The developer of Stormgate, the upcoming real-time strategy game from former Starcraft staff, has opened up an opportunity for fans to invest in the company.
Through StartEngine, Frost Giant Studios announced a “crowd-equity campaign” that would be activated next month, allowing fans to acquire shares in the company.
Interested parties are able to reserve a share ahead of March which is not binding and only acts as an indicator of potential interest to the Stormgate team.
Nevertheless, almost £300,000 has been reserved from 177 investors at the time of writing. StartEngine advised all investors in any sort of project that their investment is “speculative, illiquid, and involves a high degree of risk, including the possible loss of your entire investment”.
In 2022, Stormgate raised £18.4million for its development which brought the total pot to £25.6million. However, the aim of this equity campaign is to “bolster a strategic marketing campaign, setting the stage for Stormgate‘s early access launch this summer.”
VG247 added that Frost Giant Studios wants to “control our own destiny and self-publish our game in the West with direct support from our player community” in order to sidestep the current instability in the industry, per the company’s press release.
“There was never an actual decline [in RTS player numbers], there was just a massive increase in popularity for other genres,” Frost Giant Studios CEO Tim Morten said in an interview with NME.
“What the genre has lacked, compared to FPS, MOBA, and battle royale [genres], is a modern free-to-play game with strong social features that can reach an even greater community.
“We believe that Stormgate can be that game, that can break down the barriers that have kept some players from discovering the fun of RTS, and bring the RTS genre back into the spotlight where we believe it belongs.”
In other gaming news, Arrowhead Game Studios’ CEO has advised people to avoid purchasing Helldivers 2 until the server issues are ironed out: “if you spent [your] last [dollars] and got stuck in server queues I’d be [heartbroken].”