About Dreamhaven

[Not A Cat]

I've been seeing a lot of replies in "Blizzard employee leaves" threads about Dreamhaven. I know it's Mike Morhaime's new company and that's pretty cool, but I went on their website and there wasn't a lot of information in regards to games their studios are making or anything.

Do they have any projects in the works that they've made public or are they still like brand new? Also what former Blizz employees have moved over there out of curiosity?

[Shakzor]

No, so far they have announced nothing. Not even a vague hint at any possible genre or setting. All we know is "it's old Blizzard people" and that's it. Nothing on what they might work on.

[dope_danny]

All we know is it has two studios and its apparently meant to focus on "fun first, not pleasing shareholders" which combined with the name is about as on the nose as it gets.

[ro9ue]

Fingers crossed for an MMO but simultaneously I don't think it's wise from a business perspective put all your resource eggs into a big MMO basket right out of the gate and hope it sails.

[Ausr]

All we know is it has two studios and its apparently meant to focus on "fun first, not pleasing shareholders" which combined with the name is about as on the nose as it gets.

Until it becomes a publicly traded company, then you're pleasing shareholders.

[SunspotAnims]

I'll be honest I usually don't have much optimism for studios formed by former Blizz devs. I still remember Bonfire Studios which I believe has been silent since they were formed. Even with Morhaime at the helm of Dreamhaven, it's just way too easy to talk the talk but not walk the walk.

I do see more potential in Frost Giant Studios, since their mission statement is just "we want to make an RTS game" and not the pie-in-the-sky fluff that Dreamhaven or Bonfire are currently pitching.

[dope_danny]

Until it becomes a publicly traded company, then you're pleasing shareholders.

Honestly i give it one successful release before they get a buyout offer from ole' Bobby K.

[Edge-]

Honestly i give it one successful release before they get a buyout offer from ole' Bobby K.

Which they don't have to take if they don't want to. They don't have investors now (at least none confirmed), and given everything Morheim has said it's unlikely they'd go with investors looking to get control of the company for a sale to someone like Activision.

They can absolutely keep it a private company if they want to, especially with Morheim's name running the ship.

[Ausr]

I'll be honest I usually don't have much optimism for studios formed by former Blizz devs. I still remember Bonfire Studios which I believe has been silent since they were formed. Even with Morhaime at the helm of Dreamhaven, it's just way too easy to talk the talk but not walk the walk.

I do see more potential in Frost Giant Studios, since their mission statement is just "we want to make an RTS game" and not the pie-in-the-sky fluff that Dreamhaven or Bonfire are currently pitching.

I like Metzen's company about table top stuff and D&D stuff. I think he'll thrive with that. But, like you, I'm usually wary of "Ex-Blizzard dev makes a company" type situation.

[Afrospinach]

They can absolutely keep it a private company if they want to, especially with Morheim's name running the ship.

Yeah Valve is a private company. This is a thing that is possible. I am sure at this point their are in a more "elective" stage of their careers and would rather do what they want to do over starting yet another Blizzard.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

I did see they would probably seek investment in the future. Now that doesn't necessarily mean they have to go full public and be on the stock market. Private investment certainly exists in many forms. But the beast usually always wants to be feed more from my experience. More is usually public. But the truth is that is probably a really long ways down the road. Probably a few projects completed and a few in the works before it happens. Not to mention if corruption happens it still takes some time. So at least a decade-ish plus of good times before "I AM THE SENATE" arrives and order 66 gets executed.

[Osmeric]

Since investors want a profit, and profit comes from pleasing as many customers as possible, DH seems to be wanting to please fewer people. This suggests that customer satisfaction isn't really what they're aiming for. Why should I, a potential customer, be encouraged by this?

[Zyky]

I've been seeing a lot of replies in "Blizzard employee leaves" threads about Dreamhaven. I know it's Mike Morhaime's new company and that's pretty cool, but I went on their website and there wasn't a lot of information in regards to games their studios are making or anything.

Do they have any projects in the works that they've made public or are they still like brand new? Also what former Blizz employees have moved over there out of curiosity?

With who's actually running the business, they won't announce anything until it's at least 3/4th finished like the good old Blizzard used to do.

[Xilurm]

Since investors want a profit, and profit comes from pleasing as many customers as possible, DH seems to be wanting to please fewer people. This suggests that customer satisfaction isn't really what they're aiming for. Why should I, a potential customer, be encouraged by this?

Pleasing as many customers as possible and customer satisfaction are two different things. Not every game has to be for everyone. But that doesn't mean they can't satisfy the customers that they only aim for. Like if they want to make an RTS for example, they don't have to market it towards anyone else other than people that like or might be interested in RTS games.

[Zyky]

Since investors want a profit, and profit comes from pleasing as many customers as possible, DH seems to be wanting to please fewer people. This suggests that customer satisfaction isn't really what they're aiming for. Why should I, a potential customer, be encouraged by this?

And yet Blizzard hasn't been pleasing "as many customers as possible" in over a decade, so what's your excuse there?

If you make a good game, people will go to and invest time in the game, this was true of EVERY original Blizzard title. However since the merger with Activision, Blizzard has gone massively downhill and that's because of investors who don't understand gaming and only care about money. Every WoW expansion since Cataclysm has bled subs(let's not even get into releasing an expansion and a raid during 2 major holidays). Hearthstone started off great, then they reduced odds of legendaries, made packs less rewarding, ect. Overwatch has been bleeding playerbase for a long time now, modes are almost dead outside of ranked and even ranked has minimal players right now. Blizzard stopped caring about producing quality games and designing with long term enjoyability back in 2009. This is clear as their newest success metric is about "time spent in game" with WoW, when they design every aspect of the game around garbage grinds that you need to invest a few hours into every day outside of raiding/pvp/M+.

[Cosmic Janitor]

Until it becomes a publicly traded company, then you're pleasing shareholders.

Unless you are elon musk and have enough retarded fanboys that buy your stock despite getting nothing for it.

- - - Updated - - -

As for why we have nothing heard yet, who knows. There are probably many reasons, one of the questions is what their contracts were before. They might have non-compete clauses that prevent them from individually working on certain types of games for a while. Maybe they want to properly assemble a team first, especially the ex-higher ups are not hurting for money, so they can just form their own concept first and make sure it's sound before announcing stuff. Frankly, I doubt many of top shelv names would be enough to make a game these days by themselves, since they probably didn't do the grunt work for years.

[Osmeric]

And yet Blizzard hasn't been pleasing "as many customers as possible" in over a decade, so what's your excuse there?

They've been focusing on pleasing the hardcores too much, which degrades the game for everyone else. They should have focused ONLY on the average, unexceptional players.

Dreamhaven has a Carbine stench to it.

[rhorle]

All we know is it has two studios and its apparently meant to focus on "fun first, not pleasing shareholders" which combined with the name is about as on the nose as it gets.

There will always be "shareholders" since I highly doubt Mr. Morhaime will keep bankrolling the entire thing himself (if he even has without loans and stuff). That "fun first" seems more like marketing to establish that they may allow more creative freedom then typical studios. But at the end of the day it will have to be run like a standard business or just end up a money pit or charity case.

[aceperson]

Fingers crossed for an MMO but simultaneously I don't think it's wise from a business perspective put all your resource eggs into a big MMO basket right out of the gate and hope it sails.

i share your hope that they make an mmo at some point but it shouldn't be one of their first games. mmos are expensive and morhaime is funding everything out of pocket right now. they need to build up a reserve first so they don't blow everything up.

[Schattenlied]

Fingers crossed for an MMO but simultaneously I don't think it's wise from a business perspective put all your resource eggs into a big MMO basket right out of the gate and hope it sails.

I'd hope they'd do some single player/small group co-op RPG first to worldbuild with, then do an MMO once they have an established audience.