BioWare co-founder laments Jade Empire's commercial failure and blames it on 'the worst advice, absolutely moronic advice' from Microsoft
BioWare co-founder Greg Zeschuk left the company with fellow founder Ray Muzyka in 2012, four years after the pair had sold the storied RPG developer to Electronic Arts. It's fair to say that both are probably watching recent events with interest, after the lukewarm commercial reception to Dragon Age: The Veilguard saw the publisher react by slashing jobs at BioWare, leaving a smaller staff focused entirely on the next Mass Effect game.
Zeschuk has just appeared on the My Perfect Console podcast with Simon Parkin, during which he goes over much of Bioware's history (including his pipe dream of taking over EA "from the inside"). During the chat Zeschuk talks about the worst advice he ever received in the industry which, unfortunately, he acted upon: And it's all about Jade Empire.
Jade Empire is not among BioWare's best-known games, but some sickos will tell you its among the very finest the studio ever produced: Loosely based on Chinese mythology, it follows the adventures of the Spirit Monk on the way to becoming a martial arts master, with great melee combat, a sprawling cast and the moral choices the studio was known for. It was also BioWare's first original IP and, as Zeschuk has said previously, the "dream project" for himself and Muzyka.
Anyway, as good as it was, Jade Empire was not a big seller and would never get the sequel it deserved: Something that Zeschuk puts squarely on Microsoft, and specifically the advice it gave BioWare around the game's release. Necessary context: Jade Empire was released on the original Xbox hardware in April 2005 as an exclusive, and it would take two more years to hit PC. Also, the Xbox 360 was released in November 2005.
"Microsoft was like 'no no, you should release it now, right at the end of the [console] cycle, because it's a great time'," Zeschuk says. "It was the worst advice, absolutely moronic advice from them, the stupidest thing ever."
With the benefit of hindsight, Zeschuk thinks the best thing for the game would have been to delay it, and work on releasing it as an Xbox 360 title early in that console's life. "We could have rezzed [Jade Empire] up, we could have amped it up," says Zeschuk. "We could have said no."
Zeschuk reckons that doing this would have given BioWare "another franchise" to sit alongside Dragon Age and Mass Effect. "I just think it would have been a way more successful product at the beginning of a cycle than the end."
Generally speaking, Zeschuk seems to straddle a line between being a hugely successful businessman, and having a healthy dislike of big companies. One wonders if he would still sell to EA, if he had his time again. "Big companies exist to exploit properties," says Zeschuk at another point. "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."
These days Zeschuk can be found focusing on his craft beer business. Talk about life goals. Jade Empire remains available on Steam, though sadly we'll never see the sequel, and Zeschuk's full interview can be found at My Perfect Console.