On July 03 2026 02:30 Jeremy Reimer wrote: There's something thematically appropriate about the moderator for the Stormgate subreddit deleting a post showing the player count hitting zero people.
It's the whole story of Stormgate encapsulated into a single event.
Anyway, I don't think there's much juice left to squeeze out of this lemon. It's been a slice, folks.
So Mike Morhaime's Wildgate and Tim Morten's Stormgate are showing us that Bobby Kotick's job of making actual, you know, ummm MONEY off of video games is not as easy as it seems. Call of Duty, WoW, and Destiny2 are both faltering badly.
Hadn't Kotick become CEO of THE best oiled game delivering machinery ever? Seems like a baby would have made money out of that. Kotick made so much money that he ruined the machine in the process. Not sure if fame or imfamy
On July 03 2026 02:30 Jeremy Reimer wrote: There's something thematically appropriate about the moderator for the Stormgate subreddit deleting a post showing the player count hitting zero people.
It's the whole story of Stormgate encapsulated into a single event.
Anyway, I don't think there's much juice left to squeeze out of this lemon. It's been a slice, folks.
So Mike Morhaime's Wildgate and Tim Morten's Stormgate are showing us that Bobby Kotick's job of making actual, you know, ummm MONEY off of video games is not as easy as it seems. Call of Duty, WoW, and Destiny2 are both faltering badly.
Hadn't Kotick become CEO of THE best oiled game delivering machinery ever? Seems like a baby would have made money out of that. Kotick made so much money that he ruined the machine in the process. Not sure if fame or imfamy
I wonder if Jimmy has a shrine to the lad or something lmao.
It’s never other figures who’ve made a fuckload of money over the years who actually made games at one point, Tim Sweeney, Miyamoto, a Gabe Newell, nah my go-to is Bobby bloody Kotick.
On July 03 2026 02:30 Jeremy Reimer wrote: There's something thematically appropriate about the moderator for the Stormgate subreddit deleting a post showing the player count hitting zero people.
It's the whole story of Stormgate encapsulated into a single event.
Anyway, I don't think there's much juice left to squeeze out of this lemon. It's been a slice, folks.
So Mike Morhaime's Wildgate and Tim Morten's Stormgate are showing us that Bobby Kotick's job of making actual, you know, ummm MONEY off of video games is not as easy as it seems. Call of Duty, WoW, and Destiny2 are both faltering badly.
Hadn't Kotick become CEO of THE best oiled game delivering machinery ever? Seems like a baby would have made money out of that. Kotick made so much money that he ruined the machine in the process. Not sure if fame or imfamy
No, Kotick took over what was left of Activision in 1991. 8 employees making educational software under the name Mediagenic. Kotick rebuilt Activision from the ground up. I think he paid $500K for the publishers of Pitfall, Zork, and River Raid. That sounds like a bargain... But no one else stepped up with $100M+ offer.
On July 03 2026 22:17 WombaT wrote: It’s never other figures who’ve made a fuckload of money over the years who actually made games at one point, Tim Sweeney, Miyamoto, a Gabe Newell, nah my go-to is Bobby bloody Kotick.
Kotick bankrolled SC2 my favourite RTS game.
Check the Nintendo thread. Pretty sure I say great things about Suda51, Miyamoto, AKI etc
I frequently credit Spike-Chunsoft for their work on Fire Pro Wrestling.A great franchise with a very low profit ceiling.
I frequently state guys like Pardo, Browder, and Kim are game design geniuses. I think I spread the credit around pretty well.
This is one of my favourite movie scenes of all time. Give Kotick an Oscar for this!
On July 03 2026 02:30 Jeremy Reimer wrote: There's something thematically appropriate about the moderator for the Stormgate subreddit deleting a post showing the player count hitting zero people.
It's the whole story of Stormgate encapsulated into a single event.
Anyway, I don't think there's much juice left to squeeze out of this lemon. It's been a slice, folks.
So Mike Morhaime's Wildgate and Tim Morten's Stormgate are showing us that Bobby Kotick's job of making actual, you know, ummm MONEY off of video games is not as easy as it seems. Call of Duty, WoW, and Destiny2 are both faltering badly.
Hadn't Kotick become CEO of THE best oiled game delivering machinery ever? Seems like a baby would have made money out of that. Kotick made so much money that he ruined the machine in the process. Not sure if fame or imfamy
No, Kotick took over what was left of Activision in 1991. 8 employees making educational software under the name Mediagenic. Kotick rebuilt Activision from the ground up. I think he paid $500K for the publishers of Pitfall, Zork, and River Raid. That sounds like a bargain... But no one else stepped up with $100M+ offer.
On July 03 2026 22:17 WombaT wrote: It’s never other figures who’ve made a fuckload of money over the years who actually made games at one point, Tim Sweeney, Miyamoto, a Gabe Newell, nah my go-to is Bobby bloody Kotick.
Kotick bankrolled SC2 my favourite RTS game.
Check the Nintendo thread. Pretty sure I say great things about Suda51, Miyamoto, AKI etc
I frequently credit Spike-Chunsoft for their work on Fire Pro Wrestling.A great franchise with a very low profit ceiling.
I frequently state guys like Pardo, Browder, and Kim are game design geniuses. I think I spread the credit around pretty well.
Wiki says he came 2008 to Blizzard at which point SC2 funding and development was pretty much done and only polish and testing was missing for the most part...
On July 03 2026 22:18 JimmyJRaynor wrote: You guys ever notice Tim Morten never criticizes Bobby Kotick?
On July 03 2026 21:22 Harris1st wrote:
On July 03 2026 21:06 JimmyJRaynor wrote:
On July 03 2026 02:30 Jeremy Reimer wrote: There's something thematically appropriate about the moderator for the Stormgate subreddit deleting a post showing the player count hitting zero people.
It's the whole story of Stormgate encapsulated into a single event.
Anyway, I don't think there's much juice left to squeeze out of this lemon. It's been a slice, folks.
So Mike Morhaime's Wildgate and Tim Morten's Stormgate are showing us that Bobby Kotick's job of making actual, you know, ummm MONEY off of video games is not as easy as it seems. Call of Duty, WoW, and Destiny2 are both faltering badly.
Hadn't Kotick become CEO of THE best oiled game delivering machinery ever? Seems like a baby would have made money out of that. Kotick made so much money that he ruined the machine in the process. Not sure if fame or imfamy
No, Kotick took over what was left of Activision in 1991. 8 employees making educational software under the name Mediagenic. Kotick rebuilt Activision from the ground up. I think he paid $500K for the publishers of Pitfall, Zork, and River Raid. That sounds like a bargain... But no one else stepped up with $100M+ offer.
On July 03 2026 22:17 WombaT wrote: It’s never other figures who’ve made a fuckload of money over the years who actually made games at one point, Tim Sweeney, Miyamoto, a Gabe Newell, nah my go-to is Bobby bloody Kotick.
Kotick bankrolled SC2 my favourite RTS game.
Check the Nintendo thread. Pretty sure I say great things about Suda51, Miyamoto, AKI etc
I frequently credit Spike-Chunsoft for their work on Fire Pro Wrestling.A great franchise with a very low profit ceiling.
I frequently state guys like Pardo, Browder, and Kim are game design geniuses. I think I spread the credit around pretty well.
Wiki says he came 2008 to Blizzard at which point SC2 funding and development was pretty much done and only polish and testing was missing for the most part...
He did not "come to" Blizzard. Lol.
Watch any compilation video of the evolution of the SC2 engine over the years. Lots and lots and lots of great work was done on SC2 after 2008. AND, Kotick decided to acquire Blizzard knowing SC2 was being made internally.
Blizzard took the game from 1 game and 1 expansion to 1 game for each race allowing massive sprawling 30 mission campaigns for each race.
Kotick's ATVI poured more money into an RTS than any publisher ever.
On July 03 2026 22:18 JimmyJRaynor wrote: You guys ever notice Tim Morten never criticizes Bobby Kotick?
On July 03 2026 21:22 Harris1st wrote:
On July 03 2026 21:06 JimmyJRaynor wrote:
On July 03 2026 02:30 Jeremy Reimer wrote: There's something thematically appropriate about the moderator for the Stormgate subreddit deleting a post showing the player count hitting zero people.
It's the whole story of Stormgate encapsulated into a single event.
Anyway, I don't think there's much juice left to squeeze out of this lemon. It's been a slice, folks.
So Mike Morhaime's Wildgate and Tim Morten's Stormgate are showing us that Bobby Kotick's job of making actual, you know, ummm MONEY off of video games is not as easy as it seems. Call of Duty, WoW, and Destiny2 are both faltering badly.
Hadn't Kotick become CEO of THE best oiled game delivering machinery ever? Seems like a baby would have made money out of that. Kotick made so much money that he ruined the machine in the process. Not sure if fame or imfamy
No, Kotick took over what was left of Activision in 1991. 8 employees making educational software under the name Mediagenic. Kotick rebuilt Activision from the ground up. I think he paid $500K for the publishers of Pitfall, Zork, and River Raid. That sounds like a bargain... But no one else stepped up with $100M+ offer.
On July 03 2026 22:17 WombaT wrote: It’s never other figures who’ve made a fuckload of money over the years who actually made games at one point, Tim Sweeney, Miyamoto, a Gabe Newell, nah my go-to is Bobby bloody Kotick.
Kotick bankrolled SC2 my favourite RTS game.
Check the Nintendo thread. Pretty sure I say great things about Suda51, Miyamoto, AKI etc
I frequently credit Spike-Chunsoft for their work on Fire Pro Wrestling.A great franchise with a very low profit ceiling.
I frequently state guys like Pardo, Browder, and Kim are game design geniuses. I think I spread the credit around pretty well.
Wiki says he came 2008 to Blizzard at which point SC2 funding and development was pretty much done and only polish and testing was missing for the most part...
It’s just one of Jimmy’s positions that no amount of other context will remotely shift
So Mike Morhaime's Wildgate and Tim Morten's Stormgate are showing us that Bobby Kotick's job of making actual, you know, ummm MONEY off of video games is not as easy as it seems. Call of Duty, WoW, and Destiny2 are both faltering badly.
It's only tangentially on-topic, but I have a lot of things to say about Wildgate. (I have a bunch of things to say about WoW and Destiny as well, but let's just focus on this one)
First off, the name is stupid. Stop naming things "Blankgate". The name doesn't convey anything about the type of game it is.
Secondly, just like Stormgate, the developers chose the wrong art style. A colorful, Overwatch-style look might work for Overwatch, but that's a first-person shooter aimed at all ages. Any child can grasp the idea of shooting a guy. But Wildgate was a strange combination of shooting guys combined with a a sort of dad game thing where you're repairing, upgrading, and rearming your big spaceship all the time. The fantasy setting is Being In Space, so a gritty, realistic science fiction look would have attracted not only the dads but also nerdy teenagers.
The closest analogy to this game might be Sea of Thieves, which also has a bit of a cartoony style, and you also have a ship that needs a team to repair it. But not everything looks cartoony: just look at the detail the devs put into the water, which is so detailed it's almost hyperrealistic. Also, and this is a much bigger deal: you don't really need a smoothly-functioning team to play the game. You can throw together any random number of people into any size ship and have fun with it. If you lose your ship, who cares? Just hop on another, instantly, sail somewhere else and have a different kind of fun.
Whereas in Wildgate, if you were matched up with a bunch of randos and children, you'd quickly get blown out of the sky by hyper-focused, well-coordinated teams. And when your ship blew up, the round was over and you lost.
Lastly, and this was the biggest deal for me, Wildgate, along with its equally-terribly-named Sunderfolk, seems to be part of a pattern with Dreamhaven: games that are amazing when (and only when) you have a group of your best friends all playing together. I have plenty of gamer friends, but they all play different games, and there's statistically a zero percent chance that I can get a whole group of them together to try some quirky and complicated new team game for extended play sessions.
These games seem to work really well if you're a game developer and all your friends are also game developers, and so you always play each other's games together. That sounds like a lot of fun. Wildgate, unlike Stormgate, looked like it was a really fun game to play. But there was never a chance that it would be successful in the long term.
Bungie tried to kill Destiny 2 a long time ago, and not only once, but continuously, and the magnitude was increasing. Paying shitloads of money to get away from Blizzard to sell themselves to Sony.
Removing content people paid for with no compensation.
Implementing obnoxious monetization practices: you pay for a B2P game, then you have to buy shit tons of MTX, or buy countless season passes. The fun part, the season pass does not include all the content. You have to buy dungeons separately. Not sure if I remember something like this.
During the Witch Queen addon, when they added this shit, I just moved on.
There was a lot of other bullshit, too.
As I said, they made a very good game, and tried to kill it for years. They finally made it, and Sony was happy to lend a hand :D Free loans won't take themselves.
My opinion on WoW, Overwatch, and other bullshit that Blizzard is struggling with, it was overinflated in the first place. Trying to support these giant franchises might become a trap.
I despise live service bullshit, and WoW is the perfect example. You buy a full-price game, full-price expansions every year and a half, and on top of that, you pay for a $15 monthly subscription.
Every piece of this game is a time-gated bullshit to drag it on and bait you into buying a subscription. Not only that, but the previous expansions you paid for become obsolete. I never really understood this part. Not only is this a scammy way to run things, but it might also be less profitable for the company. The production value of WoW expansions is quite high. Voice acting, making new areas, etc. Why not reuse the same content?
For example, all Guild Wars 2 content is actual. All 14 years of expansions. You can do whatever you want in whatever expansion you want. All rewards are comparable. And it doesn't have a subscription. The game is F2P with $25 expansions every other year. There are ~75% discounts for previous expansions pretty often. It might be ~10 times cheaper if you count everything you paid for. And they're doing all right.
OW 2 is a straight-up scam, every person who bought it should be ashamed of themselves.
On July 04 2026 01:52 ChillFlame wrote: Bungie tried to kill Destiny 2 a long time ago, and not only once, but continuously, and the magnitude was increasing. Paying shitloads of money to get away from Blizzard to sell themselves to Sony.
Removing content people paid for with no compensation.
Implementing obnoxious monetization practices: you pay for a B2P game, then you have to buy shit tons of MTX, or buy countless season passes. The fun part, the season pass does not include all the content. You have to buy dungeons separately. Not sure if I remember something like this.
During the Witch Queen addon, when they added this shit, I just moved on.
There was a lot of other bullshit, too.
As I said, they made a very good game, and tried to kill it for years. They finally made it, and Sony was happy to lend a hand :D Free loans won't take themselves.
It was kinda fun watching the D2 reddit after they split from Activision. They had so much hope that without the evil Activision the game would thrive now that Bungie could finally do their own thing and then they slowly descended into depression as they realised that Activision had never been the problem and now they couldn't blame anyone but Bungie for constantly fucking up.
But I guess the thing about blizzard. IT probably has a shitton of people working a shitton of time on making something super refined. So even if the core design in itself is just okay the combination of marketing and refinement is enough to make the overall game a success.
A lot of these game-designers/devs may actually be fairly mediocre and they probably overestimate their own contribution when go out and make their own game.
I look at someone like David Kim - this guy was almost solely responsible for Broodlord-infestor era. Arguably the worst balancing job in all competitive gaming history (by actively managed games). This is the guy who thinks a game is balanced if the win-rate on ladder is 50-50. Why on earth would he be qualified to make his own studio? Yes it was many years ago and I am sure he has developed but that degree of incompetence was inexcusable. But he gets promoted instead...
I tried watching that Harstem interview with David Kim and I just couldn't stand it. Not because of Harstem, who is a great interviewer. I just couldn't listen to David Kim talk about games. I'm sure he's a nice guy. People did seem to like Battle Aces, although it also had a zero percent chance of success.
What is it with all these game designers who create games that only appeal to other game designers, and possibly also full-time game streamers?
On July 04 2026 02:40 Hider wrote: This is the guy who thinks a game is balanced if the win-rate on ladder is 50-50.
...?
That does seem like a pretty fair way to determine balance in a game with a large sample size lol
But I understand your point. ^_^
I still maintain SC2 was/is remarkably balanced considering how much crazy shit is in there and how different the factions are. Not perfect but pretty good for all its other flaws
On July 04 2026 02:40 Hider wrote: This is the guy who thinks a game is balanced if the win-rate on ladder is 50-50.
...?
That does seem like a pretty fair way to determine balance in a game with a large sample size lol
But I understand your point. ^_^
It's a terrible metric by its own.
Playing russian roulette with bullets made out of shit also has 50% WR, doesn't mean it's a great game.
The quality of gameplay should be always the most important. Otherwise you'll get a swarmhost meta or any other comparable bullshit.
There were a lot of games I liked that ceased to be fun because devs tried to make it balanced too hard. Some of these game aren't even PvP, they are either solo or co-op. Why even bother?
Even if you don't care if your game is fun, and making it balanced is your main goal, you have to take a lot of things into account. Game length, strategy and unit variety, skill expression, etc. BW ZvZ is 50% WR, by definition, but it lasts 5 minutes, and there aren't any units except lings, mutas, scourge, and hydras. Both players are always doing the same shit every game.
On July 04 2026 08:14 ChillFlame wrote: Even if you don't care if your game is fun, and making it balanced is your main goal, you have to take a lot of things into account. Game length, strategy and unit variety, skill expression, etc. BW ZvZ is 50% WR, by definition, but it lasts 5 minutes, and there aren't any units except lings, mutas, scourge, and hydras. Both players are always doing the same shit every game.
There are ways around that, hence creativity / meta game changes...
And a lot of what you're saying is just... your opinion.
On July 04 2026 08:14 ChillFlame wrote: Even if you don't care if your game is fun, and making it balanced is your main goal, you have to take a lot of things into account. Game length, strategy and unit variety, skill expression, etc. BW ZvZ is 50% WR, by definition, but it lasts 5 minutes, and there aren't any units except lings, mutas, scourge, and hydras. Both players are always doing the same shit every game.
I'm one of the few people who absolutely loves Broodwar ZvZ, and wouldn't want it to ever change.
It always feels like every match is on a knife's edge, with one zergling or one drone possibly changing the outcome. Muta and scourge wars are fast, furious, and amazing. Getting one sunken down with zerglings, or leaving it standing with 1hp, could win or lose you the game.
It's given us things like JvZ, which people are still debating the merits of today. Did he just get lucky with build orders? Or was he so amazing at the matchup that he could win every time he got a build order advantage and make it close even if he didn't? The answer, of course, is yes.
And rarely, VERY rarely, you get a pro ZvZ match that goes into lategame, like that one game with Effort in ASL. And everyone loses their goddamn minds. You get defilers and ultras and even devourers, and you remember that game until the day you die.
In contrast, Starcraft II's ZvZ is a lot more fair and has more combinations of things that can happen more often. But it's rarely memorable. The best parts are when one player seems to have the other's number, like Reynor did over Serral for a while, or Dark over Reynor.
And I challenge anyone to remember even a single notable thing about Infernal vs. Infernal in Stormgate.
On July 04 2026 08:14 ChillFlame wrote: Even if you don't care if your game is fun, and making it balanced is your main goal, you have to take a lot of things into account. Game length, strategy and unit variety, skill expression, etc. BW ZvZ is 50% WR, by definition, but it lasts 5 minutes, and there aren't any units except lings, mutas, scourge, and hydras. Both players are always doing the same shit every game.
I'm one of the few people who absolutely loves Broodwar ZvZ, and wouldn't want it to ever change.
It always feels like every match is on a knife's edge, with one zergling or one drone possibly changing the outcome. Muta and scourge wars are fast, furious, and amazing. Getting one sunken down with zerglings, or leaving it standing with 1hp, could win or lose you the game.
It's given us things like JvZ, which people are still debating the merits of today. Did he just get lucky with build orders? Or was he so amazing at the matchup that he could win every time he got a build order advantage and make it close even if he didn't? The answer, of course, is yes.
And rarely, VERY rarely, you get a pro ZvZ match that goes into lategame, like that one game with Effort in ASL. And everyone loses their goddamn minds. You get defilers and ultras and even devourers, and you remember that game until the day you die.
In contrast, Starcraft II's ZvZ is a lot more fair and has more combinations of things that can happen more often. But it's rarely memorable. The best parts are when one player seems to have the other's number, like Reynor did over Serral for a while, or Dark over Reynor.
I am a big BW TvT enjoyer myself. Tank lines throughout the whole map, position wars, and vultures runs by. Seeking weak spots in defences and pushing, or destroying undefended tanks with wraiths, or even mass drops or BC transitions. Galls as a core AA, sometimes valks to counter big wraith counts. Vessels to soak up damage. There's almost the whole tech tree involved. And doing all that position warfare while macroing, harassing, and defending enemy harasses makes SC look like a proper strategy game for once.
That's my first point, this, along with ZvZ, is possible because the game has not received any balance patches for decades.
On July 05 2026 06:28 Jeremy Reimer wrote:And I challenge anyone to remember even a single notable thing about Infernal vs. Infernal in Stormgate.
I don't, but I for sure remember a certain CvC match, but not for reasons to be proud of :D
EPT
