BioWare’s Ray and Greg Interviewed

Tom’s Games has a pretty interesting interview up with Greg Zeschuk and Ray Muzyka about the Mass Effect PC port, BioWare’s projects and piracy.

TG: For the sequel to Mass Effect, are you planning on doing simultaneous development on both the Xbox 360 and PC or will you follow the same path as the first title?

Greg Zeschuk: We know we’re making a trilogy, and that’s about as long as we’ve thought about it. We tend to focus on the next project, because I think if you try to juggle too many things at once, you end up getting bogged down. So our focus right now is getting this PC version really good, and working on Dragon Age, which we’re getting ready to start showing. Then Mass Effect 2 stuff we’ll strategize on later. It’s not incredibly urgent that we do that now.

Ray Muzyka: We have a lot of teams, and obviously there is stuff in development now that we haven’t announced yet. We’ll have a lot more information to reveal about those in the future. But right now, the PC version of Mass Effect is our primary focus. The PC is really important to us. Our games have all been approached the same way. On KOTOR, it came our on the Xbox and then the PC, but both versions won game of the year awards on both platforms. And that’s because of the attention we paid to customize the experience. It was generally the same content for both versions, but fans were able to play it different ways. We really spent the time making sure it was a good game for both formats rather than just the game for a particular platform. We don’t see the PC as an after-thought; we see it as a really important audience. And we have a big brand in that audience that’s associated with quality. They’re important, loyal consumers and we don’t want to let them down.

TG: Does it concern you that PC game retail sales are declining, according to NPD Group?

Greg Zeschuk: It’s interesting, because that’s one of the themes that we’ve been discussing. Here we are showing a PC product, and out there somewhere people are saying ‘Hey, we’re not sure about this whole PC game thing anymore.’ You know, I think it’s evolving. That’s the way we look at it. Certainly, the PC was the top platform a while back. If you look at the hours of play on the PC versus other platforms, it’s still the most. It’s just a question of how it’s working, whether it’s a subscription-based model for MMOS or casual games or whatever. It’s just a different market. We’re pretty hyped about some of the EA strategies around things like free downloads and mid-session games and pay-for enhancements. It’s kind of like what’s happened to music. People are still listening to music. In fact, live shows and concerts are bigger than they’ve ever been. But the audience is changing.

Ray Muzyka: They still want to go to concerts. They still want to buy music, too. But the format is different. There’s still a market there. There are still consumers, and there are still developers. So you have to evolve with the times. It’s not that retail isn’t an important part of the market. It still is. But there are new areas you have to explore if you want to be successful. Digital distribution. Episodic gaming. Subscription-based gaming. Micro-transactions. Those are all parts of the new business model.

TG: Do you worry about piracy for the PC platform? Is it a big concern for BioWare?

Ray Muzyka: It’s bigger now than it’s ever been. So you have to consider not just ways to prevent piracy, because people can always work around that, but also ways to pull consumers in and make them want to buy the products with some type of value add to them. Subscriptions are a good example, where you make something that’s more valuable to play online with your friends. It’s part of a social experience. There’s also post-release content. So we released PDLC (post-release downloadable content) for Mass Effect on the 360. If you create that value-add long term then people feel like it’s worth buying. So there’s different ways to deal with piracy. There are technology solutions and there are also design solutions. So you need a mix of both of those to combat piracy.