IG: You know what amazes me from the BioWare strategy is how you guys managed to pump out two triple-A games within a span of just a few months – Dragon Age and then just a few months later Mass Effect 2 comes out...
Greg Zeschuk: It amazes us as well.
Ray Muzyka: We had great teams working on them…
IG: …and they’re both really well received, and I’m like, “How, as a company, do you even manage that?” I don’t think I’ve ever seen that happen from a developer before.
Ray Muzyka: It’s very hard.
Greg Zeschuk: It’s like delivering twins. It’s very painful.
Ray Muzyka: It was very hard. We had two great teams that are equally passionate and really into it, and a lot of great central groups within our group that help us do it – a great sales and marketing organization as part of EA now. You know, we feel very supported in our efforts, so the people are really eager to deliver quality. Our teams are friendly competitors with each other. They’re always trying to outdo one another…
Greg Zeschuk: There’s a lot of cross sharing.
Ray Muzyka: …Yeah, they play each other’s games; give each other feedback, so that’s the friendly part of it. They’re trying to make each game better than the last.
IG: EA's been talking about how the BioWare Star Wars MMO is literally going to be the largest EA game ever made, I guess in terms of scope and maybe the money being pumped into it too.
Greg Zeschuk: That’s not very daunting, is it?
IG: (laughter) I was going to ask you, how does that make you guys feel in terms of the pressures?
Ray Muzyka: It’s good to have good challenges, because we enjoy those. We’re proud to be part of EA, and proud to try and deliver something that’s going to live up to the challenge. It’s also daunting because there’s a big challenge there. I can say I’ve played a lot of Star Wars: The Old Republic, and I go there every month. I’m going there right after this, as is Greg. We’re spending all week in Austin with our great team there. I think they’re up to the challenge. We like big challenges, ambitious goals. It’s cool to be doing something that’s important for the company, for the group, and for the industry.
Greg Zeschuk: I would say too that it doesn’t weigh on us in any way. We don’t sit there and think, “Oh my goodness, what are we doing?” I think we have a good, quiet, consistent confidence that, “We’ve done it before, we’ve delivered great games before. We know how to do that.”
Ray Muzyka: You break it down into the problems and the risks you need to solve and you mitigate them one by one, and you solve them one by one, and you iterate until you get it fun. You know what’s fun yourself. It’s not perfect; no game ever is, but you try to solve everything you’re aware of, in the best way you can with the team that you have. Then, you launch it and, hopefully, it’s good. It’s successful.
Greg Zeschuk: It’s something we know how to do, and I think the other thing, the interesting positive about it being a “big play” for EA, is we get tons of support; we get a lot of priority support, a lot of help from the overall [organization]…
Ray Muzyka: …And from our partners, LucasArts, as well.
Greg Zeschuk: Yeah. Absolutely.
Ray Muzyka: They’re very supportive and a great partner to have; they know the Star Wars canon, they’re publishing the game in North America, and you know, [they’re] a great partner to have on board.
IG: You’re pretty much laser-focused on that project now. Do you have any more projects going on that I’m not aware of? (laughter)
Greg Zeschuk: Well...
Ray Muzyka: We’ve got lots of projects going on. (laughter)
Greg Zeschuk: Yeah, and I think one of our lasers is on that one all the time, and this other roving laser hits on all the other stuff…
IG: I know you’ve got this DLC stuff continuing…
Greg Zeschuk: Mass Effect and Dragon Age, yeah…
Ray Muzyka: There’s people focused on… we have like, I don’t know, 800 people in our group, now, or something like that. Four locations: BioWare Edmonton; BioWare Austin; BioWare Montreal; BioWare Mythic, and they’re all doing different kinds of games. [They’re all] really high quality, different expressions of our group vision of delivering the most emotionally engaging gaming experiences in the world. They’re all doing different flavors of that. It’s cool; it’s good. We have [general managers] at every location that are managing the operations and running the show. We have [a] group marketing officer, [a] group creative officer, Greg, and group operations officer, Rob Denton, and some great people on the team that are really, really passionate about delivering quality. The [executive producers], guys like Casey Hudson and Mark Darrah in Edmonton, the EP for Mass Effect, and Dragon Age, respectively; Jeff Hickman at Mythic, and Gordon Rich in Austin, James in Austin… these are people that are really, really passionate about delivering high quality and I’m proud to work with all of them.
IG: Looking at the two motion systems that are both launching later this year, are you actively interested in incorporating that into your future games? How could that enhance the RPG genre in your view?
Greg Zeschuk: How fun. We think about it, we look at it, we evaluate it, we’ve seen all the stuff, many of the demos beforehand. I think for us, it has to come down to the gameplay experience. I think trying to figure out the meaningful motion... motions that are best to actually enhance RPGs are interesting. One way to think about it is from a very specific sense, if there’s a way that it can actually enhance your feeling that you’re actually acting in the game. One interesting thing is to imagine Mass Effect with being able to kind of like use certain gestures (that) could change the conversation or stop it, and you could actually pull your finger and pretend you’re shooting the guy for the renegade action. All of these things are all possibilities; the challenge is how it all fits together. I think there’s possibilities… I personally want to see it evolve beyond the party game, but I can never help [but] see the party sport, or bowling; all these things that are so natural in those venues… it’s going to be a challenge for us to get over them. I actually think it’s exciting, but I think that’s the interesting thing that’s going to start out in familiar territory, very much probably like the Wii did. You look at the Wii, and no one’s ever gotten past that, that initial stage. At least, that’s my opinion.
IG: Right, right. Ray, anything to add?
Ray Muzyka: Anytime you can remove the barriers to entry from an accessibility or interface perspective, you can engage players on a more deep, emotional level. The challenge is finding ways to remove those barriers that doesn’t create new barriers like having your arms get tired from waving the controller around, things like that. If you can do that, I think there’s a real opportunity. I’d look to see the content that’s developed on those platforms to see if we can get ideas and work on some things that are cool in our group. It’s an interesting challenge.
IG: I mentioned your contemporaries earlier, like Peter Molyneux, and he’s very much focused on Natal of course, as part of Microsoft. They have that Project Milo thing…
Ray Muzyka: I’m sure that’s completely unrelated.
(laughter)
Greg Zeschuk: That’s his job too, isn’t it? Therefore, I’m sure he’s very excited about it.
Ray Muzyka: No, it can’t be related…
Greg Zeschuk: What?! (laughter)
IG: In terms of how you guys are great at making characters and interacting with those characters, here’s this thing he created to interact with this little boy on screen… I can see how a BioWare RPG could almost leverage something like that.
Greg Zeschuk: Well, that’s where some of our thinking is. It’s just that I think we almost want to see it a little bit first. We’ll play around with it too though.
IG: Thanks as always guys.
