The doctors are out

Doctors Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk are leaving the game industry to pursue greener pastures, and in their wake is a ton of speculation regarding the future of BioWare.

Today, both of BioWare’s co-founders have announced their plans to retire from the game industry, in the forms of a pair of individual blogs found on the BioWare website. Muzyka discusses his plans to go into the entrepreneurship field. In his words, “I believe strongly in the power of free enterprise to enable sustainable change, so my next ‘chapter’ will likely focus on an entirely new industry, something exciting, different and frankly downright scary – investing in and mentoring new entrepreneurs, and more specifically, the field of social/impact investing.”

Zeschuk has another hobby in mind with his retirement, at least for the immediate future. His goal is to tour the world and enjoy quality time with family and friends, while tasting craft beers for a living. “The main project I will be working on is a web-based interview show called The Beer Diaries where I interview notable brewers and showcase their beers. If things go well, I’ll work on other beer-related shows, apps and projects. If not, I’ll have drunk a lot of tasty beers and may be back in games or even something else completely different. Ultimately time will tell.”

Of course, both men gave their heartfelt thanks to co-workers, former publishers, and each other for the near fifteen years of hard work and great game series. Both men seem ready to move on with their lives, and are going to move away from their passion of video games forever, and for me personally, I am sad to see them go.

Of course, since the announcement of their retirement, speculation has been rampant over the hows and whys of this announcement, from rumors of a forced exile by the corporate overlords at EA, to the pair seeing BioWare as a sinking ship. Considering Muzyka has stated that he made the decision to retire back in April of this year and gave a six month’s notice to EA regarding the situation, it only fuels the fires of rumormongers everywhere as to the “true” reasons behind the retirement. But as I said once before, EA will never win, and I guess that goes for everything they own too. But all that obtuse pessimism aside, perhaps we should just rejoice and wish both doctors good luck with their next projects, whatever they may be. I know I will, how about you?

Robert G.

All around gamer, teacher, historian and writer, making his home at Blistered Thumbs.

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