BioWare on Multiplayer and Online Implementation

The folks at Wired had a chance to speak with BioWare co-founders Greg Zeschuk and Ray Muzyka at an event in Manhatthan last month, and came back with some interesting thoughts on multiplayer from the two. Considering that an online mode has been added to Mass Effect 3 and their MMO, Star Wars: The Old Republic, has just been released, what they say seems indicative of their philosophy for their future titles to me. Here’s a snip:

(The way we look at multiplayer online features is that they shouldn’t be dilutive or weakening the experience,) Muzyka said. (They should be additive, they should strengthen it, they should enhance it.)

(Multiplayer . can’t be tacked on,) BioWare co-founder and vice president Greg Zeschuk said at the same event. (That’s one of the pitfalls that some of the people who have done multiplayer have made. ‘˜Oh, what’s on our marketing checklist? Gotta have multiplayer, check the box.’)

…

(We’ve seen a lot of overlap between players of traditional console and PC games and players of social games,) Muzyka said. (They play it maybe in a different way, with different time constraints but there are a lot of core gamers who really enjoy that.)

(Our approach to that is going to be building deep, rich experiences that are going to appeal to core social gamers,) he said. (If we extend some of our existing IPs, by definition that’d make some of our IPs multiplayer.)