History
Asymmetric was founded by Zack Johnson. It was originally a personal blog created by Johnson to host various hobby games and humorous posts, including the Asymmetric Gazette. In 2003, Johnson released the web game Kingdom of Loathing. This online roleplaying game was noted for its humorous writing and grew to over 300,000 player accounts created within the first year.. As a result of the popularity of the game, Johnson hired childhood friend Josh Nite and several others to continue development. The game continues to be updated with new content and holiday events. The employees of Asymmetric Publications produced several weekly podcasts. The Kingdom of Loathing Podcast (originally live radio show) featured Q&A with the player base and discussion of development process. They also procuced several other general-interest podcasts about video games, pop culture, advice, and parenting. These were collected under an umbrella called the ''Hot Dog Network''. Their second commercial game, '' Word Realms'' was developed between 2008 and 2012, and was released on May 21, 2013 to PC. The game was a financial failure for Asymmetric due to the long development process and poor sales. Asymmetric was hired by Amplify Education to make a kid-friendly version of Word Realms called MasterSwords for release in some schools. In 2016, their third major commercial game, '' West of Loathing'', was announced on Steam Greenlight. It was released in August 2017.. A DLC expansion pack ''Recokin' at Gun Manor'' was released in 2019. In 2019, Johnson was accused of "physical and emotional" abuse by his ex-wife, U.C. Santa Cruz professor A.M. Darke, towards her and ''West of Loathing'' designer Kevin Simmons. She also alleged that he had removed part of the game to avoid crediting her for its development. Johnson denied the allegations of physical abuse, although admitting to "emotional immaturity and anger and cruelty" in a written apology. He later added Darke to the game's credits, claiming she had only provided feedback to the game and did not work on it in a design capacity. An ex-girlfriend of Johnson's, Bonnie Mattson, also alleged similar abusive behavior during a 2005 relationship. In 2022, a fourth game, '' Shadows Over Loathing'', was released on Steam.List of games
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