interactive entertainment founded edmonton alberta canada february 1995 ; 21 years ago 1995 02 founder ray muzyka retired in 2012 greg zeschuk retired in 2012 augustine yip retired in 1997 headquarters edmonton alberta canada key people matthew bromberg ggm aaryn flynn gm canada jeff hickman gm austin products mass effect series dragon age series baldur s gate series star wars knights of the old republic series see complete products listing number of employees 800 2010 1 parent electronic arts 2007 present divisions see structure website www.bioware.com bioware is a video game developer located in edmonton alberta canada . it was founded in february 1995 by newly graduated medical doctors ray muzyka greg zeschuk and augustine yip . bioware is currently owned by american company electronic arts . the company specializes in role playing video games and became famous for launching highly praised and successful licensed franchises baldur s gate neverwinter nights and star wars knights of the old republic . they proceeded to make several other successful games based on original intellectual property jade empire the mass effect series and the dragon age series . in 2011 bioware launched their first massively multiplayer online role playing game star wars the old republic . contents 1 history 1.1 1990s shattered steel and dungeons & dragons baldur s gate 1.2 2000s ea acquisition mass effect and dragon age 1.3 2010s muzyka and zeschuk s departure 2 structure 3 games 4 game engines 4.1 infinity engine 4.2 aurora engine 4.3 odyssey engine 4.4 eclipse engine 4.5 unreal engine 3 4.6 hero engine 4.7 frostbite 3 5 awards and recognition 6 see also 7 references 8 external links history edit 1990s shattered steel and dungeons & dragons baldur s gate edit an old bioware logo bioware was established in february 1995 by ray muzyka greg zeschuk trent oster brent oster marcel zeschuk and augustine yip . the three doctors muzyka zeschuk yip had recently graduated together from medical school at the university of alberta ; 2 they had done some programming for use in med school and played video games for recreation eventually deciding to develop their own . 3 their success in the medical field provided them with the funding they needed to launch a video game company . to make their first game they pooled their resources which resulted in capital of 100 000 . 3 their first game shattered steel began its life as a proof of concept demo similar to the mechwarrior games . this demo was submitted to ten publishers seven of whom returned to the company with an offer . a publishing deal for shattered steel was eventually signed with interplay entertainment . brent oster and trent oster left bioware at that time to form pyrotek studios which continued developing shattered steel but broke up a year later with oster returning to bioware to finish the game . bioware s first game was released the following year . shattered steel s release was described by ign as a modest success with decent sales . two noteworthy points were the deformable terrain player weapon damage caused craters in the environment and zone damage well placed gunfire could shoot mounted weapons off enemies . a sequel to shattered steel was planned for 1998 but never realized . 3 bioware s founders and staff were keenly interested in both computerized and pen and paper variants of role playing games . their next development project therefore was determined to be a role playing game . when interplay financed exploratory development bioware presented the publishers with a demo called battleground infinity . interplay suggested that the demonstrated gameplay engine would be well suited to the dungeons & dragons license which it had acquired from ssi . accordingly infinity was reworked in line with the dungeons & dragons ruleset . 3 this resulted in baldur s gate which witnessed a development cycle of three years . during this time the three doctors continued to practice medicine . however in the final years of the project the demands of development prompted muzyka and zeschuck to leave medicine and move into full time development . augustine yip decided to continue with his medical practice . baldur s gate sold more than two million copies after its release nearly matching the sales of diablo . following the success of baldur s gate the infinity engine was used for the games planescape torment and the icewind dale series . the success of baldur s gate was followed by an expansion pack for the game tales of the sword coast . 4 2000s ea acquisition mass effect and dragon age edit at this point bioware decided to return to the action genre . the company s initial thought was to develop a sequel to shattered steel but eventually a sequel to mdk from shiny entertainment was chosen for development . 3 mdk 2 was released on pc dreamcast and eventually playstation 2 offering bioware their first taste of developing games for consoles . 4 mdk 2 drew the same level of praise as its predecessor but despite the success bioware returned to the baldur s gate series for their next project . 3 baldur s gate ii shadows of amn was released in 2000 4 two years after the release of baldur s gate . 3 baldur s gate ii sold two million copies matching the sales of the first game in the series . however the success of both baldur s gate ii and mdk 2 was not enough to stabilize interplay financially . the company experienced multiple failures which eventually led to bankruptcy . 3 following interplay s bankruptcy bioware began to work with infogrames which was later renamed to atari . 4 neverwinter nights was originally to be published by interplay but the company lost the license of the game to atari and part of their dungeons & dragons license to bioware . after selling their d & d license to atari bioware developed star wars knights of the old republic and jade empire . it had publishing relationships with interplay entertainment infogrames and under its new name atari lucasarts and microsoft . the next few years saw a number of changes in bioware s corporate status . in november 2005 it was announced that bioware and pandemic studios itself founded by former activision employees would be joining forces with private equity fund elevation partners investing in the partnership . on october 11 2007 however it was announced that this new partnership organized as vg holding corp had been bought by electronic arts . 5 bioware therefore became a unit of ea but retained its own branding . in 2007 bioware released the science fiction role playing game mass effect . the following year bioware released sonic chronicles the dark brotherhood on the nintendo ds its first title for a handheld game console . later ea announced that bioware would be merged with mythic entertainment another division of ea so that they could have all of their role playing game development in one business unit . the growth of the mmorpg group as part of electronic arts in 2008 has resulted in three additional studios being added to the bioware group outside bioware s original home base in edmonton . the first located in austin texas and headed by industry veterans gordon walton and richard vogel was created to work on the star wars the old republic mmorpg project . both the studio and the project were announced on march 13 2006 . on march 2 2009 bioware announced it had opened a new studio in montreal quebec to assist with existing projects as necessary . 6 in 2009 mythic entertainment based in fairfax virginia became part of the rpg mmo group later being renamed bioware mythic in early 2010 . on june 24 2009 electronic arts announced a restructuring of their role playing and massively multiplayer online games development into a new group that included both mythic entertainment and bioware . ray muzyka co founder and general manager of bioware was appointed the group general manager of this newly formed bioware group . bioware s other co founder greg zeschuk became the group creative officer for the new mmorpg studio group . rob denton stepped up as general manager of mythic reporting to muzyka and later became the group operations officer of the new group . bioware s studios remained unchanged and continued to report to muzyka . 7 near the end of 2009 bioware released the acclaimed fantasy role playing game dragon age origins . 2010s muzyka and zeschuk s departure edit during january 2010 bioware releases the sequel to mass effect mass effect 2 that received critical acclaim and more than 60 awards . the company announced that it would be opening up a new customer service office in galway ireland in 2011 . 8 bioware completed three major games between 2011 and 2012 . the massively multiplayer online role playing game mmorpg star wars the old republic is based on bioware s previous contribution to the star wars franchise 9 and was announced on october 21 2008 although bioware had first mentioned an unspecified new collaboration with lucasarts in october the previous year . 10 the other games were dragon age ii the sequel to dragon age origins and mass effect 3 . 11 12 13 following the release of mass effect 3 in march 2012 numerous players complained about its endings failing to fulfill the developer s earlier promises regarding the conclusion of the trilogy . in response to these criticisms bioware announced on april 5 that they would reschedule their post release content production and release an extended cut dlc that would expand the original endings and address the most common points of critique . 14 the extended cut was released as a free download on june 26 2012 . 15 in the aftermath of the controversy forbes contributor erik kain wrote that it may end up being a healthy one for the industry opening a new chapter in gamer developer publisher relations calling bioware and ea s decision to act on the fans complaints a remarkable choice that made gamers realize that they are entitled and that it isn t a bad thing to quality games . 16 on september 18 2012 the next day after the official announcement of the third dragon age title 17 both ray muzyka and greg zeschuk two of the remaining co founders of bioware simultaneously announced they would be retiring from the gaming industry . 18 19 after almost a year without a formal head ea appointed matthew bromberg the group general manager of the bioware label on september 9 2013 . former ceo and president of major league gaming bromberg worked as the general manager of bioware austin since 2012 ; after his promotion jeff hickman took over as the general manager in austin . aaryn flynn remains in charge of bioware canada edmonton and montreal and jon van caneghem the head of victory games and waystone studio also parts of the bioware label . 20 after acquiring and dismantling lucasarts the walt disney company announced in may 2013 that electronic arts will produce future star wars games in addition to the bioware team which is already developing for the star wars franchise . 21 in november 2013 teaser images from the next installment of the mass effect series have been released . 22 at e3 2014 bioware edmonton announced working on a new unnamed original intellectual property in addition to continuing their established series . 23 another new ip titled shadow realms is an episodic 4 vs. 1 story driven online action role playing game and was announced on gamescom 2014 . 24 on february 9 2015 bioware austin announced that the development on shadow realms would not continue . 25 26 casey hudson the creator of the mass effect series left bioware in may 2014 while drew karpyshyn writer of