BioWare: "It was sad to read EA Louse"

BioWare co-founders Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk have told of how they were "disappointed" and "sad" after reading the recent scathing anonymous blog post from EA Louse.

Last month a disgruntled EA employee about to fall victim to lay-offs published a vicious diatribe against Warhammer Online creator BioWare Mythic, its staff, and claimed that forthcoming MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic will be a disaster.

The blogger claimed that BioWare had, "spent more money making the Old Republic than James Cameron spent on Avatar. Sh*t you not. More than $300 million! Can you believe that?"

In a new interview with Eurogamer Muzyka and Zeschuk pointed towards the anonymous nature of the post and stressed its commitment to The Old Republic.

"We're disappointed in the sense of someone having that unfortunate perspective," said Zeschuk.

"It was sad to read that kind of stuff," added Muzyka. "We just won a top 100 employers award for BioWare. We invest a lot in quality of the workplace. It's really important to us. We take it seriously.

"The BioWare Mythic team is part of the BioWare group. I know the people that work there. They care. They feel the same way that the other leaders across BioWare and EA feel.

"That kind of stuff... We don't respond to rumours and speculation by people that are ill-informed. We're committed to quality in the workplace."

"The reality of it is when you take an anonymous space you don't know where it's from," said Zeschuk. "Regardless, we're always focused on making the best possible workplace.

"We try to focus on making a great place to work, making great products. But you never know. If it's anonymous, there's no proof of anything. You can claim anything, right?"

Both Muzyka and Zeschuk described The Old Republic, a game due out some time next year, as a "tremendous opportunity".

"It's a big bet, but it's the right kind of bet to make for EA," Muzyka said.

"It's the right kind of bet for BioWare to make. It's taking everything we know from the last 15 to 20 years of development experience and placing some amazing people onto the team, with MMO experience as well as RPG experience.

"The team is a group I'm really proud of. They're working hard to deliver this great game. It's got a lot of content. It's taking the best of features from other products like MMOs and putting them together with something BioWare's known for: the story, choice and consequence, but not losing anything in the translation - exploration, combat, customisation, progression.

"So in that sense it's really a smart decision. It's a pretty good bet for a studio group like BioWare to be building right now. We see it as more opportunity than anything else.

"It's a great BioWare type experience in a massively multiplayer space in a Star Wars setting. Those seem to be some pretty good factors that have set us up for massive success. Beyond that, we just build the best game we can."