Nightdive Studios' Stephen Kick has 8,544 hours in Dota 2, and just clocked his 5,000th win: 'I think it's made me a better leader'

As with many first-generation PC gamers, Stephen Kick was exposed to the hobby through id Software's gateway drug Wolfenstein 3D. "I went over to a friend's house and they had their home computer, the big bulky white CRT," says the cofounder of remaster specialists Nightdive Studios. "I just remember being blown away by those 'realistic' sound effects and amazing 3D ultra-realistic graphics … it was an awakening of sorts."

Today, Kick has become one of the most diligent curators of PC gaming's early years, with Nightdive refreshing and reviving countless PC classics like Doom, Quake and System Shock 2. In 2023, the studio also produced a remake of the original System Shock, which received near-universal critical acclaim after a long and difficult development.

Nightdive's most recent project was Blood: Refreshed Supply, a second overhaul of Monolith Productions' debut shooter that came bundled with two of its best mods: "That was an extremely fun collaboration that we want to continue on with our future releases," Kick explains. "If you've got a mod that you've put a lot of your work into, and a lot of your heart for a classic game that hasn't been remastered yet, come talk to us."

Kick put down his virtual dust cloth to chat with me about what he's been playing on his PC lately, which took us from the fortified gardens of Popcap to the deepest, darkest jungles of Valve.

What game are you currently playing?

It's a game I've been playing for probably over a decade at this point. It's Dota 2. Before Nightdive officially started, I was living at my in-laws' house. They had a spare room where my fiancé and I were living, basically to get back on our feet, and we had our computers up there, and we were doing contract work for friends and some companies like doing 3D modelling just to make some extra money.

I saw that Valve was having a competition for this new game that they were coming out with called Dota 2, where you could design and 3D model a set for one of the characters and they would offer it as an in-game reward that [people] paid money for. It was a microtransaction thing, and it was for an art focused website, I think it was called Polycount.

And I was like "Oh, this is really cool. Maybe if I win, I can make some extra money." That was basically my gateway into it. So I downloaded it and picked a character, I built an outfit for it, and I submitted it. I didn't win, but it was such a fun learning experience and it got me into the game.

Maybe that was really their intention, because I've been playing ever since. My wife and I play. My brother-in-law, he plays. There's a bunch of people in our family that play, and so we get together at the end of the day and we all hop in, we play a game. It's become kind of like a family activity, almost.

I traditionally will play a support role, so like position five. I like to heal, disable. I like to provide vision, protective auras against magic and physical damage. I like to initiate, sometimes, battles. My favourite thing to do is, when I'm playing with a bunch of strangers, is basically, like, Captain. So I'm on the mic and I'm going "Hey, I'm gonna buy a smoke, everybody meet at this triangle. We're gonna smoke, we're gonna gank, and then we're gonna go kill Roshan, and then we're going to take a tier two, or we're going to push high ground."

Everybody listens to me. I can usually direct the game in such a way that we're all working together, and your chances are dramatically higher that you're gonna win if you can wrangle all these cats together. And it's just so satisfying.

What was the previous game you played, and is it still installed?

I've been playing this game called Witchfire. I started getting into roguelikes when Hades came out, and that game just totally consumed me. I was just obsessed, you know, just that mechanic, the loop of just dying and coming back and trying again and getting a whole new set of powers and things to mix—let's figure out what works best for your play style.

I just became enamoured by that. And Witchfire is almost like that, but a first-person shooter in a grim, dark fantasy setting. You get put on these islands that are inhabited by witches and demons and ghosts, and you basically have to cleanse the island. The art style and visuals are just fantastic.

It's been on my hard drive forever too, because it's in early access. So I'll go in and I'll play for a couple days, and then like "Oh, OK, now I gotta wait" because either there's not anything left to do, or I'm just not good enough. And I'm like "Well, if I can't beat this, they're gonna rebalance this, and then I'll try again."

What is the oldest game (by release date) currently installed on your PC?

It's got to be Doom + Doom II. That's always on there. We worked on the remaster with Bethesda, of course.

It's almost like a time machine. You go and you play it, and suddenly you're in front of the beige beauty again. And you're putting off doing your chores and your homework, and all the other responsibilities kind of wash away.

What is the highest number of hours you have in any given game, according to Steam?

Clocking in at 8,544 hours, it's Dota 2. I just recently got my 5,000^th win. So, there you go.

It's interesting, being in a family dynamic at home, where my son comes home from school at 2, 3 o'clock. We hang out, we have dinner, he goes to bed, and then my wife and I, we hop on and play a couple of games of Dota before bedtime. And all the stuff we have to worry about just kinda goes [away].

You have to think so quickly, and you have to be totally focused on what's going on to be successful, that there's no intrusive thoughts coming in. Whereas I feel like if I'm playing a singleplayer game and it's a more narrative experience, there's always that voice in my head that's like "You should be doing something more productive."

What game will you never, ever uninstall?

I have uninstalled Dota a couple times—and I hate for this all to be about Dota, but I feel like it's an important part of my life at this point. I did uninstall it a couple times because I got too, I don't know what the word is, I just got too serious, and losing would really affect my attitude. So I would just uninstall it and not play it for a month.

I feel like I've made leaps and strides personally because of this game. It's helped me communicate a lot better. I think it's made me a better leader. I do still get extremely frustrated sometimes when people aren't playing up to my expectations, but I don't lash out at them. I try to be positive and encouraging and offer suggestions if they're willing to take them on, how to improve what they're doing so we can hopefully win.

I can still be toxic from time to time, though, mostly with the other team. I play sports a lot, and that was very competitive for me at one point. And there's a part of the game where you can like shit talk, you can get under somebody's skin and you can kind of get them off their game. You can get an advantage, right? And I take that approach to Dota sometimes and I can get people off their game. But you have to be tactful. You can't just throw insults at them. You have to be cheeky.

Back to the question you asked, Plants vs Zombies. That's so fun. My son went through a big obsession with that. He had it on his tablet, and we put it back on our phones and stuff, and we would sit around and we would play Plants vs Zombies, and we would help him be like "Hey, look, if you put the sunflowers here and you build in this order, you'll have economy." We were trying to teach him strategy and it was really fun. That's always on my computer.

What's a piece of non-gaming software installed on your PC that you simply couldn't live without?

It's probably Photoshop. I create a lot of artwork just on my own, just for fun. My second monitor is actually a Cintiq. I go through these phases where I'll just have the Cintiq in front of me and the monitor will be over here during work. And that really helps me focus, if I'm drawing or doing something like that while listening to something, like a book on tape.

I've kind of developed this art style that you'll see on my Instagram, where it's generally like a face or a character study or something like that, completely front view, symmetrical, kind of like a tribal design, almost. So it's like big bold, dark lines with bright colors. And there's just something very relaxing about sketching it out, and then doing like crisp, clean line work on top of it and then getting to colour it in.

The other stuff that's on there is mini painting. I create decorations for Halloween, props and all kinds of stuff when I'm not working. My current ambition outside of Nightdive and everything like that is to do a YouTube maker channel.

How tidy is your desktop screen?

It's tidy. I know where everything is at any given time, thankfully. It's getting a little bit hectic for my tastes. On this [left] side, it's all very clean. It's all my game icons and my software over here. And then over here [on the right], it's just like the stuff that I'm currently working on, that I don't want to have to navigate too often to get to. But there'll be a point where I'll go "OK, well, I'm gonna spend the next hour copy and pasting and putting things where they belong". And then I'll never look at them again.