Replay: Dr Greg Zeschuk, co-founder BioWare. – My Perfect Console with Simon Parkin

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Yesterday came the news that EA plans to close BioWare, the Edmonton studio behind Baldur’s Gate, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Mass Effect and Dragon Age. I thought it was a good moment to revisit my conversation with Dr Greg Zeschuk, one of BioWare’s co-founders. We talk about the games that shaped him, and the long, remarkable journey of a studio that defined computer and console role-playing games for millions of people. Here’s my conversation with Greg Zeschuk.

[Original description] Greg Zeschuk is the co-founder of Bioware. While a medical student at the University of Alberta he told his future wife that, if he could, he’d make video games for a living. After he graduated, the dream came true when, in 1995, he and two friends y founded Bioware in his basement. The following year the trio released Shattered Steel and, two years after that, Baldur’s Gate, which revolutionised the world of computer role-playing games.

In the years that followed Bioware released a string of blockbuster hits, including Mass Effect, and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. In 2007, just 12 years after its founding, the companywas sold to Electronic Arts as part of a deal worth $860 million. In recent years, my guest started a brewing company, Blind Enthusiasm, and today runs two microbreweries and a restaurant in Edmunton, where he has spent most of his life.

NOTES

Greg Zeschuk – BioWare & brewery

Greg Zeschuk – Wikipedia

Blind Enthusiasm Brewing Company – official site

Blind Enthusiasm – The Monolith taproom, Edmonton

Greg Zeschuk on BioWare’s closure – Wired

BioWare

BioWare – Wikipedia

Ray Muzyka – BioWare co-founder, Wikipedia

Augustine Yip – BioWare co-founder, Wikipedia

Greg’s Perfect Console

Adventure (Atari 2600, 1980) – Wikipedia