Bioware and Pandemic - Story So Far

Gamasutra has a piece looking at the story so far for the newly buddied up Bioware and Pandemic. They sit down with Pandemic CEO Josh Resnick, and BioWare joint CEOs Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk to talk about the future of their alliance. From the article: "I'm actually hoping that our coming together will at least open the door, or challenge other developers to start thinking along similar lines as well. The big thing that we did here is we capitalized the business. And by capitalizing the business, that has allowed us to have a much longer time horizon for our products. We're hoping it's going to give us more creative control over our products, and less encumbrances for our original IPs we're developing. And it's allowed us to come to the table with our publishing partners truly as partners with them."

Comments

How about Battlezone 3?

[ZipR]

Based more on BZ 1 than 2.

Re:How about Battlezone 3?

[kisrael]

What, the old Wireframe game?

Great 2600 port of that.

Actually there hasn't been a decent mutiplayer home "tank game" since BattleTanx Global Assault (WDL: Thundertanks on PS2 stunk for some reason) "Alien Front Online" for DC came close, but was only online multiplayer.

Anyway, I know the late-90s Battlezones were doing some other stuff, but still...I miss Tank games, like Tokyo Wars and what not...

Re:How about Battlezone 3?

[Cornflake917]

Or Homeworld 3? Or a Hybrid of the two games? I thought both games were pretty innovative. Should be interesting to see what will result from this merge.

Re:How about Battlezone 3?

[Cornflake917]

Just googled to see that it was Relic, not Pandemic that did homeworld. Whatever. The last two letter match. close enough

Same Crap, Different Day

[Drogo007]

FTFA:

But John Riccitiello was very up front about saying "I want to build upon the great cultures you've created, I don't want to take it apart, I don't want to change it, I don't want to turn you guys into something that you're not." And he's certainly been true to his word, and we have to our employees as well, and that's very important to us, because at the end of the day, our talent is where we get all these great ideas, and how we make great games.

Sounds familiar. Last game studio I was part of was acquired by a large, unammed publisher who spouted those same promises. Yet, within a year, there were a lot of nasty changes, including the head of the studio (who had spent 15 years building a best-in-class franchise) leaving.

I fear for the future of Bioware.

Judging by the names of the companies...

[tetromino]

...it is a match made in heaven. Almost as good as the upcoming merger between "Avian Flu Soft" and "Mad Scientists with Genetic Engineering Equipment Game Design Studio". On a serious note though, Bioware was always one of the best independent studios. I hope that the alliance and going public won't bring down the quality of their games -- but I am not counting on it.

What's the story on that MMO?

[zerocool^]

Man, that would be hot. A NWN/Bioware/Baulder's gate inspired MMO, crossed with an ever-evolving world like EVE... Piracy, intrigue, wealth hoarding, alliances, all player controlled, but in a medieval universe.

Let me know when that's done, so i can drop out of life.

~W

Re:What's the story on that MMO?

[oldwarrior]

Oh, and make sure any third party user developed content becomes the sole property of the new Biodemic Corporation to stamp out any unnecessary innovation.

Silly me

[iminplaya]

Here I am thinking the story was about this chip getting bird flu or something...