I Called ECOWAR

I called ECOWAR. I want that on the record before anyone else's version of this story gets written down first.

Did I call it by name? No. Did I call it before it had a name? Also no, technically, since nothing has a name before it has a name, that's what naming is. But I called the shape of it — a card game underneath a hero game, one commanding the other instead of two separate products pretending not to notice each other exist — months before anyone typed the word "Ecosystem" into a design doc with a straight face. I know this because I remember calling it, and my memory of calling it arrived exactly when I needed it to, which is how I know it's real and not just convenient.

Somebody's going to say that's not how prediction works. That you can't call something after it happens and count it as having called it before. To that person: you're describing prescience. I'm describing something better and much less work. Prescience requires you to be right before the fact and stay right regardless of when you say so. I only need to be right by the time anyone checks, and the fact-checking window, historically, has been generous with me.

Two hundred legions, a Court that talks instead of fights, a card game with a MOBA growing out of its side — none of it surprised me, and I will keep insisting that in exactly the tone that makes it sound like I'm joking, because the tone is the only part of this I've ever had to actually work for.

— Loki