From the Warhammer site today:
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.
Thankyou, but no. I shall lament the end of a fine MMO company, as it is (entirely predictably) finally absorbed into the Electronic Arts borg. The individual cultures within developer groups matter, and it will not do Bioware or Mythic any great service to be fused together like some lumpen piece of fleshcraft.
I wish Mark Jacobs all the best in whatever he decides to do next. He’s a good lad, and I hope he starts anew with a fresh company, and keeps it out of the hands of the Goliaths of the industry a little longer this time.
I also wish the Bioware staff well. They have yet to build up any immunity to Paul Barnett, so I suspect it’s going to be quite a shock to the system!
Update! From Mythic’s Andy Belford over on the Warhammer Alliance forums:
For clarity:
Mythic is not “merging” with Bioware.
Mythic and Bioware remain independent EA studios within a larger MMO/RPG group.
Thanks!
Ah, well, now I feel silly. Never mind, I can always reuse this post when EA does finally squish them together. I suspect that Mythic is going to be bled of its best talent to fuel Bioware’s Star Wars: The Old Republic, but we shall see.