Mike Morhaime Starts New Gaming Company, Dreamhaven

[Thelxi]

player experience over short-term financial pressures.

I see what you did there Mike.

[Sluvs]

considering that got us original wow, i would think rather freaking good games.

one of my worries is that they just rely on what they used to do. Gaming today is very different from gaming 16 years ago.

A good game from 2004 might not be good by today's standard.

[Sammonoske]

Got my attention only because of Mike, but being a former Blizzard dev just doesn't hold much weight anymore.

[La]

What's with the photo? Horse and carriage, exploration boat, a boat blimp and... fighter jets? Lol

[Die]

Sounds like a vaporware company with its emphasis on taking their time. Good luck but I wouldn't expect anything from them until 2030.

[korijenkins]

The White Knights are triggered by the simple existence of this news.

[Doombringer]

Shots fired at Activision Blizzard, and good for him too. Blizz is a shadow of its former self. It's not a complete dumpster fire, but they're on their way there.

Here's hoping Morhaime can make a splash with the first game. He's got the tools and he's got the talent, he's in the best possible position right now -- private capital, self-published, nobody to answer to but their customers.

[Lefrog]

A company that will focus on developer egos instead of customer desires. What could go wrong?

The biggest ego boost as a developer is for your downstream customers to worship what you created.

It is a real gut punch when your management asks you to put in a feature that eases development pipeline, cuts spending, increases profits, and you know will absolutely blow.

If your management let's you do what you want, it will absolutely not be efficient and it will take forever, but it will be designed for your customers.

[Doombringer]

Got my attention only because of Mike, but being a former Blizzard dev just doesn't hold much weight anymore.

He's a pretty good judge of character and quality, given how far he brought Blizzard. I'm not sure how much of the move to Activision was due to his input... if he had a hand in it, I'll bet he regrets ever shaking Bobby Kotick's hand.

Mike seems pretty firmly set in Passion Over Profit and if he makes good games, the money and fans will follow.

[Ashleyxoxo]

This is what all new game companies say.

[Vrinara]

Good on him!

[Deferionus]

I don't know, but if they are going back to Blizzard's roots, we can find out when they release the first trailer of their new game in 2027 with a final release date of TBD

These guys may have started with largely the RTS genre, but their biggest accomplishment was most definitely WoW. That said I would not be surprised if their first game was RTS just due to the funding and team size components.

[Jibjub]

"modern old-school"? Thats what WoW is.

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

[Huntaer]

He was the CEO from the beginning and frequently would make the decision to push back games so they would have strong quality to them. It was after Activision got involved you started to see frequent releases you push more box sales, and as CEO he had a obligation to his majority share holder. It was out of his control at that pont. By being an developer he has full control over he can reign in those decisions.

The problem wasn't him as much as it was just corporate America's vicious cycle.

I like this thing he said during an interview: 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.
I hope he stays true. Better stay a small studio than grow large. Like Guerilla Games or Frontier Development. (Yes guerilla is part of Sony, but they're allowed to take their time)

[Xires]

So...what Blizzard used to be. If only he could make a WoW2.

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Wasn’t Morhaime one of the guys people shouted for to quit, he’s in it for the money, and he’s ruining the game?

No, nobody said that.

[Great Destiny Man]

Good news all round, looking forward to seeing what they come up with.

[Xires]

And by then they have noticed that they need more recources then they thought and are back with a partner for more resources.

yeah, because decades in the industry and they have NO CLUE how much resources they need. You people need to stop putting what is going on in YOUR HEAD into the heads of others. If the man is making another company...he's got it all planned out and has decades of knowledge on the matter. YOU on the other hand...want him to fail.

[Calfredd]

The last time I heard about ex-Blizzard devs making a game studio, they shutdown after Wildstar couldn't keep them afloat (may it rest in peace).

[Sigxy]

The last time I heard about ex-Blizzard devs making a game studio, they shutdown after Wildstar couldn't keep them afloat (may it rest in peace).

Wasn't one of the key-factors of Wildstar "Huge raids, super hard, just like you remember them!" which we've seen Classic wasn't about? I know it had housing and all that, but I remember that being the biggest focus for end-game.

[Dylamoo]

I would never argue that the Activision merger had zero effect, but the reality is likely more complex than that. Blizzard itself is a huge company now, and was probably quite large even by the time of the merger (I don't know a specific employee count at that time). The larger it gets, the less control any individual is going to be able to exert over things like the culture they want in place, and certainly less of a hand in ensuring a certain level of quality across the board. The introductions for both Moonshot and Secret Door talk about keeping the teams relatively small, which, just like the talk of quality > short term profits, says to me the size of Blizzard was too much for Morhaime to keep active control over. At least not to his liking, and it probably has as much to do with the cultural shift away from product launch polish at Blizzard as Activision's involvement.

Around 2005 they had about 2k employee's and today roughly 9000. What you're saying is definitely true, but as far as the mismanagement from Mike Morhaime. Of course no one is denying that, it's just going to get out of their hands at the rate they were growing at. I think the shift was inevitable and that's very true. But the nature of the culture change could've been very different if Activision wasn't behind it. At the time though gaming was just blowing up and I'm sure the choice to pick Activision was due to an insecure leadership team which resulted into how they all lost control over their company and ultimately why we have the lack luster content they provide these days. I had hope that shadowlands would be a good indicator that things were changing finally, but it seems that they will release another unfinished product.