Interesting. I am considering joining myself but I have to admit this is the first time I get a bit concerned. Well funded companies don't do that. Showing off their product so early, doing the kickstarter and wanting to release EA this summer despite the game clearly needing some time more to cook indicates to me they have some budget issues and require funding to truly deliver their vision of the game.
Hi Dyoakom--our intent has been to be very transparent about our funding situation with our community. Hopefully, I can answer some of your open questions.
We are an independent studio with nearly $35M raised. Modern AAA games have budgets over $100M, and that's before you consider their marketing expenses, which can be in a similar range.
Stormgate is fully funded to get us to our Early Access release. To this date, we have invested almost the entirety of our funding into the development of the game. For marketing, we've been relying on word of mouth and sharing our progress with the RTS community to grow public awareness of Stormgate. This campaign is targeted at raising additional funds to support publishing efforts for our upcoming release as well as ongoing development. We have a long road ahead, after all, and plenty of work left to do before our official launch in the future.
The community has been a critical component of our journey thus far, such as with our record-setting Kickstarter campaign, and this opportunity on StartEngine is an optional way for supporters to become more directly involved in our studio's future.
As we approach our Early Access release this summer, we are inviting members of the public to become stakeholders who will have the opportunity to share in any potential successes that lie ahead for Frost Giant. (Please see StartEngine for the disclaimers.)
A publisher would normally pay the marketing expenses to promote a game at release, but we have decided to instead self-publish our game in the West. We don't want anyone else to be in a position where they can force us to compromise our vision or what's best for the game in favor of near-term gain. Please let me know if you have any other questions about our situation.
Pasting the compliance disclaimer here so I don't get fired today:
NO MONEY OR OTHER CONSIDERATION IS BEING SOLICITED, AND IF SENT IN RESPONSE, WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED. NO OFFER TO BUY THE SECURITIES CAN BE ACCEPTED AND NO PART OF THE PURCHASE PRICE CAN BE RECEIVED UNTIL THE OFFERING STATEMENT IS FILED AND ONLY THROUGH AN INTERMEDIARY’S PLATFORM. AN INDICATION OF INTEREST INVOLVES NO OBLIGATION OR COMMITMENT OF ANY KIND. "RESERVING" SECURITIES IS SIMPLY AN INDICATION OF INTEREST.
Hi, folks. I'm here to clarify a few things and to answer questions as best I can. Please note that crowd-equity involves securities, and there are strict rules as to what we can and can't say at this time. Our StartEngine Test the Waters page is a preview page only. It's like a "Coming Soon!" page where you can opt to get in early and reserve the right to receive a 5% bonus on the common stock shares you receive by becoming part-owners of Frost Giant.
I can't share information that is part of our campaign pitch page, video, or financial background until it clears the compliance review process. We understand if you are interested but would prefer to wait for the proper campaign to launch. (We can't share the timing for that either, as it needs to happen after the regulatory compliance review.)
What I CAN address now are some of the questions on our funding situation. Early Access is our initial release. We will begin to monetize at Early Access, selling content that was previously available for pre-purchase to our Kickstarter backers (such as Heroes, campaign chapters for our ongoing storyline, and cosmetics such as army skins), and will continue to support the game with new content several times a year.
This is a very typical approach for smaller teams: Seed funding and a Series A round is how many startups today get funded to get their product to market, but revenue generated by the game needs to fund the company going forward, not just pre-launch
We are pouring nearly every cent of our approximately $35M into making the best possible RTS, but that doesn’t leave much to self-publish and market our initial release. This is why we’re offering up the opportunity to become part owners of Frost Giant in exchange for funds to help support our self-publishing efforts so that Stormgate can be released without the support (and strings) of a traditional publishing partner and still reach the largest possible audience.
Modern games can have massive paid advertising budgets that rival (and often exceed) the development costs of our entire game. We were never going to stand toe-to-toe with huge publishers in terms of marketing spend, so we went with a community-first approach and brought you along with us on our development journey.
Thanks to the awesome support of the RTS community, we’ve seen some positive early indicators, but this crowd-equity campaign is a way for us to help stack the odds in our favor, providing us with marketing funds to put towards paid promotion and other publishing efforts.
We’re choosing to stay independent and to self-publish in the West so that we maintain control over our destiny and can always do what we feel is best for players. With investor and community support, we are aiming for a bright future ahead for Frost Giant and Stormgate.
Obligatory disclaimer:
NO MONEY OR OTHER CONSIDERATION IS BEING SOLICITED, AND IF SENT IN RESPONSE, WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED. NO OFFER TO BUY THE SECURITIES CAN BE ACCEPTED AND NO PART OF THE PURCHASE PRICE CAN BE RECEIVED UNTIL THE OFFERING STATEMENT IS FILED AND ONLY THROUGH AN INTERMEDIARY’S PLATFORM. AN INDICATION OF INTEREST INVOLVES NO OBLIGATION OR COMMITMENT OF ANY KIND. "RESERVING" SECURITIES IS SIMPLY AN INDICATION OF INTEREST.
this isn't the same as a kickstarter though. kickstarter is more of a game pre-order program.
this is actually investing in frost giant, and its only available to accredited investors (e.g. people with high net worth)
It's also likely there would be additional rounds of funding as they go on. most companies take time to become profitable and need continued funding.
To confirm: this is not just open to accredited investors. This was an error as we are a Reg CF filing, not Reg D. We have reached out to StartEngine to ask that they correct the error in the FAQ.
This is the first thing out of frost giant that's actually making me nervous...
I hope lines of communication/announcement prep and plans got crossed, this site was found early or something and we will get a clear communication package about what's going on. Its entirely possible there's a well thought out plan behind this that minimises risk to everyone, gives everyone clear benefits and doesn't imply frostgiants finances are in dire straits. But with what is available now this seems... odd.
If they're fully funded to launch (or even just to early access) this shouldn't be necessary as from late this year they can start to sell campaign missions, heroes, cosmetics etc to start getting some income in.
If this is to fund a marketing run... they were open about there not being budget for marketing and maybe they see this as a better route than trying to raise more from banks/company investors, so the 'why' is sound. But realistically frost giant could underperform, share prices could drop, dividends could be low and yet the game could still generate enough income to keep it going once its made.
But if a bunch of the community have invested and get low returns I can see negativity from that taking over the community and poisoning the player base and turning away interest from the game. Big investors may be unhappy with lower than anticipated returns but they won't make 100 reddit threads abouts or give the content for every gaming content creator to talk about the company that ripped off its fans.
Hopefully I'm just missing something about how StartEngine works or what the pitch is or what the plan is, but at the moment this is leaving me feeling uncomfortable.
A full "communications package" is coming later -- this is a preview page only, referred to as a Test the Waters page to gauge potential investor interest. We will have a campaign page, financials, a video, etc., pending compliance review.
NO MONEY OR OTHER CONSIDERATION IS BEING SOLICITED, AND IF SENT IN RESPONSE, WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED. NO OFFER TO BUY THE SECURITIES CAN BE ACCEPTED AND NO PART OF THE PURCHASE PRICE CAN BE RECEIVED UNTIL THE OFFERING STATEMENT IS FILED AND ONLY THROUGH AN INTERMEDIARY’S PLATFORM. AN INDICATION OF INTEREST INVOLVES NO OBLIGATION OR COMMITMENT OF ANY KIND. "RESERVING" SECURITIES IS SIMPLY AN INDICATION OF INTEREST.
Anybody see what this puts the valuation at?
The current valuation is $150M.
u/FGS_Gerald Hey man i was just wondering. I invested into the company earlier through Startengine. Will there be any in game items or awards or anything for early investors. Just curious. And Good luck with your Marketing campaign. I gotta a lotta faith in you guys!
Thank you for that! I need to check in on what we may do, but I’m unaware of any in-game benefits at this time.
What is Stormgate's business plans for the next 3 years? If the game is free-to-play do they expect to make their money back on skins and other in game purchases? RTS games don't really seem like they make sense when it comes to microtransations. Maybe this one could be different successful at them.
DOTA 2 Esport are primarily crowdfunded through a type of in-game "Battle Pass" I think something like this could be really successfully in Stormgate. This could carry over what they did in SC2 with popular player portraits, skins, announcer packs, etc. This could create a lot of community hype and COULD be an additional income stream for players/creators. (Stormgate would get a large cut of course) Also, maybe a virtual "Sports Betting" thing in game could be interesting - I'm thinking with virtual currency not real $.
How is Stormgate innovating not only in gameplay and a new RTS game but in the marketplace? Will it just be another game on Steam or is going to have it's own store a be more similar to RIOT?
I want Stormgate to be successfully and I love RTS games. I believe Stormgate can be a good game but if I was a VC firm or as a general investor I would want to know this info. From the limited information outthere that I researched it seems like their gameplan is it just put out the best "EARLY access" game and hope someone with deep wallets becomes a fan and contributes to their success. Please Frostgiant don't just create a "great RTS" game but try to create a commmunity around it and to grow as organically as possible. I appreciate that you guys haven't taken first big check in your path and given up creative control but please don't let us down.
Our team led the transition of SC2 from a box model to F2P—so we have some experience and data here. It not only doubled the audience, but the monetization model was effective and the game was self-sustaining. We’re using that as a baseline for our approach with Stormgate as it’s proven, while also exploring new opportunities like cosmetic Pets.
We aim to also release something like the SC2 War Chest, as that did well.
We plan to explore other monetization options in the future (artists who would normally dedicate significant time to cosmetics are focused on building our core game), though we will require that they don’t compromise the competitive integrity of the game.
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