In only 15 short minutes, less time than it takes to report on this story, the Kickstarter campaign for Frost Giant’s RTS game, Stormgate, not only hit its $100,000 goal but less than 48 hours later, and that number is sitting over $2 million.
This is wild, not just because of the short time it took the game to crush its campaign but because Stormgate is hardly new, and its development was already fully funded before the Kickstarter campaign.
Before it became the number one videogame on Kickstarter, Frost Giant had already raised $35 million in its initial round of funding for Stormgate, hardly a surprise considering that the development leads come from other massive games like StarCraft 2, Warcraft 3 and Command & Conquer.
According to the developers, the initial $35 million was enough to get everything in gear for the game’s Steam easy access release as well as getting the infamous Simu Liu, from Barbie, Kim’s Convenience and Shang-Chi fame, to star in the game.
“That said, modern AAA game budgets are often measured in the hundreds of millions, and that’s not counting marketing budgets. So while $35 million may seem like a lot of money, it pales in comparison to what the biggest studios are spending.
What our funding didn’t cover was many of the extras and special amenities that are only possible with big publishing budgets, such as a physical Collector’s Edition of our game and expanding our beta pool.”
This is where the Kickstarter campaign, which ends tomorrow, comes in. As of writing this, over 4,700 people have purchased Kickstarter’s $40 Deluxe Founders Pack tier, and over 13,000 have purchased the $60 Ultimate Founders Pack level.
Approximately 22,000 people have supported the project and pledged an average of $90 each.
Another big driving force behind the Kickstarter was because of Valve’s policies about beta access to games on Steam:
“We always wanted to offer RTS fans a convenient way to pre-order or pre-purchase a bundle of Stormgate content, but Valve policy is that beta access for an early access game can only be offered as a pre-purchase incentive as part of a crowdfunding campaign.
Valve is an important partner for us, so we looked at Kickstarter Founder’s Packs as a way to address the community’s desire to get in early.
It’s important to remember that we’re a free-to-play game. For players out there who don’t have an interest in playing the campaign or our Hero-based modes, this was a way for them to express their support and to receive a ‘Founder’ role that recognizes their contribution to our studio in the Discord community.”
But now we want to know from you: are you among the many who have pledged to this campaign? Let us know in the comments.