[2023] Stormgate Kickstarter Coming Soon page is live!

Originally posted by TertButoxide-

Frostgiant didn't create Starcraft 2 or Warcraft 3.

I just want to say that the language "From StarCraft II & Warcraft III creators" is getting wild. I think more fair descriptions would be like "from part of the team that brought you SC2 & WC3" or "former StarCraft 2 developers" as most independent media has settled on. You've deployed the word creators here in a way that its used nowadays in the general media space, like say in youtube or tiktok, to mean — people who work in that media ecosystem. So its a claim that these are people who work in the Starcraft/Warcraft general area.

But in the context of Kickstarter/crowdfunding this is comparable to saying "From the creators of Starcraft II and Warcraft III" which you would not. Its playing it loose for a stronger effect but this phrasing is misleading.

Investigating Authorship claim

Kickstarter in gaming is very famous for allowing the original creators of a work to make a spiritual successor and reclaim the perceived rightful ownership of a work. Better yet when the original corporate ownership is deemed to be malevolent. See Eiyuden a work from Muriyama + Kawano the creators of the original RPG series Suikoden. Here the creators of a game series have wrestled a kind of idea ownership away from the hands of the dark corporate demi-liches Konami.

Frost Giant doesn't have the same claim to ownership over SC2 and WC3, they aren't the creators. That is fine. James Anhalt, Tim Campbell, and Micky Neilson certainly have long records of contribution to these series. But Blizzard RTS has a long authorship history, and I feel like if you ranked up the top 40 contributors to the -Craft line, you'd have the aforementioned fellas within the upper half of that, with Tim Morten slipping in a bit lower for his leadership in the F2P era.

Still I've seen a drift in how people talk about this company, both in news reporting and audience comments, that is owing to this ambiguous expression of authorship. Many audience members are clapping along to a chant of 'StarCraft Team! StarCraft Team!" and with preorders imminent it requires a little pointing out.

Frost Giant has a definite Blizzard genealogy. Of 50~ employees (see https://theorg.com/org/frost-giant-studios, or LinkedIn) probably ~20 have worked at Blizzard. Then consider:

• the timing and length of this service (many junior employees)
• some worked on other properties than the -Crafts completely or in large part
• some of them were employed as marketers/business/esports people (not that they aren't important)
• a couple of those are only consultants on Stormgate. (Neilson, cinema director Scott Goffman)

This leaves you with about a dozen that can track themselves to working on the properties as far back as the StarCraft Legacy of the Void release. With most of the employment really being in the StarCraft Nova DLC or F2P+Co-op commander era. For full-time employees of Frost Giant who worked on Starcraft or Warcraft's original releases I count three (Jesse Brophy, Campbell, Ahnalt).

What about Dreamhaven?

If something would help beyond that language change it would be clarifying Dreamhaven's consulting relationship, its been very nebulous since the announcement and I do feel that the many original contributors to these series who are found there (Morhaime, Browder, Sigaty, Dabiri) are indirectly lending their name to some of this authorship claim by way of a unclear consulting relationship.

Originally posted by FigBananaLettuce

I thought their funding was secured? Curious why they are going to kickstarter.

Originally posted by Scintilus

/u/FGS_Gerald Are the founders pack only exclusive for kickstarter, how about countries with no kickstarter support? I hope we are also able to support the game by buying Founders pack in Steam too just like how other Founders pack in other games like VRising, etc. I hope the marketing team consider.

Originally posted by dhawos

Awesome, looking forward to it !

I hope backing will grant beta access sooner rather than later. I'll probably back anyway but I'd really love that beta access.