14 DAY TRIAL // BioWare, the studio responsible for huge games like Mass Effect, Dragon Age, or the more recent Star Wars: The Old Republic, has said that it’s still exploring the mobile gaming industry, with one member of its team being tasked with spotting “logical extensions” of its franchises into this area.
BioWare was one of the first big studios from Electronic Arts to release a mobile game, in the form of the Mass Effect: Galaxy spinoff, which set things up for the launch of Mass Effect 2. Sadly, it didn’t perform too well, with a clunky interface and lackluster rewards disappointing Mass Effect fans.
Now, the studio is much more careful with mobile projects, as its co-founder and creative lead, Greg Zeschuk, talked to Joystiq about Mass Effect: Galaxy and how the various teams that are under BioWare’s supervision like to experiment with mobile platforms all the time.
"We did that iOS Mass Effect Galaxy thing really early,” Zeschuk revealed. “We said, 'We should just try this and see what happens.' And we learned something from it. What we do a lot is we'll actually explore a platform and kind of play around with it."
The co-founder also mentioned that only one of the studio’s hundreds of employees is actually tasked with focusing on mobile games and identifying “logical extensions” to its various properties.
Zeschuk also highlighted that BioWare’s current position, of a standalone label inside EA’s corporate structure, allows it to work with EA’s mobile games division and use its experience to run various experiments.
"That's one of the biggest benefits of being at EA. We have EA Interactive, who does tons and tons of mobile stuff," Zeschuk said. "We're always looking around. We're always sort of sharing ideas and figuring out what we're going to do."
As of yet, however, BioWare is busy with supporting Star Wars: The Old Republic, putting the finishing touches on Mass Effect 3, as well as working on a lot of unannounced projects.