"Ex-Blizzard Leads Unveil New Venture at Dreamhaven Showcase"

Five years ago, Mike and Amy Morhaime founded Dreamhaven with a vision to create a sustainable publishing and support pillar for game studios. In our initial interview, they shared their ambition to foster both their newly founded studios, Moonshot and Secret Door, and other carefully selected partners. Their goal was to revolutionize the game industry's business model, focusing on producing exceptional products while maintaining a rewarding work environment.

Mike Morhaime encapsulated this vision with a bold statement: "We want, if I may be so bold as to say, to be a beacon to the industry," he said, alluding to the company's lighthouse logo. "There's a better way of approaching the business of games and the operation of a game company that can produce great results, both in terms of products and financial reward and work environment, and that maybe can help elevate the entire industry."

At the time, the industry was witnessing the rise of studios led by former AAA executives, all promising sustainable and innovative game development. However, the subsequent years brought challenges like the global pandemic, economic instability, mass layoffs, studio closures, and project cancellations. Many of these promising studios failed to launch or had to postpone their visions.

Dreamhaven, however, has thrived amidst these challenges. Recently, the company partnered with The Game Awards for its first showcase, unveiling four exciting games. Two of these are internally developed: Sunderfolk, a turn-based tactical RPG with couch co-op set to launch on April 23, and Wildgate, a newly announced crew-based first-person shooter centered around space heists. Additionally, Dreamhaven is publishing two external titles: Lynked: Banner of the Spark, an action-RPG from LA-based FuzzyBot, already in early access and scheduled for a full release in May, and Mechabellum, a turn-based tactical auto-battler from Chinese studio Game River, which launched last September and is set for long-term updates with Dreamhaven's support.

Dreamhaven's activity extends beyond these projects, as the company supports ten other external studios. These partnerships, often involving ex-AAA developers, include investments, consultancy, and fundraising support. Mike Morhaime emphasized at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) that Dreamhaven aims to create a "net" to "capture some of this great talent that was dispersing" across the industry.

Wildgate - First Screenshots

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Morhaime highlighted the importance of relationships in the industry, saying, "We saw all these studios starting up and we have a lot of relationships. We knew a lot of the folks starting up and we wanted to create a structure that allowed us to be helpful and root for these studios, and so we created a structure that allowed us to provide guidance and advice to some of these studios and be incentivized to want them to be successful."

Amid discussions at GDC about the industry's ongoing crisis and the prioritization of profits over craft, Morhaime believes that the two are not mutually exclusive. He stressed the importance of allowing for innovation and experimentation, stating, "I think in order to create an environment that allows for innovation, you have to have a certain amount of safety and a certain amount of space to be able to experiment and try things. We're certainly not against these products being successful and making a lot of money. I think it's about the focus. What are these teams focusing on? And they're not focusing every day on how they maximize profitability at every step. They're trying to make the best experience possible, which we think in the end is the right business strategy anyway and positions us better to be successful in the long run. There's so much competition, you know this. There are so many games that are released every year. I think the really only way to be successful is to stand out with something special."

Reflecting on his time at Blizzard, Morhaime underscored the importance of an iterative approach to game development, saying, "It was never linear. It was never this straight line where you have this perfect plan and you execute the plan and everything goes according to plan and happiness and success follows. We always encountered obstacles and things that didn't work the way we thought, and we had enough flexibility and adaptability to address those things along the way. So, I think just approaching everything with that kind of perspective where we want to be experimental, we want to try things. If things aren't working, we want to be able to go back and fix them so that we end up with something that we're very proud of."

Regarding the difference between his past at Blizzard and his current approach at Dreamhaven, Morhaime highlighted the concept of agency: "Probably the biggest difference, this is such an experienced team, and so we're structured in a way that really gives a ton of agency to our leadership teams in the studios. And so, it's I think just a very unique environment in terms of the relationship that our studios have with the central company. The central company or the central teams are really there to support the needs of the studio, and our studio heads and leadership, they're also founding members of Dreamhaven. So, it's really more of a partnership."

On the topic of generative AI, a technology causing both excitement and concern within the gaming industry, Morhaime expressed cautious optimism. While Dreamhaven has limited its use to research and internal policy drafting, Morhaime acknowledged the technology's potential: "On the one hand, I think it's super exciting, as a technologist, as someone who just loves what technology can do. This is starting to happen in our lifetime. I think we're very privileged to get to see the birth of something so fascinating. Just a couple of years ago, I'd never imagined that generative AI would be able to do some of the things that it's currently doing. There are a lot of complexities around it, legal, ethical, it's also super hard to extrapolate out what this means to the way we live. I think it's undeniable that it will impact all of us in all sorts of ways that we can just speculate on now. I think a lot of those ways are going to be very positive, and some of them are scary, but I also don't think you can just shut it off and put it back in a box. And if you try to do that, it's not going to slow down, it's not going to stop. But I think the people who ignore it and pretend it's not there will be at a huge disadvantage."

Discussing the upcoming Nintendo Switch 2, Morhaime noted the positive impact of console transitions on the gaming industry, particularly for startups like Dreamhaven: "I think console transitions can be very disruptive, but they can also be very invigorating and helpful for the games industry. As a gaming startup, I think console transitions are a positive for us. If you already have games and you're selling, then there's some disruption maybe to worry about, but we don't have that problem. And as a gamer, I think console transitions are exciting."

As our conversation concluded, I asked Morhaime if Dreamhaven had achieved the mission he outlined five years ago. He remains cautiously optimistic, stating that they still need to release games and gauge the industry's response: "We have to put out some games that people love and we have to be financially successful, because if we aren't either of those two things, nobody's going to look at us as a beacon for anything. Really what I want to see happen is for Dreamhaven to build a reputation with gamers that the brand stands for something, a seal of quality, hopefully, that hopefully there's some trust that we've built up where players know that if a game is coming from Dreamhaven, regardless of genre, that it's going to be something very special and they'll want to have the curiosity to check it out."