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BioWare
Subsidiary
Industry Computer and video games
Interactive entertainment
Founded February 1995; 23 years ago (1995-02) in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Founder Ray Muzyka
Greg Zeschuk
Augustine Yip
Headquarters Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Key people
Samantha Ryan, GGM
Casey Hudson, GM
Products List of BioWare video games
Number of employees
800 (2010)
Parent Electronic Arts (2007–present)
Divisions See § Structure
Website www.bioware.com

BioWare is a Canadian 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, and is currently owned by American company Electronic Arts. The company specializes in role-playing video games, and achieved recognition 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.

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), who had recently graduated together from medical school at the University of Alberta; had done some programming for use in school and played video games for recreation, eventually deciding to develop their own. 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.

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 Trent 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.


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