Company News How BioWare was born: The Ray Muzyka story

[DarkUnderlord]

Tags: BioWare

<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/may/01/games.interviews">The Guardian have an interview with BioWare founder Ray Muzyka</a>. Here's the intro:
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<blockquote>It is not what you'd call an obvious career progression. In 1992, Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk were practising medicine in Edmonton, Canada. Greg was a GP and Ray was an emergency room physician – and they were both keen gamers.
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Three years later, they decided to set up their own development studio. "One day we were having lunch and I just said, 'hey wouldn't it be fun to make a game?' and Greg says, 'yeah, I know some guys who are good programmers, let's hire them'.</blockquote>
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Sadly, BioWare never did get around to hiring those good programmers. HOHOHO. <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/may/01/games.interviews">Read the rest here</a>, including how their medical experience helped them make Mass Effect and what the "Bio-RPG" tool does (Hint: It has little to do with any actual RP'ing, unless you consider pulling faces the height of RPG development).
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Spotted @ <a href="http://sorcerers.net">Sorcerers.net</a>

 

[Jaime Lannister]

"Although many times more ambitious in scope than previous Bioware titles such as Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights"

I wouldn't say so, even though I haven't played Mass Effect. Baldur's Gate had a huge world with the amount of side quests dwarfing the main quest and Neverwinter Nights had an amazing, easy-to-use editor. What does Mass Effect have?

 

[MetalCraze]

Commander Shepard




and hawt alien lesbian acshun

 

[Gnidrologist]

RPG is just a simulacrum. We all should accept that.

 

[thesheeep]

Ah.... I always wondered where the name BioWare came from....

 

[Chefe]

That had me laughing out loud. Mass Effect was almost as boring as the other BorePG on the 360 - Lost Odyssey.

Last year, the team released Mass Effect on Xbox 360, an epic space RPG considered - alongside the likes of Bioshock and Super Mario Galaxy - as one of the games of 2007.

Apparently, there's now a distinction for being released at all.

When you're an emergency doctor you see a lot of stuff that's pretty hard; you have to learn how to deal with that.

I see Bethesdamalaria is catching on.

Because you know, when you see someone die in front of you as a doctor, there's no solution to that.

Cannibalism?

I mean in real life, you know right away if someone's credible or not.

Yes, that's why there is no such things as scams.

A Fox News report on Mass Effects's brief, rather prim love scenes (accessible only after developing relationships with key characters), accused the game of providing full-frontal nudity and interactive sex - neither of which are actually possible.

I would have played longer if it did.

The most important thing for our studio is our vision of emotion.

Specifically, keeling over and vomiting. That emotion.

 

[Lumpy]

I mean in real life, you know right away if someone's credible or not.

Yes, that's why there is no such things as scams.

I don't think that's what he meant.

"I think you're right. We try to approach things in a thoughtful way. Characters have to be realistic and credible, with their own personalities and psychology. I mean in real life, you know right away if someone's credible or not. If you make a credible character in a game then they'll stay out of that Uncanny Valley. And that's somewhere we're innovating. With our use of digital actors - we want to create characters that you want to spend time with."

But I'm not quite sure what he does mean. Apparently, he means they have to be realistic and believable - so how can someone not be realistic in real life? Then the uncanny valley - what does that have to do with anything? Then innovashun, digital actors - wut?

 

[OccupatedVoid]

The Death of Bioware: The EA Edmonton story.

 

[thesheeep]

The Death of Bioware: The EA Edmonton story.

 

[Chefe]

I mean in real life, you know right away if someone's credible or not.

Yes, that's why there is no such things as scams.

I don't think that's what he meant.

"I think you're right. We try to approach things in a thoughtful way. Characters have to be realistic and credible, with their own personalities and psychology. I mean in real life, you know right away if someone's credible or not. If you make a credible character in a game then they'll stay out of that Uncanny Valley. And that's somewhere we're innovating. With our use of digital actors - we want to create characters that you want to spend time with."

But I'm not quite sure what he does mean. Apparently, he means they have to be realistic and believable - so how can someone not be realistic in real life? Then the uncanny valley - what does that have to do with anything? Then innovashun, digital actors - wut?

That's true. Take today, for example. I was at the mall in a clothing store and there was this lady standing around in her underwear! She even had the audacity to stand on a pedestal. I went up to inform her of the error of her ways, and that's when I realized she wasn't very realistic. As it turns out, she was a mannequin. Go figure.

Ray Muzyka is a genius.

 

[cutterjohn]

Actually I know that in Ontario, physicians are limited in how much money that they can make in a year. Once they hit that limit they are no longer paid for services rendered, but if they remain in the area that they "service" they are still required to practice. So, many of them once they hit the limit go on "vacation" or otherwise leave the area and many of them start secondary businesses, e.g. one that I know of has some horse farms, while another raises mushrooms(?!) (both are fairly large scale operations BTW), amongst other endeavors.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if the same sort of thing applies in Alberta, not to mention that running a software company once it's fairly successful has to be much less stressful than being an emergency room physician in a fairly populous urban area.

 

[Warden]

HOHOHO..
They're so great. Let's all go work at bioware - they have icecream machines!
I wonder how many times he repeated that they have sooo many talented people working for them.
Was it something like this; we are blessed to work with so many talented people. So many talented people are working on our STORYY-DRRRIVEN games. We have the most talented people in the world working on the best STORRYY-DDRIVEN games in the world.

Oh, yeaah. Talented for eating and getting fat and arrogant.

 

[Keender_surprise]

We have a 'Ray Muzyka' ourselves, right on this very board. The soon-to-be ex-president of sales and marketing (assuming a certain indie title hits and hits big). Eh? :wink: