BioWare Interview Part 2

RPGVault has posted part two [archive.org backup] of their ongoing interview with Greg Zeschuk and Ray Muzyka of BioWare. The questions included in this interview mainly deal with how the two feel about their company in comparison to other game developers out there, and where they plan to take gaming in the future. A snippet to follow:

Greg Zeschuk: Ray and I still share a feeling that we’re just getting started in this business and the world has yet to see BioWare’s best work. This isn’t meant to diminish our previous games, but we really do feel the talented people here have even greater titles in their future. Strange as it may sound, but we don’t consider ourselves to be anything more than a hardworking group of people that love their work. If the world sees us as successful it’s an honor, but we still have to earn every bit of respect we are given by continually improving the quality of our games.

Ray Muzyka: I agree – our best work has to be ahead of us still. At BioWare we’ve learned so much in the past years that we can only continue to do better in the future.

As the original interview is no longer online, we’ve preserved it here for posterity’s sake:

BioWare 2001 Interview, Part 2
October 05, 2001

In some circumstances, three years may not seem like a very long time, but in other instances, a great deal can and does happen. The case of acclaimed developer BioWare offers a striking example of the latter. Just 36 months ago, it was a studio with just one commercial release to its credit, a mech action title called Shattered Steel. However, its second game, Baldur’s Gate, was nearing completion – it would ultimately ship a couple of days before Christmas. With interest in CRPGs starting to rebound after a few lean years, and with the team making the effort to communicate regularly with fans of the genre, the amount of gamer and media attention directed at the company was actually fairly substantial. On the other hand, BioWare was still definitely an inexperienced developer with a limited and only modestly successful track record.

Today, this same company is an undisputed industry leader, the much-admired developer of Baldur’s Gate and its sequel, Baldur’s Gate II: Shadows of Amn, which likely rank as the most popular serious CRPGs of all time. In addition, it is currently at work on Neverwinter Nights and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, both of which also have the potential to become monsters. Last week, we had the pleasure to hear from Joint CEOs and Co-Executive Producers Greg Zeschuk and Ray Muzyka about the company, its early history, Baldur’s Gate, CRPGs et al. Today, in our BioWare 2001 Interview, Part 2, we pick up our conversation with their thoughts on related topics such as what lies ahead for BioWare, the future of the industry and the CRPG genre and more.

Jonric: Community is a word that’s usually associated with online worlds. To what extent is it applicable to standalone games as well? How has BioWare benefited from its industry-leading efforts to build and work with the RPG fan community? Has it been worth the time and effort required?

Ray Muzyka: Working with the video game community is very important to us. On one hand you can meet (in the virtual sense) a number of really interesting people that are passionate about gaming. On the other hand, the online community is unforgiving in pointing out things they don’t like. We believe dealing with the community has relevance for all RPGs, not just the online games. Most people on the PC are connected to the net, giving them the opportunity to tell us in no uncertain terms what they thought of our games and what they think of our future plans. Our goal is to keep them happy while making great games that appeal to as many people as possible.

Jonric: Also noteworthy about BioWare is that almost no one there had worked in the industry before coming aboard. What have been the main benefits and pitfalls of having such a high ratio of homegrown personnel? And how do you go about identifying people without industry experience who won’t require an overly long breaking in period?

Greg Zeschuk: One disadvantage of primarily hiring people without industry experience is it’s hard to ramp up quickly should the need arise. People we hire often need considerable training and mentoring – this is something we take very seriously. The result is we’re continually looking for talented people to join our team. The big benefit we see in our hiring practices is that we manage to hire extremely talent and motivated people – it doesn’t really matter where they come from, especially if they are very smart and learn quickly. We believe in the people at BioWare and their ability to quickly learn whatever skills they need to do the job.

Ray Muzyka: We have an interesting hiring process: Greg and I don’t ever meet the people we hire until they have been unanimously approved by all of the people who interview them (usually a minimum of a dozen or so managers and peers do the interviews), and we never overrule the interviewers – they each effectively have a veto vote; any single dissenting voice means that we do not hire the candidate in question. We trust our staff to make the right decisions in whom we should hire! When Greg and I do meet the candidates we mainly focus on two issues – first, how the people will fit into the BioWare team, and second, what kinds of games they like to play (and why they like them – we like people to think a lot about what makes a game fun or not).

Jonric: BioWare also seems to have a comparatively high retention rate in an industry where movement from one developer to another is quite common. Do you think this is actually so, and what are your secrets?

Greg Zeschuk: We can’t comment on our retention rates relative to other developers, mainly because we don’t know the standard retention rates in the industry. We’re not interested in comparisons anyway – we’re focused on retaining the key people that have helped to build our great games. We try, as Ray mentioned earlier, to build great games and to create a fun work environment, and we believe that everything else – good sales, employee retention – will follow.

Jonric: What advice would you give to gamers who are interested in game development as a career?

Greg Zeschuk: Get as much education as you can. Knowledge, skill and aptitude will help get you into the industry, and taking responsibility, perseverance and dedication will make you successful. Also, be prepared to start at the very bottom!

Ray Muzyka: Work hard, be patient, and be humble, and you will go far.

Jonric: The two full RPGs you’ve developed became probably the two top-selling serious RPGs of all time, you have one of the most eagerly awaited titles of any genre a few months from shipping, and the first RPG based on the Star Wars property set to follow. What else is there for you to do within the genre? Do you still have a dream RPG project?

Greg Zeschuk: Our challenge is to make our future games better than our previous titles. There’s still quite a bit of room for us to improve how we make games.

Ray Muzyka: Every single game we make must be better than the ones before; as Greg notes, we always try to work on things to improve in our games. We try hard to listen to the feedback from the critics and press and our fans – their opinions are very important to us.

Jonric: What are your feelings about the rapid technological advances we’re seeing in areas like CPU speed and graphics processors? What are the significant benefits and pitfalls? How real is the danger of developers cutting themselves off from potential customers by setting high systems requirements?

Ray Muzyka: I agree that this is a real danger, one that we try very hard to avoid.

Greg Zeschuk: We strongly believe in aiming at the lowest common denominator when it comes to system requirements. We’re allocating over one ‘man year’ to the graphics optimization of Neverwinter Nights, and we’ll be spending additional time on the other subsystems. Our goal is for Neverwinter to be playable by as many people as possible. Will everyone’s experience be the same? Probably not, but we also want the people with lower end systems to enjoy the game.

Jonric: What do you see in the industry at the moment that really interests or even excites you? And on the flip side, are there things that make you wary?

Greg Zeschuk: I’m too cynical to get excited about much after slogging along in the industry for the last seven years… 🙂 I don’t believe anything I hear about any game until I personally play it. One thing that does make me wary and unhappy is the recent rash of layoffs and project cancellations – I sympathize with the people that put everything they can into a project only to see it cancelled. It must be heartbreaking. Seeing all of these good people fall by the wayside makes us strive harder to stay successful and carefully manage our games and our business.

Ray Muzyka: One of my favorite quotes is from Andy Grove of Intel – “only the paranoid survive”. Particularly in what looks like an upcoming economic downturn, we must work harder than ever to try to make our games of as high a quality as possible so our fans will continue to buy them, and to strive to keep our workplace as good a place to work as possible so our employees will be happy and productive.

Jonric: Now that BioWare has made the huge transition from a start-up to one of the world’s most respected developers, what continues to motivate and excite you? And how does it feel to be held in such high regard, alongside the top names in the industry?

Greg Zeschuk: Ray and I still share a feeling that we’re just getting started in this business and the world has yet to see BioWare’s best work. This isn’t meant to diminish our previous games, but we really do feel the talented people here have even greater titles in their future. Strange as it may sound, but we don’t consider ourselves to be anything more than a hardworking group of people that love their work. If the world sees us as successful it’s an honor, but we still have to earn every bit of respect we are given by continually improving the quality of our games.

Ray Muzyka: I agree – our best work has to be ahead of us still. At BioWare we’ve learned so much in the past years that we can only continue to do better in the future.

Jonric: How would you like to see BioWare evolve over the next three to five years? Do you see the company expanding into an online world, other genres, console games et al? Do you see it growing beyond the current 100 or so people, or perhaps opening a separate location?

Greg Zeschuk: Our goal is first to continue to make great games, no matter what we do. For future target platforms and genres – we’ll likely stick with some type of variation of RPGs and we’ll start exploring RPGs on consoles as well as continuing on the PC. As far as the more ambitious things you mention, such as growing much larger or opening a new location, we need to consider these options carefully as they all can contribute to instability of the whole of BioWare without really adding much benefit. As Ray mentioned above, our decision making process is very simple; that is, will choosing an option allow us to improve the quality of our games and the quality of our workplace? If not, then we’re not interested in pursuing it.

Jonric: In terms of a new, inexperienced studio breaking into the industry, how has game development changed between the time you started BioWare and now? What words of advice would offer to someone outside the industry who is thinking of creating an independent studio today?

Greg Zeschuk: The largest piece of advice we give to up and coming developers is to get as much advice as you can before getting started. The business is much more challenging now than when we started, with greater competition to land fewer projects (albeit with much larger development financing than when we started), so you’ll need to have as much of an advantage as possible when trying to land that first contract.

Ray Muzyka: Resources like Gamasutra and Game Developer magazine are very helpful in getting some basic information to get you on the right track. Also, don’t be shy about approaching actual developers – almost all the developers we know would be willing to answer a politely worded email about advice on the industry. And get good financial and legal advisors – they can be costly but are well worth the price if they are experienced. Run a development studio like a for-profit business, but always stay true to the original dual missions of making great games and keeping it always fun!

Another tip new companies would be well advised to follow is to cultivate the kind of leadership Greg and Ray have given BioWare before and during its rapid ascension to prominence. If the company’s best games are still in its future, we will look forward to playing them more than ever. In the meantime, we thank both of the pair for sharing their thoughtful and interesting feelings with us in this extensive two-part interview.

Selected Links
BioWare 2001 Interview, Part 1 – September 28, 2001
Baldur’s Gate II: Throne of Bhaal Review – June 27, 2001
Baldur’s Gate II: Throne of Bhaal Interview – April 4, 2001
Baldur’s Gate II: Shadows of Amn Special Report – December 7, 2000
Baldur’s Gate II: Shadows of Amn Interview – November 26, 1999
Neverwinter Nights Interview – August 7, 1999
Baldur’s Gate: Tales of the Sword Coast Review – July 2, 1999
Baldur’s Gate Review – February 11, 1999
BioWare (Baldur’s Gate) Interview – April 26, 1998

Richard Aihoshi – “Jonric”