Mythic and BioWare Form New RPG/MMO Group - Updated with Quotes/Reaction

[Garthilk]

From the General News category we have: Mythic and BioWare Form New RPG/MMO Group

Today we have important news to share with the community. EA is restructuring its RPG and MMO games development into a new group that includes both Mythic and BioWare. This newly formed team will be led by Ray Muzyka, co-founder and General Manager of BioWare. With this change, Ray becomes Group General Manager of the new RPG/MMO studio group. BioWare’s other co-founder, Greg Zeschuk will become Group Creative Officer for the new RPG/MMO studio group. Rob Denton will step up as General Manager of Mythic and report to Ray. BioWare’s studios remain unchanged and continue to report to Ray.

Mark Jacobs, co-founder and current General Manager of Mythic will leave EA on June 23, 2009. We thank Mark for his contributions at Mythic and wish him the very best going forward. Mark played a major part in the success of Mythic with his contribution as General Manager and Lead Designer of WAR.

Mythic retains a strong team led by Rob who co-founded Mythic in 1995. Rob played a critical role in the development of Dark Age of Camelot. In his previous role as COO, he was responsible for all day-to-day management of the studio including all development, operations and support.

Please join us in celebrating the union of these two award-winning studios.

Source

UPDATE

We've approached our contacts in Mythic regarding reaction to Mark Jacobs. Basically, we've been told that the studio as a whole wishes Mark well in his future endeavors, with no further comment.

We're working on finding out information for you, stay tuned to our site in the next few days!

UPDATE 2

Andy Belford has replied in this thread with the following clarification:

For clarity:

Mythic is not "merging" with Bioware.

Mythic and Bioware remain independent EA studios within a larger MMO/RPG group.

Thanks!

Josh Drescher has commented on his blog regarding the new re-org. For the full post, check the Source link:

As for Mythic itself, I’ll just clarify a few points that have been repeatedly tweeted, IMed, emailed, called and to me over the past few hours (sorry for not responding, we were watching “Transformers 2″):

1) No one else is leaving the studio. Apparently, someone was spreading nonsense rumors earlier about Paul or Adam or Carrie or myself being sent to Austin. Lies, lies and damn lies. I haven’t been able to find any such rumors myself, so who the hell knows - maybe the rumor ABOUT the rumor was a lie. Always remember - there are a limitless number of people online with comparably limitless free time and a weird love of just making things up.

2) We’re all really excited about working alongside BioWare as part of the MMO/RPG division. While we’ve got a lot of experience ourselves and have learned a lot of lessons (some harder than others), it’s exciting to know we’ll have the folks at BioWare right there with us as we move forward as a company. I’ve been lucky enough to meet Ray and Greg a few times in the past and they are clearly passionate about MMOs and games in general. Their affection for us was very clear today and I think they really made the team feel comfortable and supported. And, for the record, that attitude is nothing new. When we launched, BioWare was the only other studio that sent us something as personal and cool as this.

3) While we are working alongside BioWare and with Ray as our group GM, we are still Mythic. Our core operational leadership remains the same, our production and development staff remains the same. Our plans for WAR remain the same (and you’ll hear more about them shortly). Speaking of which…

4) Regarding the future of WAR, Jeff’s next Executive Producer’s letter will come out tomorrow and has a lot of new details explaining what we’re doing to tackle the “Top 5″ list he mentioned previously.

Source

Massively's Tracey John has a post in which an ex-Mythic employee comments on the changes - here's an excerpt:

The former employee wanted to clarify that they didn't have an ax to grind; they had left Mythic on amicable terms. And though they said that most employees had very little interaction with Jacobs, they thought that most people liked the guy.

"When they had to lay off all those people, Mark was visibly upset that he even had to let one person go," said my source. "I can't imagine anyone saying anything bad about Mark. He mostly stayed up on the eighth floor and did his own thing in his office, but he had a vision for the way [Warhammer Online] could be and he definitely follows his vision."

I asked if Jacobs' departure might have anything to do with Warhammer Online's subscriber numbers. EA announced that the game had 300,000 subscribers earlier this year. While the number is still impressive for a new MMO, the number was below EA's expectations and down from 500,000 at launch.

"The numbers aren't that bad, and last I heard the numbers were back on the rise," they revealed. "If you get half a million subscriptions out of it, you're making your money back. I know the game was making money."

Source

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UPDATE 3

IGN has the new head of the combined group, Bioware's Co-Founder Ray Muzyka, commenting on the new arrangement - here's a part of it:

What about the possibility of a full-on collaboration and the potential emergence of a Bioware-Mythic project? "Anything's possible," said Muzyka. "We can't say it wouldn't happen. There's no active plans, currently to do that, but the teams at Mythic and BioWare I know from talking to all of them, they're really excited about working together, so I think that fuels a lot of cool things. People start talking about 'Hey, wouldn't it be neat if we did this, or did this together?' That kind of thing might evolve over time. For right now they retain the unique identity at Mythic and the Austin team [Star Wars: The Old Republic] retains its unique identity, and they're working on the same projects they were working on before. For right now it's more of a collaborative opportunity to get people to work together at a group level."

Source

[PhoenixRed]

All I have to say is - wow. I can't even begin to imagine reacting to this right now.

[Strade]

Hope on the horizon???

[Yadad]

Ouch and where's the emote for *jaw drops*

[ep17]

Mark is out? I wonder if he found a better job elsewhere or because of WAR's not-so impressive sales...

[Stuntie]

Hmmm - if Bioware get involved things could be looking up indeed....

[Avien]

I did so NOT see this coming o.O

[grimdeath]

very very interesting, I wonder what impact this will have on WAR. Bioware knows their games but KOTOR was going to be their first MMO...perhaps WAR will become their sandbox for learning the ropes for MMOs? hmmmmmmm

[Strade]

Originally Posted by grimdeath

very very interesting, I wonder what impact this will have on WAR. Bioware knows their games but KOTOR was going to be their first MMO...perhaps WAR will become their sandbox for learning the ropes for MMOs? hmmmmmmm

Was thinking the same thing. What better way to get your hands dirty for the first time than in someone else's sandbox...

My, what a super analogy...

[Adaptation]

Gasp is all i can say.

[Aalynia]

I'm pretty much speechless.

[Boozed Beerchugger]

I came here to read other comments so I could glean what the implications of this were...

So far it looks like people think this is positive? I don't know much about Bioware, so I'm just wondering if anyone wants to give a little more detail on what they think about this and how it will affect WAR.

[Quimbos]

So, am I right in assuming that this translates to:

Mark is fired and Mythic is now working under the supervision of Bioware?

[Fingoniel]

Interesting...

I wonder how long this has been on the cards - shame for Mark given he built that studio with Rob from the start - but that's what he was gambling with when he brought in EA last year.

I'd have liked a reassurance that nothing bad is happening to WAR as a result of this

(I'm hopeful that this is in fact nothing but good for WAR but you know, we like reassurances...)

[Acks001]

Originally Posted by Boozed Beerchugger

I came here to read other comments so I could glean what the implications of this were...

So far it looks like people think this is positive? I don't know much about Bioware, so I'm just wondering if anyone wants to give a little more detail on what they think about this and how it will affect WAR.

Bioware has never made a bad game in their career. Everything they develop/are involved with turns to gold. So if Bioware gets involved with WAR it only means amazing things for WAR.

Bioware game's include Star Wars: Knights of The Old Republic, Jade Empire, and Mass Effect.