Welcome back to another quick roundup of video game industry news relevant to MMOs and MMO fans!
The Morhaimes: When Mike Morhaime announced he was leaving Blizzard just two years ago, there was plenty of speculation about what he’d do next, especially since it appeared his resignation wasn’t the most voluntary thing ever. Today, he and wife Amy Morhaime have officially announced their new thing: a new company called Dreamhaven, which is currently composed of two internal studios, Moonshot and Secret Door, both staffed by former Blizzard luminaries from StarCraft 2, Hearthstone, and Heroes of the Storm. Mike Morhaime will serve as CEO, with co-founder Amy Morhaime as head of ops; he’s said the company will be a “haven for creators.” We don’t know what they’re making yet, but it’ll be one to watch. (Cheers, Loopy and Aralith!)
NCsoft: Seoul-based NCsoft is busy building stuff – in the real world. According to reports earlier this year, the company spent the equivalent of more than $650M US to buy up a massive public parking lot in Seongnam. The deal was meant to be finished by August, and now here we are. MMO Culture reports that NC plans to build a “global R&D innovation center” on the new site.
Epic: Epic Games splashed out this week on Manticore Games, pushing $15M worth of investment into the platform, ostensibly in an attempt to capitalize on its “multiverse” ambitions as “Manticore’s mission is to unleash a new wave of creativity in games by radically lowering the barriers to game making and publishing the same way that YouTube revolutionized video creation.” Epic’s Fortnite has been busy this week too, preparing to play host to Kpop megastars BTS and collaborating with the underperforming Rocket League.
