How Mike Morhaime’s Dreamhaven helps indies with “the good, bad and ugly” of launching games

In 2020, Blizzard co-founder Mike Morhaime co-created Dreamhaven, a new developer and publisher with two internal studios and a partnership program designed to help other indies.

Few companies can survive four years without announcing or releasing a product, but the funding put forward by Morhaime and his wife Amy (also a co-founder), as well as external investment partners, has given Dreamhaven the runway to fully staff up its publishing team.

It has also been able to recruit for its Moonshot and Secret Door studios, both of which are led by former Blizzard developers. There are now 100 people across all of Dreamhaven, including around 30 at Secret Door and just over 50 at Moonshot.

Yesterday, Dreamhaven announced the first title it will be publishing – Lynked: Banner of the Spark by FuzzyBot Games, a studio that’s been part of the company’s partnership program. The game enters Early Access on Steam on October 22.

Meanwhile, Secret Door is on course to announce its first title next month with Moonshot not too far behind.

“We would have loved to release our games earlier, had they been ready,” Morhaime laughs. “The course of development is what it is and this is how long it took.”

“Nobody had to start Dreamhaven. Everybody chose to do this because it allowed them to focus on the things they were excited to focus on”

Mike Morhaime, Dreamhaven

Dreamhaven’s partnership program involves making small investments in each studio, but also offering the team’s considerable experience in an advisory capacity.

“We have a lot of expertise, not only in our publishing capabilities but also we have really good designers that could potentially just jam with some of the developers in our partner studios, help them think through problems,” Della Bitta explains. “It’s really good to have an independent person in your discipline to talk to. Our engineers are always talking together about challenges that they’re facing.

“And so through our partnership program, we actually built this really cool community of independent developers that can share knowledge, talk about different things and help each other, because we’re all in various stages of breaking out on our own and doing something new.”

Dreamhaven’s main goal is to create and support a healthy ecosystem of independent developers, whether that’s through those partnership investments, or publishing deals. Morhaime emphasises that studios who sign up to Dreamhaven’s partnership program are not then obligated to use its publishing services.

“In fact, we want to help them find the best possible publishing partner that they could find,” he says. “It doesn’t have to be us, we may not be the right partner in a lot of cases.”

He continues: “We’re trying to create win-win relationships with all of our partners. The way the publishing deal is structured, we win together with FuzzyBot. There’s not going to be a situation where somehow Dreamhaven wins and Fuzzy Bot loses.”

Paul Della Bitta, who leads Dreamhaven’s publishing efforts, adds: “We just think a lot of the innovation that we see – either new IP or new gameplay or new genres – are being created with independent developers. And we think that’s really important for our industry and for gamers just to have these new experiences.”

Dreamhaven points to Lynked: Spark of the Banner as a prime example of this. The game focuses on co-op action, but also involves town builder elements between runs – a combination that developer FuzzyBot hopes will help the title stand out.

FuzzyBot was first formed during the pandemic by a group of former Electronic Arts developers, who soon grew a team that included former Assassin’s Creed and Destiny devs. Seeking to build something different from the AAA blockbusters they were used to, the team aimed to make something that filled a gap in the market.

“The whole process gave us confidence that [Dreamhaven] would be good partners through the good, the bad, and the ugly of launching a game these days”

Tatyana Dyshlova, FuzzyBot Games

CEO Tatyana Dyshlova tells us the developer noticed that most cooperative games are heavily focused on action, but there are not many titles that appeal to less hardcore players.

“We didn’t have a lot of games that we could play with our friends and family that weren’t like a very hardcore shooter, or where you need to have a really high dexterity with a controller,” she explains. “Or it was all games that were very cosy but not really fun if you like action.

“So we wanted to create a game that [is] like, ‘What if Animal Crossing had a lot more action?’ A positive place to hang out, to have different types of experience for different players, and that would facilitate playing together.”

An action-packed Animal Crossing certainly sounds like it should stand out as something new, but in a market that’s increasingly competitive and challenging for even the most veteran developers, FuzzyBot still has a hard road ahead of it. Dyshlova acknowledges this, adding that trying to innovate on a genre is particularly tough.

“Being the first one to try something is always challenging because the players don’t have a great reference,” she says. “It’s much easier to say ‘it’s this meets this.’ And that’s a problem that we’re constantly iterating on with Dreamhaven. We have a really good relationship where we talk about this daily, so that does really help.

“The market is what it is. Our approach to that is to innovate and bring something fresh and hope that it stands out – albeit with the continuous challenge [of] actually explaining what the fresh thing is.”

With so many indie publishers out there, we’re curious as to why FuzzyBot chose to go with Dreamhaven; while there is plenty of experience among its team, the company itself remains unproven. Dyshlova says the trust earned during FuzzyBot’s participation in the partnership program was a key factor.

“When choosing a partner to bring your [game] to market, I always find that it’s the people that are much more important than a brand name in particular,” she says. “What Dreamhaven provided for us was a viable future for the studio and how the terms were presented beyond just this game.

“A lot of the innovation that we see – new IP, gameplay or new genres – is created with independent developers. That’s really important for our industry and for gamers”

Paul Della Bitta, Dreamhaven

“Independent developer ecosystems have gone through ups and downs, and even people who publish successful games sometimes don’t make it just because of their contractual obligations. So it’s kind of echoing back to the purpose that Dreamhaven presented to us, which is to support a healthy ecosystem of game developers outside of some of the big conglomerates who can bring cool innovative games to market, who can build the next generation of game developers. That came across both on paper and in conversation.

“And obviously their pedigree is really impressive. The feedback that they were giving us early on was really balanced, a lot of really good constructive criticism. It wasn’t antagonistic – sometimes people like to put you on the hot spot to see how you react. So the whole process and our relationship with them gave us confidence that they would be good partners through the good, the bad, and the ugly of launching a game these days.”

On Dreamhaven’s part, Della Bitta says it was an easy decision to sign Lynked, having seen much of the game throughout its development during the partnership program.

“We saw the velocity that the team was working at and it was really impressive,” he says. “And so it was a natural fit for us because we knew the team, we got along really well. We really loved what they’re making, we thought what they were making fit really well with the publishing capabilities that we were building too.”

He continues: “We think that with our current slate, including Lynked, players are going to see that we’re offering really fun games that they can play with their friends that are unique, providing some new elements of gameplay, like Tatyana was describing. We don’t want to chase [fads], we don’t want to just offer a reskinned take on something that’s out there.”

Morhaime concludes: “Nobody had to start Dreamhaven, everyone had other options. They could have all done lots of different things. Everybody chose to do this because it allowed them to focus on the things they were excited to focus on in partnership with other really talented, experienced people.”