Bioware's Doctors Speak Out on How to Make Great Games

During a recent interview with Gamesutra, Bioware founders Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk provides some very interesting information on how to make good games, the constant challenge of change, and the core values that drive Bioware to become one of the best companies. To keep the company focused, the leaders have some things to say about keep their company and various development studio on track:

"Ray Muzyka: We set vision statements. We talk about core values a lot, and we try to live them. We set a vision. Our vision for our group within [parent] EA, for BioWare, is create, deliver, and evolve the emotionally engaging games in the world."

"Are you ready?"

Ray goes on to state how when each employee knows exactly what they are getting to when they join Bioware and if they do not, a thorough orientation is presented on Bioware's history in game. Because of this, teams and individuals can focus on producing great games that do not sacrifice over content. He goes a little more in-depth on how Bioware changes with the feed and adapt to improve their games:

"It's about learning, being able to admit you're wrong, and learn from your mistakes. It's about trying to improve each game, try to make it better than your last, never sitting on your laurels, never resting. It's a very active word. It's a very bold word. It's a very confident word, in many ways, because it's sort of a willingness to say, "Yes, we're ready to change, if we need to change, based on feedback."

 

"Droids. Why does it have to be droids?"

Finally, the doctors offer some very interesting feedback on working and developing The Old Republic and how they are going to be handling the game post-launch:

"For us, it's kind of challenging, but we really do have a lot of people on the team that have done this before. It doesn't make it easy, because when you look at a game as ambitious as Star Wars: The Old Republic, the amount of content in it is probably equivalent to all the content from prior BioWare games combined. You know, we've got to deliver that to the fans enough to keep them occupied for a long time. You know, we have to continue to deliver more content over time afterwards, too."

"Silent, but Deadly"

Check out the rest of the interview after the jump: Gamesutra.