Bioware

Firing Back at Worthless Interviews

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These days there is a lot of junky gaming news. One cause of this is the obsession with giving every member of a development house a chance to sit down and shout out. You don’t have to be an artist, programmer or designer – if you deal with the corporate side, you are just as eligible, and if you make one successful game, you will be held in higher regard than other hard working members of the industry, regardless of your future sales or if your ideas have any merit.

Some fans are getting tired of this situation and are mouthing back. For example, one of the worst recent offenders is BioWare CEO Ray Muzyka. While he has been a name and a presence in the industry for a while now, lately he has been spouting off some of his least insightful “wisdom” yet. →  Read the rest

Numbers are fun: But charts are amazing

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Market capitalization is a measure of what investors think a company is worth, so it basically represents size. In order to get a little perspective on the relative size of some of the companies with which we, as gamers, are most familiar, I have thrown together the below chart.

As with all thrown together financial charts it has its shortcomings. Private companies, such as Bioware, SNK Playmore and Treasure cannot be included since they are not required to reveal their size and there is no market to determine it. Also, (and this may come as a shock to some of you) several of these companies are Japanese. This means that in addition to their market cap changing day to day based on price changes, when expressed in US Dollars, they change with foreign exchange rates as well. →  Read the rest

Review – Jade Empire

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Jade Empire
Developed by Bioware
Published by Microsoft
Released 4.12.05
Blue crap coming out of the hands is a serious medical condition.

Bioware is one of my favorite companies because I bow to the altar of Baldur’s Gate. I played both games in that series and both expansion packs. When I read the third installment was canceled I nearly wept. Knights of the Old Republic is a great game but I’m not really into Star Wars, Neverwinter Nights was good but there wasn’t enough focus on having a sweet party of adventurers. There will never be another Baldur’s Gate and I have to accept it (by mentioning it in every other article I write). First, an immediate comparison: Jade Empire is not as good as Baldur’s Gate. Ok, now I feel better and can begin the review. →  Read the rest