DR. RAY MUZYKA
Founder and CEO, Threshold Impact; Co-founder and former CEO, BioWare
Dr. Ray Muzyka is currently an angel/impact investor in disruptive information technology, new media, medical innovations, and social entrepreneurs at Threshold Impact. Prior to October 2012, he was CEO and co-founder of BioWare. His development credits include Shattered Steel (1996), Baldur’s Gate (1998), Baldur’s Gate: Tales of the Sword Coast (1999), MDK2 (2000), Baldur’s Gate II (2000), Baldur’s Gate II: Throne of Bhaal (2001), Neverwinter Nights (2002), Neverwinter Nights: Shadows of Undrentide (2003), Neverwinter Nights: Hordes of the Underdark (2003), Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (2003), Jade Empire (2005), Mass Effect (2007), Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood (2008), Dragon Age: Origins (2009), Mass Effect 2 (2010), Dragon Age: Origins—Awakening (2010), Dragon Age II (2011), Star Wars: The Old Republic (2011), Warhammer: Wrath of Heroes (2012), and Mass Effect 3 (2012).
How did you get into the game industry?
My original background was a bit unusual, as I trained (and practiced for two years full time, eight years part time as BioWare ramped up) as a medical doctor in emergency room and family medicine. Dr. Greg Zeschuk and I co-founded BioWare back in 1995 (with Dr. Aug Yip, who left the company a year later to return to medicine) after working on the programming and art for a couple of medical education projects for our university. We met some talented programmers and artists who worked on what became BioWare’s first game, Shattered Steel, in 1996. Our second game, Baldur’s Gate in 1998, was a fairly big hit. Our team never looked back, and by the time I retired in October 2012, we had been acquired five years previously by Electronic Arts, and the BioWare Label within EA had over 1400 full-time employees at over eight locations worldwide.
On favorite games:
My favorite games have always covered a lot of platforms over a long time period. Back in the early 1980s, I was a fan of some of the great role-playing franchises, such as Wizardry and Ultima on the Apple II. Later on, I enjoyed games like System Shock and Ultima Underworld on PC. These too were role-playing games, revolutionary for their time in their interface, graphics, and storylines—and still worth playing. In the 90s, I enjoyed playing a number of console RPGs, including Final Fantasy, Chrono Cross, and the Zelda series, as well as real-time strategy (WarCraft II, StarCraft, Age of Empires) and first-person action games like Halo, Battlefield, and Half-Life. In October 2012, I retired from videogames, but I still play a lot of games on all platforms—console, PC, mobile/tablet, and online. All of my favorite games across the decades share the common trait of being emotionally engaging, and very high quality—this is what we’ve strived to do in our games at BioWare, always trying to make each game better than our last.
Advice to developers:
Be passionate but self-critical and humble in receiving feedback, be it positive or critical. Don’t compromise on delivering quality for your fans, but realize at the same time that there is a point of diminishing returns on your efforts and a point where every game will be as good as you can practically make it. Most games frankly never reach this point, but if they do, you’ll increase the chances of them succeeding. And for the entrepreneurial types out there, hire smart, talented, creative, and hard-working staff to work with and make sure you respect them and treat them extremely well. Video games, like all creative businesses, are definitely not a solo endeavor, and the team sizes required to keep the production values high enough for the increasingly sophisticated video game audiences seem to grow larger every year. Following my retirement from BioWare, I’ve learned as an angel/impact investor in information technology, new media, medical innovations, and social entrepreneurs that these lessons learned at BioWare/EA apply not just to videogames or IT businesses, but are equally applicable for all entrepreneurs.