much higher than the potential budget of any similar type of RTS for the foreseeable future. So, if Stormgate fails to deliver, I don't see anyone else delivering it. Similar is the case for Uncapped RTS. If the formula for success is to reduce macromanagement significantly and keep the scope of the game focused on competitive (so not be as ambitious as FG), then they are the best positioned to hit the mark. If they don't, I don't see anyone else doing it either. SG isn't the next iteration of SC2, it is a derivative with a clump of messy ideas. The blizzard RTS space is already filled well enough, BW, WC3 and SC2 have a fairly active ladder. If SG wants to break in, which one is it really challenging? Hell it would even struggle against WC3 reforge. The entire focus on budget is just not necessary, the next RTS just needs to be fun. Again bringing up BAR as a perfect example of what an organic game, with a low budget, capturing huge amount of players from its previous "iteration". Plus I don't think the budget for sc2 was ever public, the 100million figure was misquoted again and again. Personally I think SG has terrible planning for their marketing campaign and wasted every dollar spent. The summer game fest, gamescom and the game reward both were underwhelming, with nothing that really follows up the momentum. The beta was subpar, almost all content creators are the usual sc2 ones (no new audiences reach like they hoped). And now all content are stopped for a reboot in marketing effort. This should say a lot about their project management skills. | ||
uummpaa
238 Posts
On June 03 2024 06:23 _Spartak_ wrote: You have to be ambitious if your goal is to make an RTS that is going to be considered the next iteration of Blizzard RTSes. The budget Frost Giant got for it is nowhere near as big as the budget a real Blizzard RTS would got but it is still much higher than the potential budget of any similar type of RTS for the foreseeable future. So, if Stormgate fails to deliver, I don't see anyone else delivering it. Similar is the case for Uncapped RTS. If the formula for success is to reduce macromanagement significantly and keep the scope of the game focused on competitive (so not be as ambitious as FG), then they are the best positioned to hit the mark. If they don't, I don't see anyone else doing it either. so they went for something that they dont have the budget for? still sounds like bad managemet (impatience), and it doenst say anything about viablility of RTS. why not start with a decent game, earn some money and work on further things in an expac? you know like early day blizz or any other decently lead company would "if we dont make it its impossible" is still the single worst take one can take, maybe only short of blaming the community when it will fail, but whatever lets you sleep at night | ||
_Spartak_
Turkey344 Posts
Plus I don't think the budget for sc2 was ever public, the 100million figure was misquoted again and again. That's true but we can safely guess it was far higher than what Frost Giant has. Not to mention game development costs have skyrocketed since then. If Blizzard made a SC3 today, it would cost north of 100 million.Personally I think SG has terrible planning for their marketing campaign and wasted every dollar spent. Frost Giant has done a great job with marketing. They barely spent any money and reached over 500k wishlists on Steam, currently the 38th most wishlisted upcoming game. They have a good number of followers on all of their social media accounts as well. Not to mention their record breaking KS campaign. By all metrics, they did a very good job spreading the word.so they went for something that they dont have the budget for? They can still do it by being more efficient than a AAA company (shouldn't be hard) and also by relying on an early access period. It is harder to do it that way of course but I am personally happy they went with that route. I don't want a small scope RTS. I want a spiritual successor to Blizzard RTS and I don't want to wait until I am 50 to get it. | ||
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