By Jim Rossignol on June 24th, 2009 at 5:42 pm.
Big business announcement day, then. EA will merge Mythic and Bioware to create a new MMO and RPG division. The new division will apparently be headed by BioWare boss Ray Muzyka, while BioWare’s other co-founder, Greg Zeschuk, will become Group Creative Officer. Mark Jacobs, the outspoken boss at Mythic, will apparently be leaving the company, and has made no announcement about future plans.
This internal rejiggery will not affect any of the Bioware games currently in development (Dragon Age, The Old Republic, Mass Effect 2), but it clearly has some broader implications for the future. Not least of which is that someone is getting quite serious about taking on Blizzard in that millions of dollars of MMO subscriptions business. Hmm.
24/06/2009 at 17:45 Larington says:
No telling what the long term consequences of this will be, do find myself wondering if this is really necessary.
24/06/2009 at 17:47 Bhazor says:
Oh, good. So whats left of Bioware’s “A Team” will be even more dispersed than they already are.
24/06/2009 at 17:50 goodgimp says:
And EA assimilates another one… sigh.
I still pine for Bullfrog to this day.
24/06/2009 at 17:50 Dante says:
That’s… odd.
I suppose it gets Bioware some experienced heads for MMOTOR, but it makes me extremely worried for the future of their single player games if that’ll be their focus.
Any idea on what they’ll be called? Myoware? Bithic?
24/06/2009 at 17:54 goodgimp says:
Probably something overly creative like “EA “
24/06/2009 at 17:54 Drakkheim says:
I can’t really see any upside to the consumer in this. Isn’t this close to how EA destroyed Origin and Westwood? Fold em in with existing business units and force new management down their throats and pump out shovelware sequels til all the talent leaves.
24/06/2009 at 17:57 invisiblejesus says:
Given Mythic’s crap performance lately it’s hard to see a serious downside to this. If Mythic’s management had been placed in charge of Bioware, I might feel differently.
24/06/2009 at 17:59 Magnus says:
Ahh yes, just what we need, more emphasis on MMOs.
Are my beloved traditional RPGs going to go the way of the dinosaur? I had hoped with the likes of Dragon Age, that things were beginning to look up, but I guess I’ll be left pining for the fjords.. I mean the late 90s when all was right with the world (if you have nice rose-tinted specs anyways).
24/06/2009 at 17:59 Pani says:
I didn’t see this one coming.. Wow, speechless.
I don’t think you made the announcement big enough, I had to read it 3 times over before the words sunk in.
Maybe this is another ploy at making a MMO bigger than WoW. Man I hope they don’t try (and probably fail) again.
24/06/2009 at 18:03 James G says:
Bah. Probably not a good sign, although I suppose it might benefit the technical side of the TOR. However its a bit discouraging to those who prefer the single player RPG to MMOs.
24/06/2009 at 18:10 Heliocentric says:
Whoops! They said they weren’t doing this anymore and i believed them. Well, mass effect 2 will be good, after that its a crapshoot. I don’t trust ea enough to not see oncoming doom here.
24/06/2009 at 18:21 NoRCoN says:
What is with the takeovers/buyouts/mergers today? First id, now this.
Next up: “Blizzard and Valve Unite!”
24/06/2009 at 18:24 Low Quality Beard says:
I wonder if I should cancel my WAR subscription.
24/06/2009 at 18:25 BigJ says:
World of Team Fortress?
Oh wait, that’s already what’s happening.
24/06/2009 at 18:26 Tei says:
It seems the lack of a 3th faction in WAR has been the snow sliding down the mountain….
Since withouth the 3th faction (or other solution), all WAR servers become insta-imbalaced.
EA has been fueling TOR for very long. It seems EA really thinks TOR will be “BIG”. But I don’t see how.. Bioware is a console game studio… that seems to make console games that double as good RPG games. But the MMORPG market is a PC market. I don’t see how Bioware will be able to deliver a MMORPG with enough deep and persistence. But he!.. I hope soo.
I see this as EA canivalizing a car to add 2 extra tires to his favorite one.
EA could be evil, but have my sympathy, since I like evil stuff that deliver something that work. My problem is games like Battleforge …. gimped by some bad decissions by EA (or thats is me? I don’t know, I am just a simple gamer).
24/06/2009 at 18:27 cyrenic says:
Should they just call it the MMO division? :P
24/06/2009 at 18:30 Markoff Chaney says:
Hrmmm. Not sure if Buh? or Hunh? covers it better. What an odd 1-2 shot of mergerness going on today.
I guess I can probably count out BioWare from the SPCWRPG experience going forward? TOR already had me scared, but this just cements it, in my future viewing opinion head. Keep up the good fight CD Projekt and Bethesda!?
Maybe, if we are lucky, we can get a Dragon Age MMO. It would explain some of those animations a little better. I’m sticking with Buh?
24/06/2009 at 18:36 Azhrarn says:
ok, so the best RPG developer of the current age is merged with the worst MMO bunch of idiots EA had the stupidity to buy…. This is going to be messy.
24/06/2009 at 18:38 SteveHatesYou says:
Sounds like Mythic has become Bioware Fairfax. I guess EA is really pushing Bioware as their brand name for RPGs. Must be frustrating for the Mythic founders.
EA made a lot of noise about adopting a “city-state model” when Riccotello took over (i.e. they’ll allow studios to keep their own identity and processes, rather than forcing them into the EA way and destroying them, like they did with Bullfrog and Origin). Technically, this doesn’t go against that statement, but I wonder if it’s a sign that they’re going to lapse back into their old ways?
24/06/2009 at 18:44 Stupoider says:
Aww, SteveHatesYou. I miss Bullfrog. So much. :(
24/06/2009 at 18:49 Nick says:
Well, that almost guarentees the KOTOR MMO will be badly coded.
24/06/2009 at 18:51 Nick says:
In fact, I don’t hold much hope for any future RPGs from EA. Oh well.
24/06/2009 at 19:01 Joshua says:
This is as simple as Mark Jacobs getting fired because Warhammer turned out to be a dud.
By his own pre-release statements, if they were merging/closing servers or had less then half a million subs the game wasn’t doing well. Well both happened, and quickly.
Must be frustrating for the Mythic founders.
Mark Jacobs WAS one of the Mythic founders. This was a simple case of getting punished for screwing up. The implicit assumption of a “city state” model is that you gotta take a bite out of any shit sandwiches you make.
24/06/2009 at 19:01 Zaphid says:
I have no idea if Mythic has another MMO in the works, but it has apparently lost the trust of EA because Warhammer didn’t make enough splash
24/06/2009 at 19:04 Legionary says:
Did you hear that noise? It was as though a million gamers cried out in terror, then were suddenly silenced…
24/06/2009 at 19:04 Serondal says:
If EA wants to buy up companies and destroy them that is their business. Maybe all this poor business they’ve been doing has been one of the reasons for the rise of the Indie game market which has been a huge increase as of late. That wouldn’t be a bad thing.
24/06/2009 at 19:08 Blast Hardcheese says:
@Norcon
Blizzard is owned by Vivendi, the same company that Valve moved to physical publishing with EA because Vivendi was worse for them.
How bad do you gotta be to have EA be a better choice? Here’s a hint: Fight your developers for ownership of a game you only publish and have no rights to, over something as ridiculous as Cyber Cafe distribution.
Vivendi also owns BMG at this point in time. They are most certainly worse than EA now.
24/06/2009 at 19:17 Vinraith says:
This may not be a bad thing. The Old Republic, like any MMO, is going to require a substantial support and continued development staff. Before I’d been concerned that Bioware would be unable to continue producing quality SP games while maintaining a major MMO. With the addition of the Mythis crew, though, a sensible division of labor may be possible.
Not that that’s what they WILL do, but it’s probably what they SHOULD do.
24/06/2009 at 19:19 heartless_ says:
The writing is on the wall IMHO.
Dragon Age’s odd trailers and suspect gameplay trailers.
Now this.
Give Bioware two years and EA should be able to find a hole to dump them in as well.
24/06/2009 at 19:27 _o/ says:
http://www.warhammeralliance.com/forums/showpost.php?p=4226831&postcount=53
“For clarity:
Mythic is not “merging” with Bioware.
Mythic and Bioware remain independent EA studios within a larger MMO/RPG group.
Thanks!”
24/06/2009 at 19:28 Carra says:
I see everyone complaining how bad WAR is. It had some nice review scores, what’s wrong with the game? Sure it didn’t get the half a million subscribers it wanted but so does pretty much every mmorpg that goes up against WoW.
It seems like EA admits that WAR failed and now they’re fuelling TOR. I just hope that game will live up to its created expectations.
And it’s not like they stop making single player games. They’ve still got Mass Effect 2 & Dragon Age to come. With all these games coming up I’m sure they can use some expetienced developers. Even though that last “violence” trailer made my respect for Bioware go down a bit…
24/06/2009 at 19:32 Eli Just says:
@Vinraith If that’s the case that would be awesome, leave Bioware to do their thing and have Mythic with the help of some key TOR guys support TOR.
24/06/2009 at 19:34 SteveHatesYou says:
@Joshua:
Yes, but Jacobs wasn’t the only founder. But I suppose the other ones might not even be at the company anymore. Either way, they put a lot of hard work into building a studio identity, and now that’s being taken away.
I don’t buy that this is deserved punishment though. I know fans like to heap all responsibility (good and bad) onto the developer, but that’s just not how games are made. The people who own the money are the ones who ultimately make the calls, especially when you’re talking about a project the size of an MMO (which doubtlessly made use of a lot of EA’s resources outside of Mythic).
We really have no idea what went on during Warhammer Online’s development, so it’s pretty useless to try and assign blame for its underperformance.
24/06/2009 at 19:36 MrBejeebus says:
hopefully bioware will keep the same team for mass effect 3 and the rest of their rpgs, dont want any mmo shinnanigans in there, no sir!
I can see TOR attracting a different market than the fantasy mmoers and some people that are tired of WoW, didnt see this coming anyway, I dont care about Mythic all that much, but Bioware are in my top 5 developers, and if this harms their games, I will go to EA myself and slap them and call them fools
24/06/2009 at 19:37 Guhndahb says:
This is utterly disheartening. I don’t consider Bioware the paragon of RPG development, but they are important to it. Now they’ll certainly be focusing on MMOs which hold no interest for me.
I don’t have anything against Mythic, they’ve done some good things with MMOs over the years. But this just tells me that EA doesn’t understand that RPG and MMO development are practically unrelated. Or, worse, that they just don’t care that they are different because all they want to do is MMOs.
24/06/2009 at 19:39 armlesscorps says:
The MMO subs market is more like a billion dollar industry, if you look at just wow subscriptions alone you have got 10 million people spending close to 100 pounds a year on subs, they had a total revenue of over a billion a couple of years back. Thats just one game.
24/06/2009 at 19:52 Wooly says:
Oh dear god. I bloody hate EA. Will Bioware as we know it cease to exist, and become EA Canada: lets fail at trying to be better than WoW!
What does this mean for the Single-player CRPG genre? Bethesda doesn’t count. They make good sandbox games, but AWFUL RPG’s.
24/06/2009 at 19:54 Joshua says:
We really have no idea what went on during Warhammer Online’s development, so it’s pretty useless to try and assign blame for its underperformance.
EA sunk a lot of money into the game, and even delayed it a couple times to give Mythic more time to get it right. They didn’t.
That said, Jacobs ran Mythic and was lead designer of the game. I doubt he was the only reason the game failed, but it does not sound unreasonable to get rid of the guy that not just ran the studio that made your underwhelming game, but designed that same underwhelming game.
24/06/2009 at 19:54 Lobotomist says:
RIP Bioware , Mythic
24/06/2009 at 20:02 Sunjammer says:
MMOs are bullshit. This is terrible. Worst thing ever.
24/06/2009 at 20:13 Hoernchen says:
Sounds a bit like “EA killed Bioware” – maybe even “EA killed RPG single player games”…..
24/06/2009 at 20:15 Alex says:
I was worried when Bioware announced their weird partnership/co-purchase with Pandemic to those private equity guys, but I guess this is where is actually starts.
At least Pandemic seems to be unscathed at this point.
24/06/2009 at 20:18 Bob says:
Wonder who will be next to merge? Valve and Google? Cyndi Lauper and Charles Bronson? Who knows anymore!!!
24/06/2009 at 20:20 Jonas says:
I do not approve.
That is all.
24/06/2009 at 20:27 Wooly says:
MMOs are bullshit. This is terrible. Worst thing ever.
Amen to that!
24/06/2009 at 20:31 Grumble says:
Please! SOMEBODY IT STOP!
24/06/2009 at 20:34 Eric says:
Is Warhammer really doing that poorly? 100K or even 50K subscriptions is not a poor number. I know it’s not WoW numbers, but then who is doing WoW numbers but Blizzard these days?
24/06/2009 at 20:37 Borat says:
i approve of ea getting rid of online activation for the sims 3. (in fact it doesn’t even have a securom disc check. just a “regular” disc check) a good move in the right direction.
ea should buy even more studios/developers. there are too many wild oats out there contaminating the pc gaming landscape and poisoning the well.
24/06/2009 at 20:41 Stupoider says:
I really hope you’re trolling, Borat. :<
24/06/2009 at 20:50 jackflash says:
If Bioware were a retail store it would be Walmart.
24/06/2009 at 20:51 Jockie says:
@ Sunjammer – Agreed to a degree, but the potential for something great is lurking there. As long as the industry doesn’t content itself with copying WoW over and over I think we’ll see MMO’s evolve into something pretty darn special eventually. Wouldn’t bet against these guys being the ones to take them to the next level at least.
24/06/2009 at 21:15 Azhrarn says:
“Eric says:
Is Warhammer really doing that poorly? 100K or even 50K subscriptions is not a poor number. I know it’s not WoW numbers, but then who is doing WoW numbers but Blizzard these days?”
Unless WAR was a record breaker, EA was always going to see it as a failure. They don’t want a slice of the MMO pie, they want the pie, preferably while putting everyone else out of business or buying them.
WAR was doomed to fail because of that. Yes it is easily sustainable at the 200k subs it has now, but to EAs shareholders less than several million subs = failure because WoW could do it.
24/06/2009 at 21:41 Kadayi says:
The only game that is going to top WoW is WoW2 when its announced in a few years period. The present player base is so heavily invested in the product as a social participatory experience (its AIM with multiplayer co-op) that they simply aren’t going to give it up, esp after the amount of time they’ve sunk into the product already. Sure whenever a new game comes out there’s a bit of an exodus by people eager to check it out, but check it out for a month or 2 is all they do before heading back to their level 80s. People who give up WoW permanently are generally people just giving up MMOs (because they’ve realised MMOs are complete time vampires), not because they are going to another one. Sooner publishers and their boards realise this, the better and the less developers will get roped into wasting years making games whose development cycles will last longer than their products shelf life…
24/06/2009 at 21:44 Kirrus says:
Bad. Very, very bad. I remember what happened to Westwood, and the quality of the C&C games when EA took them over.
Don’t get me wrong RA1′s madcap storyline was.. well, mad, but they put it together with such flair, and the acting was actually half decent. The same cannot be said for RA2.
It’s not like EA is a good company to work for either – they are really, really aggressive, and push their staff to the absolute limit. (Heard stories from a friend of a guy who used to work as a manager in one of their teams)
24/06/2009 at 21:45 Nick says:
The problem with Warhammer is the awful, awful netcode/servers/engine and their apparent cluelessness to balance. They are doing things wrong they did right in DAOC and there is no excuse for that. Hell its built around large scale PVP but the awful netcode/engine/servers cause lrge scale PVP to be all but unplayable. Its a shame.
24/06/2009 at 21:52 Alex says:
It’s not just grumbling from friends of friends, EA had to pay out when they lost that class action suit over unpaid overtime.
24/06/2009 at 23:01 SteveHatesYou says:
@Kirrus:
“It’s not like EA is a good company to work for either – they are really, really aggressive, and push their staff to the absolute limit. (Heard stories from a friend of a guy who used to work as a manager in one of their teams)”
This is partially true. Some EA studios have horrible histories (I’ve heard a lot of bad things about Tiburon and EA LA – which is actually where that class action suit originated), but it really depends on the studio and the managers. I used to work for one, and it wasn’t a bad experience – I was never really forced to work overtime.
EA takes a lot of flak because of the EA Spouse ordeal (and deservedly so), but it’s given people the impression that it’s true for the entire organization, and that they’re the worst offender. Believe me, there are game companies that treat their employees far worse, who never get taken to task for it.
24/06/2009 at 23:48 FunkyLlama says:
*sigh* EA continues to leave a trail of destruction wherever it goes.
25/06/2009 at 00:12 h4plo says:
@Nick:
I couldn’t agree more. The damn game not functioning properly is the biggest hindrance that it has – because when it does work well, it’s awesome. My biggest rustration was getting stuck randomly on game objects attached to the ground – it seemed like there was a per cent chance everytime I crossed a tile that I’d get stuck for ten seconds. Real gamekiller as melee.
On a decently powerful system with the effects kitted out, WAR was also a beautiful game. In a very chaotic sort of way – giant purple explosions and angry sun imagery flaring up all around, it made for a neat experience.
also: is Marc Jacobs that guy that was super energized in the class description videos? I must have watched those things like twice in prolonged anticipation for WAR. He was irritating, but if it is that guy, then too bad – sad to see someone with so much zeal for his product fail so miserably.
25/06/2009 at 00:13 Lafinass says:
I’m not sure I’d particularly call Warhammer a failure. It did a lot of things right, some of which have been borrowed by Blizzard in patches lately, and is a great deal of fun for the first 60% of the game. And while they might be taking their sweet time fixing the issues much of the community has with that other 40%, I’d rank it a better game than some of the challengers to WoW’s throne.
Though I agree with a lot of the posters here, this does not bode well for the RPG future of BioWare.
25/06/2009 at 00:19 Serondal says:
I’m interested, how would you guys rate Lord of the Rings Online versus WoW and Warhammer ? I know they’re not related to what is going on here, but what do you consider to be the top contender to WoW. After all if the mmorpg is going to be a hit it at least has to beat out the second place mmorpg behind WoW
25/06/2009 at 00:56 cjlr says:
I don’t know if I can even find it in my black and cynical heart to be disappointed. Once EA bought Bioware and Mythic, the writing was on the wall… I mean, I still remember what happened to Maxis and Westwood.
But, really, at this point nobody’s going to ‘beat’ WoW. Snowball effect, anyone? It’s damn hard to break into that much of a lead in the market. Especially when all the competitors are trying to duplicate instead of innovate – sound like any companies you know? Damned EA. It’s people like them who gave us Meet the Spartans, and if the mere thought of what that probably fortells for our precious gaming industry doesn’t send you crying for a bottle of your strongest booze, you’ve no heart.
Y’know, off the top of my head the most prominent non-WoW MMOs are Eve and LotrO, both of which are at least different enough to attract a slightly different audience. Plus, LotRO has a built-in draw for pre-existing LotR fans, which I assume accounts for a fair bit of the playerbase. Galaxies used to be the same for Star Wars fans, before SOE killed that one; maybe TOR will catch that wind. Obviously EA hopes it will.
25/06/2009 at 01:35 Andrew says:
@ cjlr Too right. My stupid thoughs on the MMO market. Analogy time: WoW is like massive huge succesful supermarket. Like it or not it sells pretty much everything you want at a great price. Now every publisher on the planet wants a piece of Wows pie. So they set up smaller shops down the street selling pretty much the same things but not quite as good. And theres dozens of these smaller shops who all think they are gonna make tonnes of money and be as successful as WoW. It’s NOT going to happen any time soon. People think because of the number of WoW subscribers that theres a huge MMO market ripe for the plucking. There NOT sadly. Sure the better ones will draw plenty of people that are interested. But nothing can touch WoW. MMO’s are just another bandwagon for publishers to jump on. They all have to have one. Kinda like motion sensors for the consoles at this years E3. But yeah ranting sorry. Bioware, my favourite SINGLE PLAYER rpg developer….i hope this doesnt affect them too much. It would be a terrible loss to the gaming world to see them become “EA MMO or EA Canada” and become uninspired franchise milkers
25/06/2009 at 02:05 EA says:
I don’t see what everyone’s complaining about. This sounds like good news to me!
25/06/2009 at 04:45 ids says:
Pretty much these means the end of Dark Age of Camelot. Because the game doesn’t break over 5,000 or if it does it a rareity. For War Hammer online it means that bio can or not do writing for the game give permission by games workshop. But also means that if you do a bad job you will get fired or laid off. Over only time will tell.
25/06/2009 at 07:21 M.P. says:
We are Minsc of Borg. Resistance is futile. Your eyeballs will be assimilated.
Doesn’t quite have the same ring to it… :(
25/06/2009 at 11:04 Lobotomist says:
Just answering Serondal’s question:
LOTRO is probably the only serious contender to WOW so far.
I would say that Turbine is for MMO , what Bioware are for singleplayer RPG. And i am talking about PVE (quest oriented MMO , and not player versus player ones)
Mythic stands out as company that produced what is considered among best PVP MMOs
Something that was not reproduced in WAR
25/06/2009 at 11:23 Lars Westergren says:
Every Bioware game since they went primarily console-oriented has been at best “meh” to me, this sounds like just the final nail in the coffin.
Go, go, go, Obsidian, our last great hope. Please be good, Alpha Protocol.
25/06/2009 at 11:50 Subject 706 says:
Anyone surprised? All publishers who are on the stockmarket act like this. Maximum profit over good games anyday.
25/06/2009 at 12:51 Hmm-Hmm. says:
Interesting. I read this more as: Mythic failed to do well enough with WAR (in the eyes of EA overlords), so gets lumped in with Bioware. WAR and TOR being MMOs.
Why would this be bad for Bioware? I mean, other than being part of EA, which they were anyway. It’s not as if their games have been unsuccessful.
25/06/2009 at 21:39 GRIMDARK says:
wow they combine a Singleplayer RPG team and a MMO RPG team.
I wonder which side will get shafted.
The answer:
Both of them.
25/06/2009 at 23:24 Flimgoblin says:
@Nick It has been pretty terrible (still is when two pairings are locked and the entire server is fighting over one keep) but for the most part it’s been improving since release. Too late for many.
@h4plo That’s Paul Barnett who’s still there afaik. (who some people seem to really dislike – his “the coders screwed up!” youtube video met the problem of “half the internet has no sense of humour” but he did come back with this, credit for that eh? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkGtWEOv47E )
Mark Jacobs did a couple of podcasts about crafting but nothing on the classes iirc.