Mark Jacobs To Leave Mythic: BioWare Now in Charge of Both Companies
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In a surprise announcement today, Mark Jacobs has left Mythic, the company he co-founded over a decade ago. Even more surprising, the company is effectively being merged with BioWare, forming what EA calls a new “RPG/MMO studio group,” with Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk, the two BioWare doctors in overall command, and Rob Denton, the second co-founder of Mythic taking over Jacobs’ former position.
What will this mean for WARwar reviews
going forward only time will tell. And it’s clearly inappropriate at this point to speculate on the true reasons behind either of these decisions, much like the Garriott lawsuit the truth is likely much stranger than anything we could even begin to imagine.
We’re currently trying to get EA PR on the phone to comment, but with no luck so far. We’ll keep you posted as the situation develops.
Until then, here’s the official press release of the announcement (I noted that it says Jacobs will be leaving EA yesterday, in future tense, when it was published this morning):
Today we have important news to share with the community. EA is restructuring its RPG and MMO games development into a new group that includes both Mythic and BioWare. This newly formed team will be led by Ray Muzyka, co-founder and General Manager of BioWare. With this change, Ray becomes Group General Manager of the new RPG/MMO studio group. BioWare’s other co-founder, Greg Zeschuk will become Group Creative Officer for the new RPG/MMO studio group. Rob Denton will step up as General Manager of Mythic and report to Ray. BioWare’s studios remain unchanged and continue to report to Ray.
Mark Jacobs, co-founder and current General Manager of Mythic, will leave EA on June 23, 2009. We thank Mark for his contributions at Mythic and wish him the very best going forward. Mark played a major part in the success of Mythic with his contribution as General Manager and Lead Designer of WAR.
Mythic retains a strong team led by Rob who co-founded Mythic in 1995. Rob played a critical role in the development of Dark Age of Camelot. In his previous role as COO, he was responsible for all day-to-day management of the studio including all development, operations and support.
Please join us in celebrating the union of these two award-winning studios.
From: WarHerald
@mbellows Not quite merged. But no PR has been sent out with full details: http://bit.ly/sDYwp
Mark Jacobs To Leave Mythic: BioWare Now in Charge of Both Companies http://bit.ly/mFFuD #mmo #mmorpg
RT @TheMMOGamer: Mark Jacobs To Leave Mythic: BioWare Now in Charge of Both Companies http://bit.ly/mFFuD #mmo #mmorpg
Whoa: Mark Jacobs To Leave Mythic: BioWare Now in Charge of Both Companies http://bit.ly/mFFuD (via @TheMMOGamer) #mmo #mmorpg #surprise
[...] few bloggers have expressed surprise at the announcment, with only Heartless_ saying I told you so and reminding us of the [...]
I am sure he is as disappointed as his ex-companies fan base at their lack of interest in customer needs.
I do hope the Bioware team will look into the status of their game with renewed vigor and do something to inspire their fans to return to Warhammer by fixing the bugs and balancing the classes and realms instead of releasing more bland and broken classes and dreary content.
Honestly, we knew this day would come (EA chopping mythic and – after the buyout of bioware – having bioware swallow them), WAR going bust basically spelled that it'd come much sooner than expected.
My heart goes to the Mythic employees. In their place, I'd start shipping resumes, I believe they're already way ahead on this, though.
Without Mark to protect them, the culture of Mythic is gone, and with bioware's managers being the managers in charge of mythic, you can expect Mythic to take all the heat (terminations/firings) for anything and everything and to suffer the most.
This is the same story as with Origin and all the others EA bought, milked, raped and finally dumped.