Mike Morhaime Starts New Gaming Company, Dreamhaven

[Easo]

Well, going to follow this with interest. No need to hype anything yet, no need to shit on it either.

[Sluvs]

I mean... Classic WoW is PREEEETTY damn good as a starting point though to be fair.

Obviously they don't HAVE Classic WoW since it isn't Blizzard, but that's 2004 gaming.

I think the biggest reason I have hope/hype for this is that I understand where a lot of the former devs are coming from. Watching them from the outside, you could see the change that they had in their like... cheesy AF BUT LEGIT THEIR FUCKING SOULS. I watched Metzen and Mike on stage Blizzcon after Blizzcon and you could just kinda tell something was eating at them.

I think the reason so many people are leaving Blizzard is exactly for the reason Mike mentioned: Activision has been pushing the Blizzard portion for a long time now for shareholder profit over gamer satisfaction which is NOT how Blizzard was. Short term financial gain over customer satisfaction was not what they were about. Blizzard was always about customer satisfaction. They would make a game great because they wanted to make a great game. Their goal was to make a great game while also keeping their company afloat and the paychecks coming. Blizzard's current goal is to make as much profit as humanly possible. I think it's a give and take. You can make a great game that might not be optimized for maximum profit, or you can make a game that's maximized for profit which isn't as good as it otherwise could be. I've yet to really see a game that intentionally does both.

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I really don't think he "didn't care"

The dude stepped down from being CEO reportedly because he was unhappy with the fact Activision was about to "maximize profits" by letting go hundreds of employees while making record profits that same year.

I legit think they were caught up in the trap of that timeframe. There were a ton of smaller companies who thought being bought by a big publisher like EA, Activision, or whatever would be a good thing for them. This was before franchises were completely run into the ground. Guitar Hero, Dead Space, Assassin's Creed... those stories hadn't happened yet. I legit think this dude thought that this would be great for his company. He probably thought they were going to be able to keep doing what they were doing while also getting everybody a nice pay increase and a higher game budget.

I don't think he foresaw the consequences at all otherwise he wouldn't be making this company now.

I mean, people can get tired of working on one game, people can get tired from working at all... Not to mention a lot of those devs caught a lot of hate even when they had greater control of the game. So this wears them down.

Maybe activision wants to interfere further with blizzard, BUT I highly doubt that it is the main reason people left.

[roahn the warlock]

this is not the complaint people have about blizzard.

the chief complaints are that
1. they take far too long to fix obvious problems
2. they dont listen to customer feedback in betas

the company morhaime just founded seems to think the biggest problem is that devs should get MORE time to do the stuff THEY want to do, which addresses neither problem. at all.

No, those aren't the problems, well the second one at least. Listening to the loud people on Beta gave us Cata and WoD.

[aceperson]

Maybe I missed the part in which he was forced to sell Blizzard to Activision because someone put a gun against his head.

It was perfectly clear what direction would have had the company after joining Activision, it’s all about money. But He knew it before, he simply did not care, I bet he earned a couple of dollars too these years.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blizza...dent%20company.

A subsidiary of Activision Blizzard, the company was founded on February 8, 1991, under the name Silicon & Synapse, Inc. by three graduates of the University of California, Los Angeles:[2] Michael Morhaime, Frank Pearce and Allen Adham. The company originally concentrated on the creation of game ports for other studios' games before beginning development of their own software in 1993 with games like Rock n' Roll Racing and The Lost Vikings. In 1994, the company became Chaos Studios, Inc., then Blizzard Entertainment after being acquired by distributor Davidson & Associates... On July 25, 2013, Activision Blizzard announced the purchase of 429 million shares from majority owner Vivendi. As a result, Activision Blizzard became a completely independent company."

it's amazing what a few seconds of research can provide. blizzard was never an independent company. they always had a higher up. it just so happened that vivendi just let blizz do their thing. then activision bought the majority shares, took over, and started bossing blizzard around.

this studio is completely independent. blizzard never was.

[Osmeric]

Maybe I missed the part in which he was forced to sell Blizzard to Activision because someone put a gun against his head.

You missed the part where he didn't own Blizzard at that time.

[Ielenia]

Morhaime owns the Company from my understanding, so they cannot be bought by another company by them just putting money on the table, Morhaime can just say no.

Activision was able to buy Blizzard because Blizzard was owned by Vivendi, hence they bought it from Vivendi, Morhaime most likely had no say in the matter.

That is, honestly, non-sensical. Morhaime is not some "paragon of virtue that would never be swayed". Anyone can "just say no". Doesn't mean he will.

Just because Morhaime may not have had a say in Activision buying Blizzard, doesn't mean he wasn't on board with it.

[Chromell]

"We’re almost trying to create a haven for creators who want an environment that is development friendly, values product, and player experience over short-term financial pressures.”

Wonder why they left Acti-Blizz

[Ryme]

People really need a history lesson on Activision Blizzard, Mike had almost no say in any of it:

1) In 2008 the merger was agreed by Bobby Kotick of Activision and Jean-Bernard Levy of Vivendi games who owned Blizzard.
2) Vivendi got to have 52% ownership of the merged company which let Blizzard retain autonomy.
3) Activision-Blizzard purchased majority control in mid 2013, Bobby retained CEO and placed his partner Brian Kelly as chairman; Blizzard loses autonomy.

[Hitei]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blizza...dent%20company.

A subsidiary of Activision Blizzard, the company was founded on February 8, 1991, under the name Silicon & Synapse, Inc. by three graduates of the University of California, Los Angeles:[2] Michael Morhaime, Frank Pearce and Allen Adham. The company originally concentrated on the creation of game ports for other studios' games before beginning development of their own software in 1993 with games like Rock n' Roll Racing and The Lost Vikings. In 1994, the company became Chaos Studios, Inc., then Blizzard Entertainment after being acquired by distributor Davidson & Associates... On July 25, 2013, Activision Blizzard announced the purchase of 429 million shares from majority owner Vivendi. As a result, Activision Blizzard became a completely independent company."

it's amazing what a few seconds of research can provide. blizzard was never an independent company. they always had a higher up. it just so happened that vivendi just let blizz do their thing. then activision bought the majority shares, took over, and started bossing blizzard around.

this studio is completely independent. blizzard never was.

Perhaps you should have done a few more seconds of research, so you'd get to the part where Morhaime actively encouraged Kotick to pursue the deal.

Kotick saw that World of Warcraft was bringing in over US$1.1 billion a year in subscription fees, and began approaching Vivendi's CEO Jean-Bernard Lévy about potential acquisition of their struggling Vivendi Games division, which included Blizzard Entertainment. Lévy was open to a merger, but would only allow it if he controlled the majority of the combined company, knowing the value of World of Warcraft to Kotick.[22] Among those Kotick spoke to for advice included Blizzard's Morhaime, who told Kotick that they had begun establishing lucrative in-roads into the Chinese market. Kotick accepted Lévy's deal, with the deal approved by shareholders in December 2007.

[Hctaz]

People really need a history lesson on Activision Blizzard, Mike had almost no say in any of it:

1) In 2008 the merger was agreed by Bobby Kotick of Activision and Jean-Bernard Levy of Vivendi games who owned Blizzard.
2) Vivendi got to have 52% ownership of the merged company which let Blizzard retain autonomy.
3) Activision-Blizzard purchased majority control in mid 2013, Bobby retained CEO and placed his partner Brian Kelly as chairman; Blizzard loses autonomy.

Weird... you mean right around the time a bunch of shit games got released and Chris Metzen left the company? Hmmm...

[Hitei]

Yeah, the alternative would have been a catastrophic leveraging to let Vivendi extract the cash it wanted, which would have left it even more in debt (and with stock in the tank.)

I'm not disputing the business savvy of the events. The point is that "Morhaime didn't decide anything, it was higher ups in Vivendi! Activision just swooped in and took over!" is an objectively false line of reasoning. He was actively advertising Blizzard to Kotick as a valuable asset that was going to get more valuable. He personally pushed for the deal to happen.

[Kathranis]

can't make it any clearer than a former ceo and founder of a company to say his new venture is "trying to create a haven for creators who want an environment that is development friendly, values product, and player experience over short-term financial pressures". it's 100% clear now he left blizzard because of activision and their greed.

Sure, but he was also one of the architects of the merger. Maybe he was naive or maybe he's a secret shark. Either way, you can't pretend like the president of Blizzard wasn't partially responsible for how the company was being run, especially when he helped Bobby Kotick acquire it, basically enticing him with honeyed words about the inroads the game had made in China.

[Osmeric]

I'm not disputing the business savvy of the events. The point is that "Morhaime didn't decide anything, it was higher ups in Vivendi! Activision just swooped in and took over!" is an objectively false line of reasoning. He was actively advertising Blizzard to Kotick as a valuable asset that was going to get more valuable. He personally pushed for the deal to happen.

Yeah, I was refering to a different transaction anyway (when Kotick's group bought out Vivendi). Post deleted.

[aceperson]

Sure, but he was also one of the architects of the merger. Maybe he was naive or maybe he's a secret shark. Either way, you can't pretend like the president of Blizzard wasn't partially responsible for how the company was being run, especially when he helped Bobby Kotick acquire it, basically enticing him with honeyed words about the inroads the game had made in China.

by no means am i saying mike is a saint for us gamers. the guy has clearly made mistakes and possibly pushed bad business practices. I also don't think he is as heartless as many people are saying. he very clearly cares about quality above all else. as for why he stayed at blizzard for so long, it could be he was having an emotional crisis, he was stocking up on funds for this new company, or he hadn't yet given up on blizzard.

all i'm saying is that if he truly means what he says, he certainly has the knowledge and skills to pull it off this time. time will tell whether he is sincere or lying. i just don't think it's fair that people are putting all the problems caused by activision on his shoulders.

[Doffen]

Dreamhaven will kill WoW. Just like Wildstar did.

[Essem]

Well, i guess we can check back in 7 years time to see if anything is happening with this.
Bonfire Studios that has some old blizzard people like Rob Pardo has been up and running for years and we havent heard a thing.

[Aggrophobic]

WoW is mostly a single-player game that hasn't innovated on the genre since Avril Lavigne was on the radio.

Sounds "old-school" to me.

[Deventh]

Dreamhaven will kill WoW. Just like Wildstar did.

That's a joke. Right? Wildstar literally closed down because of 0 interest.

[Doffen]

That's a joke. Right? Wildstar literally closed down because of 0 interest.

Very much so. And Wildstar was made of who again? My joke runs deep

[Lorgar Aurelian]

I really don't think he "didn't care"

The dude stepped down from being CEO reportedly because he was unhappy with the fact Activision was about to "maximize profits" by letting go hundreds of employees while making record profits that same year.

Nan he didn't care he stuck with blizzard after they let go 600 employees in mop compared to the 200 or so as most were not blizzard related, he was never a take a stand for the employee type CEO.