What a pleasure it was seeing some words from BioWare co-founder Greg Zeschuk, especially after he and co-founder Ray Muzyka departed the company last year to pursue the next chapter in their respective careers.
Now he’s in the news again, talking about the studio’s relationship with EA and its development under the publisher’s close watch, since acquisition.
For those who don’t know, BioWare was acquired by Electronic Arts in 2007 along with Mercenaries developer Pandemic in a deal worth up to $860 million. The developer has since gone on to become a key player for the publisher, developing the second and third Mass Effect games, huge titles for EA in recent years, as well as the Dragon Age series, which arrived in a time when the world was starved for good RPG titles, and the now free-to-play MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic. A division of BioWare is also developing Command & Conquer: Generals 2, which releases in a few months.
But according to Zeschuk the past five years were not what you’d call plain sailing for the developer.
“I think one of the reasons that we survived and succeeded within EA was that our company was mature enough and there was enough good people throughout to handle the EA bear hug – something that is well meaning but vigorous,” Zeschuk explained, in an interview. “We needed to be strong to survive that and I think we did and you evolve from that as well.”
Of course, one studio that did not survive the so-called EA bear hug was Pandemic, which was closed down in late 2009 after the Mercenaries sequel bombed hard. No pun intended. I’ve made no secret of my opinion that it was pressure from EA which forced the early departures of the beloved co-founders, who poured so much of themselves into their games. Time may yet tell, but at least we know one thing: Overly attached EA is overly attached.
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