Drs. Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk, co-founders of BioWare, have announced that they will retire at year’s end.
Drs. Muzyka and Zeschuk founded BioWare in 1995 after graduating with medical degrees from the University of Alberta. The two professionals are currently acting as EA VP and General Manager of BioWare Label, and EA VP and General Manager of BioWare Austin, respectively. Dr. Muzyka had the following to say in a blog post addressing his departure:
"After nearly two decades in videogames, I’ve decided to move on to pursue an entirely different set of challenges. This has been an incredibly difficult decision to make; after thinking about it for many months, I made the decision to retire from videogames back in early April 2012 – at that time I provided six months’ notice to EA, to help enable a solid transition for my teams at BioWare.
The decision to leave the videogame industry is hard to explain, but essentially I feel similar now to how I felt in the early days of BioWare over the decade post-medical school, while I was still practicing as an ER physician, back when I first realized that the world of video games was my next career ‘chapter’."
Dr. Muzyka goes on to describe his next career pursuit – investment in and mentoring of social and impact entrepreneurs.
Meanwhile, Dr. Zeschuk described the incredible feelings that fans have given him over the years:
"I’d also like to thank the fans that have supported us across so many games over the decades we’ve been plying our craft. One of my favorite experiences is hearing from people about how much they’ve enjoyed a recent release or BioWare classic; it seems to happen all the time so clearly we’ve had an impact. Sure we’ve had our disagreements with the fans (and them with us), but frankly I understand how that’s driven by passion and love of the games. It’s exhilarating to consider how many lives we’ve touched with the entertainment we’ve created over the last 20 years."
Check out the blog posts of Dr. Muzyka and Dr. Zeschuk, and read more about the future of BioWare here. Then, let us know what you think of this news in the comments below. Any parting words for the founders of BioWare?