Remembering Bioware's Founding Doctors

Is it a case of Bioware being more machine than man these days? The expansion of Bioware into a whole division responsible for role playing and strategy games, spanning six different offices - may look like the opposite of what EA did to other developers they bought up, like Bullfrog, Westwood, and Origin, but with the founders out the door one has to ask what remains of the company responsible for Baldur's Gate, {Neverwinter Nights}, {Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic}, and more recently {Mass Effect} and Dragon Age. Is it just a shell and a name that lingers on?

The culture is definitely going to change with Muzyka and Zeschuk gone - there is no doubt about that. Maybe the culture had already changed a lot and that was part of the reason for their departures? It's obvious that the work getting {Star Wars: The Old Republic} shipped and the subsequent failure to make it profitable (resulting in lay-offs) took its toll on those who ultimately were in charge of it all.

The timing of it all is highly suspicious. Greg & Ray handed in their resignations in April giving EA six months notice - which means they'll leave the company exactly five years after EA bought Bioware (and Pandemic, remember them?) from Elevation Partners. With massive deals like that one, key individuals are usually tied to contracts keeping them at the company to safeguard the buyer. Five years is a reasonable time period for such a contract, and the fact that both doctors leave at the same time is further evidence that this is what happened.

Shattered Steel - released in 1996 by Interplay for MS-DOS was the first Bioware game released. A mech action game far removed from the RPGs we would come to associate Bioware with.

Baldur's Gate (1998) and Baldur's Gate II: Shadow's of Amn (2000), really elevated Bioware to the elite of RPG developers.

{Neverwinter Nights} (2002) and {Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic} (2003) further cemented Bioware's status.

There is a tug-of-war between the publishers and the creatives in this industry at the moment, where the creatives are rising up, realising their value, and fight to gain proper compensation and independence. This is what happened with Infinity Ward and Bungie, and why Patrice Desilets left Ubisoft, and even with Muzyka and Zeschuk, who announced their retirement, it is not unreasonable to think that they craved a bigger say in what went on with Bioware since it was gobbled up by EA. Kickstarter has been a further catalyst for the creatives of this industry. It's all happening now, and the problem for publishers is when EA make the kind of deal they made with Respawn or when Activision make the deal they made with Bungie, other creatives in these large corporation are going to think - why am I not allowed the same kind of freedom? It's only natural to crave the freedom you need in order to make the best games possible after all.

Now, obviously Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk, may not ever return to the video game industry, which would be a terrible loss. They've earned enough through Bioware to lead prosperous lives spending their time on well, beer and socially responsible enterprises - judging by their retirement blogs. It's not unreasonable to think they may return with a new enterprise at some point - maybe something entirely independent (I'm sure a Kickstarter would do well), or maybe published by someone, yet with complete independence (much like Respawn's deal with EA or Bungie's deal with Activision).

For now, let's thank Greg & Ray for all the memories, and the high quality they've managed to keep across almost all of the games they have helped create. It's been a pleasure, and let's hope their legacy manages to live on inside Bioware - because there are plenty of talented people left at Bioware to carry the torch.

Turn the page to have a look at some of the interviews we've done with Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk over the years.

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The first time I met Greg Zeschuk was when I covered X05 in Amsterdam. He was mostly just hanging out in the small booth Bioware had been given to talk about their upcoming {Mass Effect} trilogy, as Casey Hudson did most of the talking, it's possible Ray Muzyka was there, but I never met him. Later on I would meet Ray Muzyka at GDC in 2007 where he talked about RPGs on a panel with industry legends Hironobu Sakaguchi and Peter Molyneux.

That was in the pre-EA days of Bioware, and with the inclusion of Bioware in the EA family the opportunities to talk to these pioneers in the RPG space came more frequent.

In this interview from Gamescom 2009 I had the chance to talk to Ray Muzyka about Bioware and the philosophy guiding the company:

In fact it was part of a longer chat that also dealt with {Mass Effect 2} and {Dragon Age: Origins}:

At E3 2010, I sat down with Greg Zeschuk to discuss DLC for Dragon Age and {Mass Effect} and the development of {Star Wars: The Old Republic}:

Fast forward to 2011 and we got to talk with both co-founders at E3 where they had a lot of big products to discuss:

At Gamescom 2011, we had another chance to meet with both Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk to talk about the plan for the {Mass Effect} series and how they handle multiple products of a franchise:

Also at Gamescom 2011, Gillen had the chance to talk about {Star Wars: The Old Republic} with Greg Zeschuk:

Sadly, we haven't met Greg or Ray since then, and in retrospect it's only natural they weren't available for interviews during E3 or Gamescom. Hopefully, they will open up to journalists at some point in the future and share more of their side of story on their departure from the company they built.