[2023] Crowdfunding: Crafting the Future of RTS Together

8 months ago - /u/FGS_Gerald - Direct link

Hello, Stormgamers,

Today, we want to talk about crowdfunding and why our studio will be launching a Kickstarter campaign in the near future.

We’ve come a long way since Frost Giant Studios was founded and we’ve assembled a world-class development team. The technology we’ve built is truly cutting-edge, and we believe it sets Stormgate up to be the most responsive and fun-to-play RTS to date. Now, with the help of our playtesters, we’re making incredible progress in the game and will be kicking off the first stage of our closed beta testing this December.

So why are we doing a Kickstarter? Is it because that’s what all the cool RTS games are doing these days? Not quite, though we love to see growing momentum for our beloved genre.

We already have all the funding we need to release our game. This Kickstarter campaign will enable us to offer our players these two highly-requested “extras”:

1. A unique Collector's Edition

Many have asked us to sell a Collector’s Edition of Stormgate. Quite a few of us enjoy having the Warcraft III and StarCraft II Collector’s Edition boxes on our shelves at home; they reflect our love for those games and universes. Collector’s Editions are challenging and expensive to produce and are largely a labor of love dedicated to the game’s most passionate fans and supporters. Kickstarter will give us an accurate count of exactly how many Collector’s Editions we need to make.

We’ve already started the process and prototyped a Vulcan mech statue. Check out this preview video: We hope you'll love it.

2. Founder’s Packs and Beta keys

There’s nothing we’d like more than to invite everyone to playtest our game. The fact is that the servers and equipment required to bring in additional testers can get expensive and we’re already at capacity.

We want to reward our earliest community members by selling a Founder’s Pack with exclusive perks, including beta access as a bonus reward. Valve is an important partner for us, and their policy for Early Access games only allows us to sell Founder’s Packs with a limited number of Steam beta keys as part of a crowdfunding campaign.

Through Kickstarter, we can sell Founder’s Packs and expand our beta testing program before Stormgate goes into Early Access. For those of you already playtesting and providing valuable feedback, we hope you will find the other rewards exciting and consider backing us.

Let us know what you think

As an independent studio, community support means everything to us. We see crowdfunding as a continuation of what we’ve been doing from the very beginning—making Stormgate together with you. Your input, passion, and support have been invaluable in getting us this far.

Now it’s time for some questions! We’d value hearing from you on:

Reward tiers: What kinds of reward tiers would you find most appealing in a Stormgate crowdfunding campaign?
Beta access: How important is earlier access, particularly beta access, to you? (We’ll be giving out a few beta keys to commenters below, as our thanks for reading this far.)
Collector's Edition: How interested are you in owning a physical Collector's Edition (including the Vulcan mech statue)? Would you be interested in an unpainted version?

Thank you for being an integral part of our community.

-Your friends at Frost Giant Studios

External link →

8 months ago - /u/FGS_Gerald - Direct link

Hello, Stormgamers,

Today, we want to talk about crowdfunding and why our studio will be launching a Kickstarter campaign in the near future.

We’ve come a long way since Frost Giant Studios was founded and we’ve assembled a world-class development team. The technology we’ve built is truly cutting-edge, and we believe it sets Stormgate up to be the most responsive and fun-to-play RTS to date. Now, with the help of our playtesters, we’re making incredible progress in the game and will be kicking off the first stage of our closed beta testing this December.

So why are we doing a Kickstarter? Is it because that’s what all the cool RTS games are doing these days? Not quite, though we love to see growing momentum for our beloved genre.

We already have all the funding we need to release our game. This Kickstarter campaign will enable us to offer our players these two highly-requested “extras”:

1. A unique Collector's Edition

Many have asked us to sell a Collector’s Edition of Stormgate. Quite a few of us enjoy having the Warcraft III and StarCraft II Collector’s Edition boxes on our shelves at home; they reflect our love for those games and universes. Collector’s Editions are challenging and expensive to produce and are largely a labor of love dedicated to the game’s most passionate fans and supporters. Kickstarter will give us an accurate count of exactly how many Collector’s Editions we need to make.

We’ve already started the process and prototyped a Vulcan mech statue. Check out this preview video: We hope you'll love it.

2. Founder’s Packs and Beta keys

There’s nothing we’d like more than to invite everyone to playtest our game. The fact is that the servers and equipment required to bring in additional testers can get expensive and we’re already at capacity.

We want to reward our earliest community members by selling a Founder’s Pack with exclusive perks, including beta access as a bonus reward. Valve is an important partner for us, and their policy for Early Access games only allows us to sell Founder’s Packs with a limited number of Steam beta keys as part of a crowdfunding campaign.

Through Kickstarter, we can sell Founder’s Packs and expand our beta testing program before Stormgate goes into Early Access. For those of you already playtesting and providing valuable feedback, we hope you will find the other rewards exciting and consider backing us.

Let us know what you think

As an independent studio, community support means everything to us. We see crowdfunding as a continuation of what we’ve been doing from the very beginning—making Stormgate together with you. Your input, passion, and support have been invaluable in getting us this far.

Now it’s time for some questions! We’d value hearing from you on:

Reward tiers: What kinds of reward tiers would you find most appealing in a Stormgate crowdfunding campaign?
Beta access: How important is earlier access, particularly beta access, to you? (We’ll be giving out a few beta keys to commenters below, as our thanks for reading this far.)
Collector's Edition: How interested are you in owning a physical Collector's Edition (including the Vulcan mech statue)? Would you be interested in an unpainted version?

Thank you for being an integral part of our community.

-Your friends at Frost Giant Studios

External link →

8 months ago - /u/FGS_Gerald - Direct link

Originally posted by DANCINGLINGS

Well all I can say is, that I will buy the day you drop the link. Thats all I have to add.

Edit: By the way I did a post on Collectors Edition a long time ago so if you want specific thoughts on that, feel free to check that one out @FGS_Gerald

https://reddit.com/r/Stormgate/comments/xj5nht/thoughts_on_collectors_editions/

Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts. I think quite a few of us read your original post. Hope you like our direction for the statue!

8 months ago - /u/FGS_Gerald - Direct link

Originally posted by bitbytebase

It's more difficult to incentivize me to back a free game. That said paying for beta access in the lowest tier and some offline goodies in higher tier seems reasonable. Maybe you can do something about Stormgate plush <

I hope we can fast-track the plushy campaign! I'd love to see our Infernal worker Imps as toys in various skin color variants...

8 months ago - /u/FGS_Gerald - Direct link

Originally posted by kaelaris

Hi my first post here.

Yes unpainted give me please I want to paint it!

Welcome! We'd love to see you post here more often.

If we don't end up being able to offer unpainted versions to backers because of demand, I'll still see what we can do about getting you a version to paint. :)

P.S. I own semi-painted Space Wolf and Skaven armies. I think it'd be super fun to share a few painted Vulcans from our mini-loving developers.

8 months ago - /u/FGS_Gerald - Direct link

Originally posted by loocas94

Not sure what you mean by reward tiers tbh.
All in all im not interested in a collectors edition.

Im only interested in a beta key here :)

Reward tiers are the different types of reward options that we would offer on Kickstarter. Your feedback is already helpful. :)

8 months ago - /u/FGS_Gerald - Direct link

Originally posted by idispensemeds2

Would you need to also buy the game when it releases? I'd only buy a beta key if I had a real key on release with it.

Our Founder's Packs would include paid content such as campaign missions for those who enjoy story and playable heroes for our multiplayer modes.

The Stormgate core experience is free. If you just want to queue up to play 1v1, for example, that will be completely free.

8 months ago - /u/FGS_Gerald - Direct link

Originally posted by Eterlik

Normally I'm happy with a kickstarter campaign. Especially for a game I'm looking forward to, like I do to stormgate. But so far the rewards do not interest me at all.

I have no interest in collectors editions of any games. So this is nothing I would buy.

But I get mixed feelings when a free to play game wants to go buy to play for a beta. To be honest, this catches me by surprise and gives me a bad feeling for what might await us on full release regarding monetization.

With the information we got right now I would not participate in the kickstarter. I would have been willing to pay money for additional in-game features.

Hi Eterlik--none of our testers have paid for access, but we've reached our capacity and there's still substantial demand to beta test. Founder's Pack sales would allow us to offset the costs of welcoming more playtesters.

Regarding your mixed feelings, we aim to be fully transparent about everything we sell: we won't sell player power, for example. Stormgate will not be a Pay-to-Win RTS. We plan to sell story content, new playable Heroes for our multiplayer modes, and optional cosmetics. That's what you can expect in a Founder's Pack, for starters.

A Founder's Pack would be a way for you to directly support the team by pre-purchasing this content, which you may have already planned to purchase, while also receiving exclusive bonus rewards as our thanks for being an early supporter.

If you'd rather wait to try out the game during Early Access before deciding whether you want to purchase any content, that's OK with us too! It's important to us that you feel good about anything you choose to purchase.

We're in this for the long haul and I'm sure we'll make some mistakes along the way, but I hope you feel like we've always been honest and fair with how we treat our players.

8 months ago - /u/FGS_Gerald - Direct link

Originally posted by Friff01

Thanks for the update! I haven’t done much with crowdfunding but will support this project 100%. I think the more physical rewards the better, like plushies or clothing and the like. in-game cosmetics are nice but will be a thing anyway with a F2P model. I would give my first born child for a beta invite so yes I think that should be included as a tier. This is also the first game I’ve ever considered getting a collectors edition for and would be proud to display a badass Vulcan on my shelf 🖖

I have three of my own, so we’re good on first born children. How about a puppy instead?

8 months ago - /u/FGS_Gerald - Direct link

Originally posted by Drict

So where is the link?

Coming soon…

8 months ago - /u/FGS_Gerald - Direct link

Originally posted by KeithDavisRatio

Is Frost Giant not a part of Dreamhaven anymore?

We’ve never been part of DreamHaven—they’re good friends and we have an advisory relationship where they provide us with valuable support, but Frost Giant is a wholly independent studio.

8 months ago - /u/FGS_Gerald - Direct link

Originally posted by halpmebogs

I’m insta backing out of principle the day the link drops. Let’s f**king goooo!

💙💙💙

8 months ago - /u/FGS_Gerald - Direct link

Originally posted by DarkChronos32

I would absolutely shell out for beta access, and if a cool painted statue comes out looking real slick a Collector's Edition is very much on my radar. And cause I'm extremely biased towards them, maybe a cool Enamel Pin or maybe 3 for the races...

Either way sounds like I should start saving money~

I recently had the pleasure of meeting with some of the folks who work on pins for other popular games at BlizzCon—would love to do pins for Stormgate one day!

8 months ago - /u/FGS_Gerald - Direct link

Originally posted by turok643

I would say before the collector's edition...announce the other factions. They don't have to be complete, but we should know what we're getting into before we buy something for a free to play game.

Now that being said. I watched your debute, signed up for alpha, didn't get in. Second wave alpha, didn't get in. I'll wait patiently and come when you guys let me. I would say some kind of digital badge in the game to show beta or founder player. As well as a statue of an internal or mech choice and maybe an enamel pin.

These would be on a tier system.

$10 - digital badge $25- beta code $50- enamel pin (choosable faction) $100- statue of infernal or mech $150 - name in the credits as a producer or something.

You can mess with the price structure pending on the needs for pricing and scale necessity.

I'll see you in the Storm.

Thank you for supporting us from the very beginning of our journey. Part of why we want to expand our Beta program is to open up testing to more players who’ve also been hoping to get in since day 1.

We’d love to open testing up to ALL of our supporters, but we’re not making any money yet and we’ve poured everything we have into making the game. Pre-purchases through a Founder’s Pack will allow us to offer that option to those who want it.

See you in Stormgate!

8 months ago - /u/FGS_Gerald - Direct link

Originally posted by TenchiSaWaDa

excited. when is it coming?

Soon! We’ll share the exact date and link here as well as on our socials and via Newsletter.

8 months ago - /u/FGS_Gerald - Direct link

Originally posted by KeithDavisRatio

Interesting, tell us more. I could have sworn when Dreamhaven launched, Frost Giant was one of the studios on their website. I think that’s how I learned about Frost Giant. Are there different tiers of relationships with Dreamhaven and why didn’t you go full Dreamhaven?

We’re partners—DreamHaven provides helpful guidance and access to certain resources and expertise that we wouldn’t have as a smaller and heavily development-focused team.

In contrast, they also have two internal studios—Secret Door and Moonshot Games. Both are super-talented teams with upcoming games that we can’t wait to play.

8 months ago - /u/FGS_Gerald - Direct link

Originally posted by copasetikmatt

ill give whatever money is required to get everything on offer please and thank you

💙💙💙

8 months ago - /u/FGS_Gerald - Direct link

Originally posted by Taronz

I'm gonna level with you here Gerald. Despite my disappointment that my alpha/beta invites seem to keep getting lose in the mail, I will buy access if I must. Want to tinker with that co op and try to form some coherent thoufhts about it as it will be one of my main ways to play.

Other rewards are pretty ancillary, depending on budget at the time, but if there's a small/medium opt in beta key price, at the least that would be happening.

Appreciate you leveling with me. That’s what we’re looking for.

8 months ago - /u/FGS_Gerald - Direct link

Originally posted by Pylori36

Reward tiers: What kinds of reward tiers would you find most appealing in a Stormgate crowdfunding campaign?

Personally I've always had issue with introducing any sort of FOMO elements, especially before a game is released. Ethical concerns aside, I guess some sort of badge/way of showing I was involved in it? E.g. I'm quite fond of my HotS collectors edition profile badge. Can't really think of anything else on this one except out of game goodies like the statue mentioned later.

Beta access: How important is earlier access, particularly beta access, to you? (We’ll be giving out a few beta keys to commenters below, as our thanks for reading this far.)

Hard to say as I've got access hahaha. Doesn't feel fair to comment on this sadly.

Collector's Edition: How interested are you in owning a physical Collector's Edition (including the Vulcan mech statue)? Would you be interested in an unpainted version?

very interested. Personally I'm not a fan of tying it to a kickstarter, as I simply do not do crowdfunding, but if it was available to purchase directly, I would be buying it for certain, especially for the statue! I'd prefer a painted statue though.

I hear you on wanting a direct purchase option, but we really want to avoid a situation where we are having to deal with excess inventory on a pricy physical collector’s edition. We’re a small team and just aren’t set up to handle warehouse logistics for a bunch of heavy unpaid boxes.

KS is the best way to get an accurate measure of demand and to then fulfill those orders.

8 months ago - /u/FGS_Gerald - Direct link

Originally posted by Buzerio

I think if backing it on Kickstarter would give me access to later co-op commanders, campaigns, etc that I'd buy anyway then I'd definitely do it.

Yep! The Founder’s Packs would include campaign packs and Heroes.

8 months ago - /u/FGS_Gerald - Direct link

Originally posted by AnxietyNo8032

Hey Gerald! Amazing job with this community! What about a Kickstarter to help fund a map editor, or some sort of version of UEFN, to keep the game and it's community alive long after development support has slowed or stopped. Coming from the StarCraft 2 modding community which started my career in games, really wish there was more support for modders to profit while also bringing players to your game. I get that this might be too soon to plan for, but wanted to make sure it's on radar.

Remembering Star Citizens Kickstarter, I wished I'd been aware of it because, for hundreds to several thousands, they offered a day or interview with the founder. That's valuable to me as a 2 year designer and I'd pay as much for time to explore ways of thinking and insights. Maybe offer 2 options for discord/zoom/in person meeting. Valuable to a fan too because nothing like understanding development or lore of the world.

I also paid 140 for fortnite founders edition, before it was a BR. I did that because the skin they offered was a white and gold "legendary" ninja outfit that non founders can never own. Felt super special. I love tech and scifi and all that Stormgate and StarCraft is about, and I imagine when it comes to skins you could offer 1 set of cosmetics, never to be offered again, that would be so bad ass and in line with what this audience is here for.

Will look for you on LinkedIn btw! Again, amazing job with this community lol.

Happy to hear that you’re excited about our plans for custom games! We plan to release the same tools our team is using to build the game as an editor—the most advanced RTS editor yet. It’ll be a while as we’ve got to get the game out first, but we’re excited about the possibilities.

As for reward tiers that include behind the scenes access, that’s an intriguing idea…

7 months ago - /u/FGS_Gerald - Direct link

Originally posted by renok2504

Hopefully the Collector's Edition will have international shipping(?)

Hey, folks. We'll have a pledge manager to handle the backer's shipping costs. I believe US, EU, and UK should have standard shipping rates. Not sure about other regions just yet, but we're investigating.

7 months ago - /u/FGS_Gerald - Direct link

Originally posted by m4ma

Alright this scares the shit out of me. Last "crowdfunded" game I played took years of development, was released half baked, and shuttered within a year.

Hey, just to be clear, this campaign is meant to fund physical collector’s editions and to sell founder’s packs with beta access for those who want it. Unlike some kickstarters that never result in a playable game, Stormgate is already fully funded for release to early access.

7 months ago - /u/FGS_Gerald - Direct link

Originally posted by Talnir

Before going to the questions, I think there is one essential thing that needs to be mentioned even if it is going to sound trivial. Goodies & bonuses are good but I think the industry those days sometimes lose sight of what really matters: that the game is great.

I know you said you already have enough money to release the game but I bet that most people on this sub would be GLAD to give you some money just to increase the quality of the game itself and with no goodies attached to it. I know it sounds a bit unrealisitic (ofc ppl are going to want something for their money) but what I mean is that most of us is going to found the crowdfunding more because we want to support you & for the game to be awesome than to get goodies.

That being said, to the questions :3 :

REWARD TIERS: I think ingame things like skins, portrait, voicelines, UI designs, basically any type of cosmetics are great, & pbbly the most accessible.

Access to the game soundtrack or exclusive soundtracks would be awesome as well.

For real stuff, I'd like things like posters, miniatures (or equivalent).

BETA ACCESS: MEANS THE WORLD TO ME :3. HAND OVER THE BETA KEY :p.

COLLECTOR: unfortunately I am not a big collector guy so I would not give too much weight to my opinion. I think artbook & miniatures/statues, as well as accessories you can wear/display, would be the most attractive to me.

I guess the painted statue would be the preferred option for most ppl.

Keep up with the great work, I cannot wait to play, and I feel you guys have the awesome, wholesome and authentic attitude of people who are deeply passionate and care for the community. Big thumbs up & much love!

Appreciate the thoughtful note about wanting to support the game directly. Every dollar that comes in to purchase a Founder's Pack would go directly towards supporting the development of Stormgate. <3

7 months ago - /u/FGS_Gerald - Direct link

Originally posted by Oneandonlymightyduck

Commenting for my little brother, on the off chance I could give him a beta key for Christmas. He's had the family signing up emails and filling out surveys for awhile now.

Give your little brother a big hug/high five from us and our thanks for being an early supporter.

7 months ago - /u/FGS_Gerald - Direct link

Originally posted by PineappleLordLive

Thank you so much for this clarification

Thanks for reading! I enjoyed watching your recent video--we really appreciate the support.

7 months ago - /u/FGS_Gerald - Direct link

Originally posted by LuckofCaymo

Careful, crowdfunding an already funded free to play game sounds bad. Why not just run it through your website. Have it as something purchasable with your account. Doing it through Kickstarter has bad vibes to me.

We can’t provide beta keys as bonus rewards outside of a crowdfunding campaign per Valve’s policy. Doing it on our own is not an option.

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