BioWare 

is one of the most respected developers in the videogame industry.

From Baldur's Gate to Mass Effect, BioWare has consistently dictated taste rather
than react to it. Its pioneering sense has not just lead to admiration, but also to a
catalog of million-plus sellers, which is precisely why publishing giant Electronic
Arts scooped it up in an expensive 2007 acquisition.

Thanks to its groundbreaking PC and console role-playing games, BioWare has

both elevated the genre and established Canada as a world power in the gaming
industry.

Videogame development can be among the most daunting fields to break into, but
there are many paths to take. 

BioWare's founders met at the University of Alberta, where they were studying
medicine.

 Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuck first worked together programming educational

software for the Faculty of Medicine. The duo was soon joined by Augustine Yip,
who collaborated with them on a medical simulation program.
Muzyka, Zeschuck and Yip relaxed by playing computer games and after a few
years they realized that this was where their passion was.

The medical field was satisfying and lucrative, but it was time for the group to move
on. And it was precisely their success in medicine that afforded them the resources
needed to start their next venture – a videogame company. They pooled together
$100,000 and set out to make their first game.

They developed a proof-of-concept demo for what would eventually become

Shattered Steel. Rooted in the tradition of MechWarrior, it featured an impressive
high-res 3D engine with smooth, rolling hills reminiscent of NovaLogic's voxel-
powered games. They submitted their demo to ten publishers, and to their surprise
and delight, seven were willing to put an offer on the table.
They signed with Interplay, a move that would pay dividends in the near future. The
deal paid off their initial investment and gave them access to Interplay's vast
development resources.

Shattered Steel was a modest success, receiving positive reviews and seeing
decent sales. Of particular note was the detailed deformable terrain that allowed
players to blast craters in the sides of hills, and zone damage that allowed
strategic-minded sharpshooters to take out weapons mounted on enemies.

BioWare's founders have admitted they didn't expect much when they started their
company, but this didn't stop them from thinking ahead. Even as their first game
was only halfway through production, they were hard at work on a very different
sort of project, of a much broader scope. BioWare's founders and staff were
passionate fans of role-playing games – both the computerized sort and their pen-
and-paper ancestors – and they wanted to try their hand at a large-scale RPG of
their own.

The decision to make a multi-player, real-time game based on AD&D rules was
controversial at the time, drawing skepticism and even mockery from hardcore
RPG fans.

BioWare's more modernized take proved, however, to be more in line with the
mass audience's tastes, particularly after Blizzard Entertainment's Diablo brought
Western RPGs to a new breed of gamer.

They create baldur’s gate BioWare's creation put the focus on role-playing in the
classic sense. Every aspect of the game was designed around allowing the player
to explore a deep story on his own terms, with his own character, and with plenty of
room for individuals to have unique experiences. 

Baldur's Gate set the tone for the rest of BioWare's career. While there may not be
any one particular element that was revolutionary, it struck a unique balance of
depth and accessibility. 
A sequel and an expansion to the hit RPG were underway as soon as the first
game had shipped. With an engine and a proven formula already in place,
development of the Baldur's Gate sequel moved a much faster pace, arriving less
than two years after the first. The experience and the existing groundwork also
freed BioWare to realize a much larger, more ambitious vision.
Baldur's Gate II still managed to impress. Review scores were even higher than for
the first, placing BG2 among the best reviewed PC games.

Unfortunately, Baldur's Gate II were not enough to prop up the struggling Interplay.
Despite its capable production, the publisher was undergoing a string of failures
and disappointments that would eventually bankrupt the company. BioWare had to
move on.

Ultimately, BioWare ended up pairing with Infogrames on Neverwinter Nights

(2002), Lucasarts for Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (2003) and, finally,
Microsoft with Jade Empire (2005). 
 the company had a unique ability to produce deep RPG titles with rich, involving
storylines, characters and worlds. It's that reputation that would ultimately help
propel BioWare into its most successful period to date.
At this point, BioWare had already built up a reasonably sizeable reputation as
masters of the genre, but it wasn’t until the likes of Knights Of The Old Republic
and Jade Empire that it was able to prove just how well it was able to craft a
compelling story.
The industry was taking notice and, as such, Electronic Arts moved in to purchase
the studio in 2007. In fact, it made a move just one month out from the debut of
one last generation's most influential new franchises – Mass Effect.
This game would go on to be a milestone for BioWare. The studio was now able to
work on a massive RPG with the scale and scope of a licensed product but with
none of the constraints
At this point, it’s fair to say that the rest is history. Mass Effect, even with its issues,
was a huge success. Its exclusivity as an Xbox 360 title became a huge boon for
the platform,
But more than anything it made BioWare a household name; The shift away from
PC-only development ensured that the developer finally had access to an audience
that had previously alluded it. For the first time since the studio's inception a
decade before, the world finally discovered the hold BioWare had over the action-
RPG genre.
} Developer: Bioware

Publisher: Interplay Productions

Platform: Ms-DOS
Release: October 1996.
Genre: Mech simulator
Mode: Single player- Multiplayer