Aaryn Flynn

BioWare is a Canadian video game developer based in Edmonton, Alberta. It was founded in 1995 by newly graduated medical doctors Ray Muzyka, Greg Zeschuk and Augustine Yip, alongside Trent Oster, Brent Oster, and Marcel Zeschuk. Since 2007, the company has been owned by American publisher Electronic Arts.

BioWare specializes in role-playing video games, and achieved recognition for developing highly praised and successful licensed franchises: ''Baldur's Gate'', ''Neverwinter Nights'', and '' Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic''. They proceeded to make several other successful games based on original intellectual property: ''Jade Empire'', the ''Mass Effect'' series, and the ''Dragon Age'' series. In 2011, BioWare launched their first massively multiplayer online role-playing game, '' Star Wars: The Old Republic''.

History

Foundation

BioWare was founded by Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk, alongside Trent Oster, his brother Brent, Zeschuk's cousin Marcel, and Augustine Yip. Of the founding team, Muzyka, Zeschuk and Yip had recently graduated from medical school at the University of Alberta, and had a background in programming for use in school. Together with Yip, they had created a medical simulation programme. The three also played video games for recreation, eventually deciding to develop their own. Their success in the medical field provided them with the funding they needed to launch a video game company. To make their first game, they pooled their resources, which resulted in capital of $100,000. The company was incorporated on 1 February 1995, though formally launched on 22 May 1995.

1990s: ''Shattered Steel'' and ''Baldur's Gate''

Their first game, ''Shattered Steel'', began its life as a proof-of-concept demo, similar to the ''MechWarrior'' games. This demo was submitted to ten publishers, seven of whom returned to the company with an offer. A publishing deal for ''Shattered Steel'' was eventually signed with Interplay Entertainment. Brent Oster and Trent Oster left BioWare at that time to form Pyrotek Studios, which continued developing ''Shattered Steel'' but broke up a year later, with Trent returning to BioWare to finish the game. BioWare's first game was released the following year. ''Shattered Steel''s release was described by IGN as a "modest success" with "decent sales". Two noteworthy points were the deformable terrain (player weapon damage caused craters in the environment) and zone damage (well-aimed gunfire could shoot mounted weapons off enemies). A sequel to ''Shattered Steel'' was planned for 1998 but never realized.

BioWare's founders and staff were keenly interested in both computerized and pen-and-paper variants of role-playing games. Their next development project, therefore, was determined to be a role-playing game. When Interplay financed "exploratory development", BioWare presented the publishers with a demo called ''Battleground: Infinity''. Interplay suggested that the demonstrated gameplay engine would be well-suited to the ''Dungeons & Dragons'' licence which it had acquired from Strategic Simulations. Accordingly, ''Infinity'' was reworked in line with the ''Dungeons & Dragons'' ruleset.

The result was ''Baldur's Gate'', with a development cycle of three years. During this time, the three doctors continued to practice medicine. The demands of development later prompted Muzyka and Zeschuck to leave medicine and move into full-time development. Augustine Yip decided to continue with his medical practice. ''Baldur's Gate'' sold more than two million copies after its release, nearly matching the sales of '' Diablo''. Following the success of ''Baldur's Gate'', the Infinity Engine was used for the games '' Planescape: Torment'' and the ''Icewind Dale'' series. The success of ''Baldur's Gate'' was followed by an expansion pack for the game: '' Tales of the Sword Coast''.

2000s: EA acquisition, ''Mass Effect'' and ''Dragon Age''

At this point, BioWare decided to return to the action genre. The company's initial thought was to develop a sequel to ''Shattered Steel'', but eventually a sequel to '' MDK'' from Shiny Entertainment was chosen for development. ''MDK2'' was released on PC, Dreamcast, and eventually PlayStation 2, offering BioWare their first taste of developing games for consoles. ''MDK2'' drew the same level of praise as its predecessor but, despite the success, BioWare returned to the ''Baldur's Gate'' series for their next project.

'' Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn'' was released in 2000, two years after the release of ''Baldur's Gate''. ''Baldur's Gate II'' sold two million copies, matching the sales of the first game in the series. However, the success of both ''Baldur's Gate II'' and ''MDK2'' was not enough to stabilize Interplay financially. Subsequently, BioWare began to work with Infogrames, which was later renamed to Atari. ''Neverwinter Nights'' was originally to be published by Interplay, but the company lost the licence of the game to Atari and part of their ''Dungeons & Dragons'' licence to BioWare. After selling their D&D licence to Atari, BioWare developed '' Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic'' and ''Jade Empire''. It had publishing relationships with Interplay Entertainment, Infogrames, under its new name Atari, LucasArts, and Microsoft.

The next few years saw a number of changes in BioWare's corporate status. In November 2005, it was announced that BioWare and Pandemic Studios (itself founded by former Activision employees) would be joining forces, with private equity fund Elevation Partners investing in the partnership. On 11 October 2007, however, it was announced that this new partnership (organized as VG Holding Corp.) had been bought by Electronic Arts. BioWare therefore became a unit of EA, but retained its own branding.

In 2007, BioWare released the science fiction role-playing game ''Mass Effect''. The following year, BioWare released '' Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood'' on the Nintendo DS, its first title for a handheld game console. Later, EA announced that BioWare would be merged with Mythic Entertainment, another division of EA, so that they could have all of their role-playing game development in one business unit.

The growth of the MMORPG group as part of Electronic Arts in 2008 resulted in three additional studios being added to the BioWare group outside BioWare's original home base in Edmonton. The first, located in Austin, Texas, and headed by industry veterans Gordon Walton and Richard Vogel, was created to work on the ''Star Wars: The Old Republic'' MMORPG project. Both the studio and the project were announced on 13 March 2006. On 2 March 2009, BioWare announced it had opened a new studio in Montreal, Quebec, to assist with existing projects as necessary.

During the mid-2000s, BioWare staff developed a number of video game projects which were ultimately canceled. A handheld spin-off for ''Mass Effect'' franchise titled ''Mass Effect: Corsair'', inspired by the gameplay of '' Star Control'' and played from a first-person perspective, was briefly explored as a potential project for the Nintendo DS in 2008. A sequel to ''Jade Empire'' was under development at one point. The project transitioned into a spiritual successor codenamed ''Revolver'', which was canceled by 2008. Trent Oster led a team which worked on a spy-themed role-playing game codenamed ''Agent'' prior to his second departure from BioWare in 2009. Unused concept art for ''Agent'' and ''Revolver'' are featured in the art book ''BioWare: Stories and Secrets from 25 Years of Game Development'', published in January 2021.

On 24 June 2009, Electronic Arts announced a restructuring of their role-playing and massively multiplayer online games development into a new group that included both Mythic Entertainment and BioWare. Ray Muzyka, co-founder and general manager of BioWare, was appointed the Group general manager of this newly formed "BioWare Group". BioWare's other co-founder, Greg Zeschuk, became the Group Creative Officer for the new MMORPG studio group. BioWare's studios remained unchanged and continued to report to Muzyka. Near the end of 2009, BioWare released the critically acclaimed fantasy role-playing game '' Dragon Age: Origins''.

2010s: Muzyka and Zeschuk's departure, ''Mass Effect'' on hiatus, ''Anthem''

In January 2010, BioWare released the sequel to Mass Effect, ''Mass Effect 2'', which would go on to receive critical acclaim and many awards. The company announced that it would be opening up a new customer service office in Galway, Ireland, in 2011. BioWare completed three major games between 2011 and 2012. The massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) '' Star Wars: The Old Republic'' is based on BioWare's previous contribution to the Star Wars franchise, and was announced on 21 October 2008, although BioWare had first mentioned an unspecified new collaboration with LucasArts in October the previous year. The other games were ''Dragon Age II'', the sequel to ''Dragon Age: Origins'', and ''Mass Effect 3''.

Following the release of ''Mass Effect 3'' in March 2012, numerous players complained about its endings failing to fulfill the developer's earlier promises regarding the conclusion of the trilogy. In response to the controversy surrounding the game's ending sequence, BioWare announced on 5 April that they would reschedule their post-release content production and release an "Extended Cut" DLC that would expand the original endings and address the most common points of critique. The Extended Cut was released as a free download on 26 June 2012. On 18 September 2012, the next day after the official announcement of the third ''Dragon Age'' title, both Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk, two of the remaining co-founders of BioWare, simultaneously announced they would be retiring from the gaming industry. After almost a year without a formal head, EA appointed Matthew Bromberg the group general manager of the BioWare label on 9 September 2013. Former CEO and president of Major League Gaming, Bromberg worked as the general manager of BioWare Austin since 2012; after his promotion, Jeff Hickman took over as the general manager in Austin. Aaryn Flynn remained in charge of BioWare Canada (Edmonton and Montreal) and Jon Van Caneghem

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