You knew this in 1995, before Diablo was announced? When Diablo was being made by Condor games, prior to Blizzard buying Condor in 1996?

No. I'm not saying I did, and it's not about me anyway. I'm just saying the signs of success were there pre-WoW.

How many of these companies are still around?

None, and nearly all of them. Lots of the talent that made successful games in 95 are still in the business.

How many of these companies, if you put $7 million into them in 1995, would have paid off?

Hard to say until it's done. But I wouldn't have bawked and laughed at the idea of dumping it into several on the list there. It's hard to say whether or not a company like Looking Glass would have thrived. I place the quality of their games right up there with Blizzard.

How many of these games are genres that are even profitable now?

Oh let's see, the FPS. No. Nobody plays that. Nobody likes Bungie or Halo. RPG like Jagged Alliance? No again. Games like that and Fallout 3 just don't do well. RTS's have flopped huge which is why Age of Empires was a huge non-success for Microsoft, and Starcraft II will fail in a big way. Racing and driving games? Continue to flop, no interest. Casual adventure games? Well, Myst sealed the coffin up on that genre and it's completely useless which is why they're pretty much the one of the few computer game genres places like Target and Walmart still carry -- but what do they know about making money? Complicated Flight Sims... well I'll give you that one.

And you still think Kotick is braindead for not knowing this?

Did I call him braindead, or did you just do that? Perhaps he just shouldn't have guffawed at the idea.