Frost Giant asks players to invest in studio

Stormgate developer Frost Giant Studios has asked players to invest in the company to support marketing costs for the upcoming real-time strategy game.

As reported by Kotaku, the studio announced a campaign on the equity crowdfunding platform StartEngine where players can reserve interest for a $494 investment in Frost Giant.

Players will gain "multiple preferred stock shares" in Frost Giant, and the campaign will have a maximum of $5 million worth of shares with the company valuation set at $150 million.

"While we are well funded for an independent studio, we have raised around $35 million so far and have dedicated the lion's share of our funding thus far to hiring a world-class game development team and not on paid promotion," the studio said.

"For marketing, we've been relying almost entirely on free word of mouth and sharing our progress with the real-time strategy community to grow public awareness of Stormgate."

Frost Giant also cited the ongoing layoffs in the games industry as a decision to involve players in its investment.

"Big publishers are laying off hundreds of game workers seemingly every day, and making decisions that priortise near-term profits instead of worker and player happiness," it added.

"We're choosing to control our own destiny and self-publish our game in the West with direct support from our player community."

Stormgate debuted in June 2022, followed by a closed beta in December 2023. The game is due to enter Early Access in Q3 of 2024.

Frost Giant was founded in 2020 by industry veterans Tim Morten and Tim Campbell. The studio experienced successful seed funding rounds, raising $25 million in January 2022.

The developer raised over $2 million via a Kickstarter campaign in early December 2023, which met its goal of $100,000 within 15 minutes of going live as reported by PC Gamer.

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