Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk Leaving BioWare

maximaz

Sonny, I Watched the Vault Bein' Built!
Interesting news today. The founders of BioWare are "retiring". Any thoughts?

I'm really surprised. Not sure what this means for the company exactly.
 
maximaz said:
Interesting news today. The founders of BioWare are "retiring". Any thoughts?

I'm really surprised. Not sure what this means for the company exactly.

What were their positions?

By that you can judge relevance.

Writers hold the most relevance to me.
 
Interesting...I guess the reason they sold out to EA in the first place was just to get the money to retire?

Another possibility is that EA has messed up Bioware so they no longer like working there?

Or maybe EA was going to fire them and this is how they avoid that?


Hmmmm...
 
They didn't do much these days. They were mostly figureheads amd didn't have a hand in any Bioware game since some time, before the company was bought by EA if I recall correctly.

Maybe the recent shenanigans (DA II debacle, the ME3 ending controversy) pushed them out the door. Or maybe they just have enough. Who knows.
 
Token-not-found said:
What were their positions?

By that you can judge relevance.

Founders of the company. I may be way off here but it almost seems to me like the same caliber of news as Gabe Newell leaving Valve.

It's also strange that both of them are suddenly leaving the industry. Almost like a "fuck this" move. This part especially made me wonder:

"I've reached an unexpected point in my life where I no longer have the passion that I once did for the company, for the games, and for the challenge of creation."
 
Aside from the ME games (which I really like) Bioware hasn't done much to really blow me away in quite some time. Long gone are the KOTOR / Baldur's Gate days.
 
rcorporon said:
Aside from the ME games (which I really like) Bioware hasn't done much to really blow me away in quite some time. Long gone are the KOTOR / Baldur's Gate days.

Have you played Dragon's Age?
 
maximaz said:
rcorporon said:
Aside from the ME games (which I really like) Bioware hasn't done much to really blow me away in quite some time. Long gone are the KOTOR / Baldur's Gate days.

Have you played Dragon's Age?

The first was alright, the second was eeeeeeh.
 
I think this is just confirmation of what I've been thinking quite some time. BioWare ever since they were acquired had a decline in quality.

Just as a recap:

The beginning where it became very clear was Dragon Age2, while origins was a Baldurs Gate-esque game modernised DA2 was leaning more towards mortal combat and less towards what RPG's should be like.
Riddles like the bridge riddle in origins and others were missing completely. You had cut and paste areas all over the place (not just a little, they went way waaay over board with that one) the customer got a whole lot less artistic value for their buck compared to origins.

Mass Effect3's ending. While the whole series was made around the choices and effects these choices had, building *your* shepard, everybodies shepard got the same ending. It was bad because it was not coherent with the rest of the series. Adding to that there was that day1 dlc disaster and EA tieing origin to mass effect3 (all 3 points made me really really mad)

next thing is swtor, which turned out to be the biggest failure in mmo history.

I had a feeling both of them were envying brian fargo with the crowdfunding success he already had and the freedom he currently enjoys making what he thinks is right. I also think that eternity will be great (athough I prefer scifi and/or post apoc rpg's) I hope both will turn out to be great games. let the lesser minded people have fun with their cloned ea/activision/zynga games while we have our fun. (I was really thinking about giving up gaming as a hobby, but now I see a brighter future again)
 
maximaz said:
Interesting news today. The founders of BioWare are "retiring". Any thoughts?

I'm really surprised. Not sure what this means for the company exactly.
if you followed Westwood somewhat this would not be a surprise. Since EA took over they only delivered garbage. You could say they stoped to really exist at that point and C&C was dead.

The same will be true for Bioware. Not that they made deep games before EA, but it was at least quality. The garbage they have thrown out recently just isn't what I see as "Bioware" anymore. Starting from a stupid MMO instead of a sequel to Kotor2, to Dragonturd 2 and now with the ME franchise where each game became worse (more or less)

People still believe Bioware to be the same company it was years ago? Thats naive.
 
Crni Vuk said:
if you followed Westwood somewhat this would not be a surprise. Since EA took over they only delivered garbage. You could say they stoped to really exist at that point and C&C was dead.

I hear this crap thrown around and it's just not true. Westwood agreed to the buyout offer, EA did not commit any kind of hostile takeover. It happened in 1998, meaning that Tiberian Sun, Nox, Red Alert 2, Yuri's Revenge, Generals and Zero Hour as well as Renegade were all released with Westwood under EA.

L2Rsrch.
 
Well, for me C&C ended after Tiberian Sun + Addon. Everything after that just felt mediocre to me or wasn't my taste at all.
 
Tagaziel said:
Crni Vuk said:
if you followed Westwood somewhat this would not be a surprise. Since EA took over they only delivered garbage. You could say they stoped to really exist at that point and C&C was dead.

I hear this crap thrown around and it's just not true. Westwood agreed to the buyout offer, EA did not commit any kind of hostile takeover. It happened in 1998, meaning that Tiberian Sun, Nox, Red Alert 2, Yuri's Revenge, Generals and Zero Hour as well as Renegade were all released with Westwood under EA.

L2Rsrch.

But the sale of Bioware to EA was exactly the opposite: the company had US$ 300 million in debt and was in verge of bankrupting in 2007, EA paid them A LOT less than the company really worth.

If I recall correctly EA tryed to buy Valve twice, the latest recent offer was US$ 1 billion (analysts estimates Valve worthing 2.5 billion).
Hey, there's an economic crisys out there, right? :cool:

And honestly? Can we put ME to rest for a while?
Sure, the last installment generated a lot of criticism but also generated a lot of money, so it was a successful product (it could be even more, I grant you that).
But how about a new sci-fi franchise for a change?

Well, let's hope CD Projekt Red's Cyberpunk fair better.
 
maximaz said:
Founders of the company. I may be way off here but it almost seems to me like the same caliber of news as Gabe Newell leaving Valve.
Really? I've never even heard the names of these guys before today.
 
dukem said:
I think this is just confirmation of what I've been thinking quite some time. BioWare ever since they were acquired had a decline in quality.
Being "acquired" usually signals the beginning of a slow death for any games company. I've seen it happen many times. Blizzard's heading down that road right now.
 
sea said:
maximaz said:
Founders of the company. I may be way off here but it almost seems to me like the same caliber of news as Gabe Newell leaving Valve
No way. They were project directors, figureheads, they chose the direction of the company and made the big decisions, but I'm not sure they had the same sort of creative impact someone like Gabe does. And ever since they were bought by EA they've basically lost the control they did have as now they have to answer to people higher up the ladder.

I wasn't aware Gabe had that much creative input.
 
maximaz said:
I wasn't aware Gabe had that much creative input.

The dude owns the company, he can do what he wants, who's going to stop the whale from messing with the games. Considering the nature of game making he probably keeps an eye on everything.
 
.Pixote. said:
maximaz said:
I wasn't aware Gabe had that much creative input.

The dude owns the company, he can do what he wants, who's going to stop the whale from messing with the games. Considering the nature of game making he probably keeps an eye on everything.

Same could be said about these two. Before EA anyway.
 
maximaz said:
rcorporon said:
Aside from the ME games (which I really like) Bioware hasn't done much to really blow me away in quite some time. Long gone are the KOTOR / Baldur's Gate days.

Have you played Dragon's Age?

I did. The first one felt like a very shitty 3d Baldur's Gate and I didn't even play the second after reading what a piece of crap it was.
 
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