Mass Effect Co-Founder Says AI and Random Teams Can’t Recreate Great Games
Greg Zeschuk argues that business leaders often overlook the experience game development requires.
BioWare co-founder Greg Zeschuk says great games cannot be recreated by assembling unfamiliar staff and relying on AI. He also argues that executives without hands-on development experience can miss what making a game takes. His comments follow BioWare’s closure and the end of early development on the next Mass Effect, announced on Oct. 21.
In an interview with 80 Level, Zeschuk criticized the idea that teams can reproduce successful games by bringing in unfamiliar people and adding AI. “There’s this weird belief that you can just kind of recreate great games with random people and AI,” he said. “It doesn’t work.” He said business-track executives may never have made even a small game from start to finish, leaving them without a clear sense of how development works.
For studios, the argument is about more than who makes individual decisions. When teams are broken up through layoffs or closures, the experience they have built can leave with them. Zeschuk’s comments frame development knowledge as something gained through the work itself, not something a studio can replace simply by changing personnel or adding software.
Zeschuk said he had no regrets about BioWare joining Electronic Arts, which he felt gave the studio stability and allowed it to share risks with a larger company. He suspected EA’s acquisition by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund would be bad for BioWare. The studio’s unusual games take a long time to make and are complicated, he said, while annual sports releases can offer an easier business model. He described the mismatch as a problem for BioWare under a business model centered on shooters and sports games.
Zeschuk learned of BioWare’s closure hours after it happened while he was on a fishing trip. By the time he returned home a couple of days later, he said he had set the news aside. He described the closure as especially sad for Edmonton, where BioWare had been “a beacon of hope and excitement and possibility,” and said his main concern was for former employees facing a difficult job search.
After leaving BioWare in 2012, Zeschuk had no intention of returning to game development. The personal cost and effort required to make a great game are too much for him to take on again, he said, and he is happy to remain a player.
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