Stormgate was first revealed at Summer Game Fest 2022 as a free-to-play real-time strategy (RTS) game. What garnered Stormgate the most attention was its development team, led by former Blizzard developers Tim Morten and Tim Campbell.
Both names are likely familiar if you're a fan of Blizzard's StarCraft and Warcraft empires; Morten was the production lead on StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void, and Campbell was the lead campaign designer for Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne.
Morten and Campbell founded Frost Giant as a way to deliver "an RTS game for the RTS community," going so far as to state that the studio hoped to create an "Elden Ring moment" for strategy games as a whole.
That, of course, refers to Elden Ring's massive success due to its approachability, which led to a word-of-mouth campaign by gamers and a period of time where it seemed like the entire world was playing the difficult RPG, whether or not they'd played a similar game before.
Well, that Elden Ring moment never arrived. The issue? According to Morten, who posted a lengthy observation titled "Why Frost Giant's Stormgate Failed: Oversaturation and the Rise of AI" on LinkedIn, it has nothing to do with the game's quality.
Is it the game? No, it's the gamers who are to blame!
Stormgate debuted in Steam's early access program in July 2024, following $35 million in backing from a combination of initial seed funding and a successful Kickstarter campaign.
That's the kind of money that most indie studios can only dream about, and it's certainly not necessary to produce a hit game. Just look at the massively successful roguelike poker game Balatro, developed on a shoestring budget, for proof of that.
Stormgate finally arrived in its full capacity on Steam as a free-to-play game. Unfortunately, the game quickly slipped to a dreaded "Mixed" user rating — with about 50% of reviews coming in as positive — with the threat of falling further.
Roughly a month after the game's official release, Morten attempted to explain away Stormgate's struggles as coming from outside of the studio.
Notably, I believe the bar for good enough has changed in recent years, to an extent that I think many of us have not come to terms with yet. Good games are failing today. Irrespective of whether you liked Stormgate, there are a meaningful number of well-executed and well-reviewed games that are not achieving commercial success.
Tim Morten, Production Director & CEO at Frost Giant Studios
While Morten states that they "plan to share thoughts on specific hurdles for Stormgate in the future," the focus of the LinkedIn post is "a broader market trend in play that deserves attention."
Morten references a presentation written by Epyllion CEO Matthew Ball titled "The State of Video Gaming in 2025," in which Ball posits that games often fail due to gamers having less time to play, as well as market oversaturation.
Morten also mentions "constriction in available capital" as being relevant to the challenges that indie studios face, which should have been less of a problem after $35 million of funding.
"Part of my job is to recognize trends like this and adapt, so Stormgate's underperformance is absolutely my responsibility," says Morten, before redirecting some blame to AI and how it's making game development easier (thus leading to increased saturation).
The bottom line is that success is now harder and less predictable. Extraordinary effort will have to go into differentiation and into marketing. Even then, there will be a greater element of luck involved than in the past, and a narrower window for success.
Tim Morten, Production Director & CEO at Frost Giant Studios
None of these issues highlighted by Morten are exactly breaking news. Yes, the PC gaming market is saturated with countless games, good and bad. Sure, some gems might be looked over because something much larger launched at the same time.
Stormgate received a lot of funding compared to what most indie studios have to work with. It also had a solid marketing run, including a grandiose 2023 trailer featuring actor Simu Liu.
So what really went wrong?
Stormgate's reception among gamers tells a different story
Reading user reviews on Steam, it doesn't seem like Morten is pointing fingers in the right direction.
Users are taking issue with everything from the release of a paid campaign and ultimate edition (which many Kickstarter backers had already paid for before it was reworked and repriced) to performance to a serious lack of polish.
One of the most damning user reviews calls out the campaign being "sold piecemeal by a series of microtransactions" with three hours of gameplay for $25 before becoming "an app for spending more money."
Plus the missions weren't even very good. Not terrible, but the voice acting is terrible, the characters are forgettable, the lore is so thin it's practically absent, and some of the campaign objectives are clunky and hard to interact with. Then I find out the devs want me to pay more money for it? They know darn well their players overwhelmingly play the campaign only and not multiplayer, so this is a clear calculation to string along as many of their players as possible.
Steam user "boedullus"
One reviewer gets more personal, stating:
"23 years after Warcraft 3, 15 years after Wings of Liberty, an RTS campaign should not be this lifeless and lacking in any oomph to make it interesting. Passionate project doesn't translate to success product. 6/10"
It's important to point out that, yes, half of the people playing Stormgate are enjoying it enough to give it a positive review. But that's no longer enough in a market that has so many great games available on any given day.
Blaming the failure of your game on gamers and market conditions is a bad look, and it's sad to see yet another RTS game fail to break through into the mainstream.
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