BioWare co-founder Greg Zeschuk considered taking over EA 'from the inside', but he was thwarted by an MMO
There's a parallel universe where BioWare's co-founders staged a coup on the back of a Star Wars MMO launch and took over EA, changing it from the inside. At least, that was a dream harboured by Greg Zeschuk, before he left the company with fellow founder Ray Muzyka in 2012.
Chatting with Simon Parkin on his My Perfect Console podcast (cheers, Time Extension), Zeschuk discussed his final days at the company he founded, which had been acquired by EA four years prior. The last game to be released under Zeschuk and Muzyka's reign was Star Wars: The Old Republic—and Zeschuk had high hopes for it.
"I lived in Austin for two-and-a-half years making Star Wars the Old Republic [and] I knew that was kind of a one-way trip," he said. "If it was super successful, super duper successful, Ray and I would have probably launched a bid to try and take over EA from the inside, being the corporate pirates that we are. But it needed to be like $2 billion a year successful. But it didn’t work out so I was like, 'Ah, I'm fine.'"
The Old Republic was a huge endeavour: a massive MMO, with completely distinct stories for every class, full voice acting, and dialogue featuring BioWare-style ethical dilemmas. It was also one of the most expensive videogames ever developed. The Old Republic was far from a dud, and perseveres today, though it's now developed by Broadsword, not BioWare Austin. But this was the era of the prospective WoW-killer, and SWTOR was no WoW-killer—just like every other contender.
So there was no BioWare coup. Not that the success of one MMO would have handed them the company by itself, but it would've been valuable leverage. Honestly, changing things from the inside sounds like a quick route to the Dark Side. Maybe it's better that they got out.
Zeschuck isn't a fan of big companies, he said, so I suspect he would have had a bad time running one. "Big companies exist to exploit properties. They exist to exploit games. Most of the big North American guys, they’re just good at ‘Hey, let’s just squeeze the most money out of this franchise.’ They don’t kind of create a lot of them, and I kind of realised early on that I like making games. I don’t like just operating."
EA has long been held up as the reason the BioWare of today isn't what it once was, emphasised by the stories of mismanagement, interference and the publisher's obsession with live-service cash cows. But, as Zeschuk notes, plenty of great things have come out of the studio since the acquisition—including most of the Mass Effect and Dragon Age games. "It was actually a pretty successful run." This run, though, seems to be well and truly over.
Zeschuk's episode of My Perfect Console is available for Patreon subscribers now, and will be out for everyone else later this week.