So it turns out Blizzard can not only produce a masterclass in MMOs, but also a masterclass in… class. Narrowly following comments by EA that World of Warcraft was in some respects like a shopping list, the Blizzard riposte was to wish their rivals well and remark on how a bigger pie means bigger slices for everyone, or something to that effect. Blizzard’s co-founder and Executive Vice President, Frank Pearce, tells MCV in an interview that, “This is a game that has an opportunity to grow the MMO market if done right and therefore is very important to the industry as a whole, not just EA. “We’ve talked about this internally and from our perspective we hope they make an enjoyable game because they’re going to bring in a lot of new players to the MMO genre, and those players’ idea of whether or not they like this type of…
bioware
EA retracts forum user ban
Electronic Arts has retracted the Bioware Social Network ban on a user who questioned if Bioware had ‘sold their souls to the EA devil’. As we wrote on Friday, the forum ban then rippled through Electronic Arts’ DRM system and blocked user v_ware from being able to play Dragon Age 2 at all. ‘Now I’ve got a dead game for 50 euros,’ said v_ware at the time. Despite the fact that moderators repeatedly told v_ware that the ban was not a mistake and that the Dragon Age 2 block was in accordance with the terms of service, EA now claims that the extent of the block was a mistake. ”’Unfortunately, there was an error in the system that accidentally suspended your entire EA account.’ EA’s Senior Director of Customer Support, Boyd Beasley, wrote. ‘Immediately upon learning of the glitch, we have restored the entire account and apologize for the inconvenience…
EA/BioWare can Revoke Your Gaming and DLC Licenses for Forum Conduct Violations
Yesterday a post appeared on the official BioWare forums containing a complaint from a gamer who says he was unable to play his recently purchased copy of the Signature Edition of Dragon Age II (from the EA Store) because his main forum account (which is tied to his EA account) was suspended for 72 hours: So. My other account got suspended yesterday for 72 hours. My suspended v_ware account has all my Bioware games registered to it. My other games are Mass Effect 2, Dragon Age: Origins and Awakening. I have played every game off Bioware since KOTOR, which is my favourite game of all time. Since I have these other games and off course have played the DA2 demo, my previously unlocked DA2 content is assigned to this account. When I got the mail I was curieus. I wanted to know what I did that was offensive. The mail…
USA Today chats with the BioWare Doctors
USA Today has an interesting Q and A with the two founders of BioWare; Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk. The interviews surrounds subjects like their recent induction into the AIAS Hall of Fame, how they ended up developing games, and personal stuff. Check out a snip below, and read the full Q & A here. Q: Ray, I know you are an avid poker player. What do you find that has in common with game development? A: There is a lot of nuance to it. It is fun to just sit at the table and talk to other folks. There is a story being told through what you represent with your bets and what you say and what other people say and how you interpret that. There’s a lot of math and statistics, so understanding that is an entry point, a requirement to be successful. It’s sort of a microcosm…
BioWare’s new Senior Community Coordinator says Hello
BioWare’s new Senior Community Coordinator Allison Berryman has officially introduced herself on the Star Wars: The Old Republic forums. Allison Berryman has six years of industry experience from Gearbox, and call herself an “all-around gamer” and a big fan of Knights of the Old Republic. You can Read Berryman’s introduction below: “Hello Everyone! I’m Allison Berryman, a Senior Community Coordinator here at BioWare Austin. You’ll see me around a bit from now on, so I’d like to introduce myself to you all. Let me start off by saying that I am beyond thrilled to be working with this community. As a huge fan of both BioWare and Star Wars, working on The Old Republic team is a dream come true. Many of my fondest gaming memories come from BioWare games, particularly Knights of the Old Republic, and to be working here is a great honor. I’ve been working in the…
Gordon Walton’s Farewell Address
As we reported a few days ago, Gordon Walton is departing Bioware, to take on an executive producer role at Disney-owned social game studio Playdom. Yesterday Walton provided the community with a few words of his own outlining his reasons for departing BioWare and Star Wars: The Old Republic. Below you can read Mr. Waltons farewell post from the official forums “Thanks to all the well-wishers and even the haters. A few things I thought I’d mention. 1) SWTOR will be an awesome game! 2) Working at BioWare was my best experience in my 33 years in the games industry so far! It’s not a good company, it’s a GREAT company. 3) I wasn’t working at SOE when the NGE came out, and frankly I was adamantly against doing it. 4) I don’t hate the SWTOR space game or JtL, really! (Read the transcript of the talk or listen…
The BioWare Method
At Last weeks DICE Summit, the BioWare Co-Founders Greg Zeschuk and Ray Muzyka gave a presentation to attendees entitled “The BioWare Method.” In this the doctors explained how it has been a long road to get to where BioWare is today, and share some of the knowledge they have learned through out the years in business. The most important lesson in releasing a successful game is recruiting and maintaining a strong team, and BioWare’s co-founders, Dr. Greg Zeschuk and Dr. Ray Muzyka, explain how it’s done. They alsoencourage long-term and forward thinking, always play games to continue learning, and maintain a positive team culture. One of the biggest components of keeping together a strong team is communication and honesty. Dr. Zeschuk and Dr. Muzyka admitted that Mass Effect 1 DLC didn’t go quite as well as expected, so going forward the Dragon Age and Mass Effect teams worked together to…
Bioware developer pops the question in Minecraft
Although we are a few days past Valentine’s Day, here is a noteworthy wedding proposal that is sure to warm the hearts of female video game geeks everywhere. A Bioware developer decided to pop the “big question” to his sweetie who is also a Bioware developer. For him, though, getting down on one knee and whipping out a ring in a box was simply too cliche’ to be employed. So what is a game developer to do in this situation? Well, the answer is to propose marriage to his girlfriend in a video game of course. So using his Minecraft building skills, he decided to build a castle along with some special terrain to ask for her hand in marriage. And as you will see in the following video, it was all worth it.
BioWare’s Gordon Walton Leaves To Join Playdom Austin
Yesterday EA lost three heads from major studios Playfish and Bioware. BioWare Austin vice president Gordon Walton has left to take on an executive producer role at Disney-owned social game studio Playdom, while two founding members of Playfish, the social game developer EA bought in 2009, are also set to leave the company. EA said in a statement that it’s “business as usual”: “”It is business as usual at all BioWare studios, where we remain committed to creating, delivering and evolving the most emotionally engaging games in the world,” concluded the statement. Electronic Arts is the parent company of BioWare, which also develops the Mass Effect and Dragon Age role-playing franchises. Mobsters and Sorority Life creator Playdom, recently acquired by Disney for a handsome $763 million, is among the top developers of social games on Facebook. A 33-year industry veteran, Walton joins the ranks of many respected stalwarts, like Playdom’s…
BioWare founders on why corporate humility matters
A few month ago we posted the story of BioWare. Now doing the DICE Summit in Las Vegas this week, the Founders of BioWare; Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk was honored in the gaming’s Hall of Fame for their contributions to the game industry over the past two decades. Venturebeat had a chance to sit down and speak about what the guys believe is the key behind BioWare’s massive success and to talk about their up comming games including Star Wars: The Old Republic. According to the doctors, their key to success comes from the corporate humility that is one of the foundations in their company philosophy. Muzyka and Zeschuk have a lot of old-fashioned values. They run their company as a meritocracy. They keep their promises. They communicate with a clear measure. They focus on quality. They are persistent in the face of adversity. In the interview below they…
Greg Zeschuk: World of Warcraft established the MMO standards
Co founder of BioWare Greg Zeschuk did a public Speaking at the DICE summit in Las Vegas yesterday. Here he confessed that World of warcraft has set the standards for any MMORPG. and that the developer’s own offering, Star Wars: The Old Republic, looks to it for “standards”. Furhtermore he doesn’t see SWTOR as a WoW-killer. The players will decide if SWTOR will become a succes: “It is a touchstone,” Zeschuk said of WoW, according to GamesIndustry. “It has established standards, it’s established how you play an MMO: “It is a touchstone,” Zeschuk told the audience. “It has established standards, it’s established how you play an MMO. Every MMO that comes out, I play and look at it. And if they break any of the WoW rules, in my book that’s pretty dumb. If you have established standards, WoW established them.” Zeschuk also admitted that it will be an “interesting challenge” to compete with…
Bioware bringing sexy back
We tend to look at other upcomming Bioware games these days, as it gives a pinpointer to what we can expect of Star Wars: The old republic. About a year ago the official SWTOR forums was on fire with a discussion about same sex interaction ( you know when role players makes out). It seems Bioware is taking Dragon Age II to a new level when it comes to sex – it seems the ESRB description of the content reveals that at least one sex scene features implied fellatio! According to the ESRB: “During the course of the game, characters sometimes engage in sexual dialogue (e.g., ‘Why is it always about sex with you?’ and ‘Sailing is like sex. Do it wrong, and it’ll make you sick.’). Players can also initiate brief cutscene sequences in which couples (male-female or same-sex) are shown kissing and embracing one another in a bedroom…
EA: Star Wars: Old Republic can be profitable with 500000 subs
World of Warcraft may have more than 12 million subscribers, but that doesn’t mean Star Wars: The Old Republic needs to surpass or even approach those sorts of numbers in order to be profitable. During a conference call yesterday EA CFO Scott Brown talked about the number of subscribers BioWare’s upcoming MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic need to be profitable – and according to his comments on a recent conference call: it’s 500,000. “”At half a million subscribers, the game is substantially profitable, but it’s not the kind of thing we would write home about,” he said. “”Anything north of a million subscribers, it’s a very profitable business.”” Tackling World of Warcraft is certainly a daunting task. Achieving one million subscribers, though? That’s not in any way a given, but it’s most definitely an achievable number for a quality MMO — especially one carrying the Star Wars name. Brown…
‘Dragon Age Legends’ hits Facebook ( Do we get to see SWTOR the Facebook game to? )
Registration for the closed beta trial is open for Dragon Age Legends, a new Facebook game from BioWare, the makers of Dragon Age: Origins and the upcoming Dragon Age II (out March 8). The game introduces the Free Marches, the primary setting for Dragon Age II. Players who complete specific goals in the Facebook game will be able to earn up to five exclusive items that can used in Dragon Age II, as well as the Jade Empire-inspired Death’s Hand Armor for their Dragon Age Legends character in the Facebook game’s open beta. Early buyers of Dragon Age II playing the beta can also get early access to the official launch version of the Facebook game, set for later in March. And those who buy Dragon Age II and log in before March 15 will get the Dragon Age Legends BioWare Signature pack the next time they log into the…
SWTOR – The risky investment by EA
World of Warcraft is, without reason of doubt, one of the best successes on the market that, even though it has aged and should have been dead already (in theory only – because game rarely “live” more that 2 years). But WoW is still the leader, the moneymaker, the game that drives so many people crazy – destroys marriages, makes people rich and so on. And it keeps going. A hit MMO like that can be an huge thing for the investors on Wall Street. If a MMORPG has success, it can offer a certain degree of predictable revenue. For example, there’s a certain degree to which World of Warcraft subscription revenues are a sure thing each quarter for Activision Blizzard. Electronic Arts and BioWare are well aware of the stats, and they’re making sure their entrant in the genre is well prepared: EA is spending more money on the…
Fan made Bioware videos
Here is a Couple of Videos put together by fans, I believe you guys might enjoy. This first one is called “Star Wars: The Old Republic – This is War.”” The Second one is called “Bioware Montage”, and is a blend of all the greatest Bioware games.
BioWare Doctors To Become AIAS Hall Of Famers
The Founders of Bio Ware, Dr. Ray Muzyka and Dr. Greg Zeschuk, are to be included in the AIAS Hall of Fame (The Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences) which sounds like an awesome way to be praised. The two are worthy of this awesome achievement, for they accomplished so much in the past 14 years. BioWare has shot out impressive game titles the equal the level of baddest @$$ RPG’s. They will be presented the award on the 10th of February, 2010 in one of the brightest city in the world or possibly the Brightest, Las Vegas. This will be held at the D.I.C.E. Summit (Design, Innovate, Communicate, Entertain) which basically translates to a gathering of gamers, a Convention, or An Emmy for the truly gifted. While a gamer is earning Achievements on his or her Xbox 360 while Dr. Ray Muzyka and Dr. Greg Zeschuk and others like…
New Bioware community team member: David Bass
Biowares Community manager Stephen Reid announced on his twitter that David Bass is the new Senior Community Coordinator for the SW:TOR team: Today’s been busy, partly because I’ve been getting a new employee up to speed on a few things… If you run a #SWTOR fansite or head up a guild (of a reasonable size!) then you should totally follow this guy as he’s working for you! Without further ado welcome aboard to the #SWTOR crew to @doctordake – follow him, guilds and fansites! 🙂 Welcome to the community David!
BioWare Releases Mass Effect 3 Trailer
BioWare’s made no secret of the fact that they’re developing a third Mass Effect game. However, today they finally had something to show us. The trailer at the Spike VGAs started with a British sniper looking out over a ruined city. In voiceover he explains that the entire planet is under assault. The camera pans out to reveal the attackers: Reapers. We then see Shepherd watching the devastation below from orbit. Cue logo. There’s no mention of a release window in the trailer. The current guess is that the game will arrive in either late 2011 or early 2012.
The Story of Bioware
Over the years, BioWare has earned a reputation as one of gaming’s greatest storytellers with titles like ‘Knights Of The Old Republic’ and ‘Mass Effect’. Find out how they did it. If you don’t want to read a wall of Text, you can just watch the videos. Greg Zeschuk, Ray Muzyka, and Augustine Yip, medical students at the University of Alberta, played video games to relieve stress and relax. The three went on to meld their medical knowledge with their computer savvy, developing patient simulation software. Their small operation, BioWare, took off in another direction when publisher Interplay advanced funding to develop a game demo. Greg Zeschuk and Ray Muzyka 2002 Shattered Chain was released in 1996. BioWare re-signed with Interplay and spent three years developing Baldur’s Gate for the Irvine, California, company. Zeschuk and Muzyka headed up the company as co-CEOs and practiced medicine on a part-time basis. Yip’s…
Bigpoint CEO claims SWTOR won’t be profitable
Bigpoint is one of the Biggest Publishers for F2P and Browser Games and CEO Heiko Hubertz recently stated that he believes that Star Wars – The Old Republic will never be profitable with it’s current financial concept. “If you look in the traditional industry there are still a lot of big bets there,” said Hubertz, keynoting the London Games Conference this evening. “Still there are companies investing $20-40 million for a game. These companies have to be profitable after one or two months. They don’t have 12 months or even more. I think these companies are really in trouble in the future if a user can play online games for free. “If you look at a game like Star Wars from EA and BioWare, they estimated a development budget of more than $100 million. This is an online game for many million of subscribers, so a big publisher does not…
SWTOR Release date and EA Lousegate
Eurogamer has an lengthy interview up with Doctors Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk from BioWare. They talk about a number of things, including Dragon Age II, Mass Effect 2, and more importantly for MMORPG fans, Star Wars: The Old Republic. Regardign SWTOR they discuss that EA Louse business from a while back, But what’s most interesting is that they’re asked about a release date and oddly no longer seem to want to commit to a spring 2011 release date: Eurogamer: When will Star Wars: The Old Republic be out? Ray Muzyka: Next year. Eurogamer: Can you at least say whether it’ll be the first half or the second half of the year? Ray Muzyka: No. We’re just saying 2011. That is quite different from what they’ve been saying in the past where they’ve always stated “spring 2011″”. Signs of the release having slipped perhaps? Regarding EA Louse gate, Zeschuk and…
BioWare hits high on Canada’s top 100 Employers list
BioWare has been named as one of the top employers in Canada. The studio was compared with over 75,000 employers to be recognized as one of the leading places to work at in Canada. The Canadian Top 100 Employers is a list compiled annually by Mediacrop Canada Inc. The winners are selected based on a number of criteria including outstanding human resource practices, exceptional training and development opportunity for employees. Via Digital Journal BioWare Corp. is honoured to announce that it has been recognized as one of Canada’s Top 100 Employers. “This acknowledgment is a great honour, and we are thrilled to receive this award. It is important to BioWare because it reflects our core value of Quality in our Workplace, and it also demonstrates that BioWare is an employer of choice for prospective employees not only in Canada, but world-wide,” said Joint CEO Dr. Ray Muzyka. The future for…
SWTOR – The $ 300 million Failure?
fear leads to anger. anger leads to hate. hate leads to suffering A soon to be former employee of EA Bioware/Mythic has written a very lengthy post on why he/she believes Warhammer Online has failed. I don’t really care much about the Warhammer stuff, as I left that game soon after it was released. But for us the most relevant bits are where the poster talks about Star Wars: The Old Republic. And, according to the poster, it isn’t pretty: And Bioware? Don’t make me laugh. They’ve spent more money making the Old Republic than James Cameron spent on Avatar. Shit you not. More than $ 300 million! Can you believe that? And you know what they’re most proud of? This is the kicker. They are most proud of the sound. No seriously. Something like a 20Gig installation, and most of it is voiceover work. That’s the best they have….