By OMAR MOUALLEM » Photo by JOHN ULAN ’S nextchapter TWO CAREERS AREN’T ENOUGH FOR THIS MD-TURNED-GAME DEVELOPER, A FOUNDER OF BIOWARE. HIS LATEST PROJECT IS AN INVESTMENT COMPANY WITH AN EYE TO SOCIAL GOOD

16 newtrail.ualberta.ca ay Muzyka and stepped onto the Princess Anne Theatre stage in London, England, to applause from 220 gaming professionals and students who had come for the British Academy of Film and Television Arts’ annual video games Rlecture. The topic was “Games as Art,” and who better to deliver it than the co-founders of BioWare? Through their upstart gaming company, the MDs-turned- game developers had helped revitalize the genre of computer role-playing games. They were among the first to show that video games could be artful — more than a grab for points, more than a battle for bragging rights, a wholly emotional experience. By the time Muzyka, ’90 BMedSc, ’92 MD, and Zeschuk, ’90 BMedSc, ’92 MD, stood onstage at the end of 2011, the BioWare brand had become one of the most beloved in the gaming industry. Not long after the lecture, its most highly anticipated title, 3, would sell 1.5 million units in a single month. So it might have come as a shock to audience members to know that “the Doctors,” as they were known in the industry, were having a change of heart about their careers. In a small, subtle exchange backstage as they waited for the auditorium to fill, Muzyka had turned to his best friend and business partner of 20 years. “You know,” he said, “I think this might be the last time we ever give a speech together while we’re still in the industry.” This was the first tacit understanding between them that they might each be considering retirement. The former med students had grown up parallel to the industry as it went from 16-bit cartridges to online stadiums. They had turned a gaming hobby into an industry-changing company bought up by the world’s fourth- largest gaming company, , for more than half a billion dollars. Now, the effervescent Zeschuk, general manager of BioWare’s Austin, Texas, office and a vice-president for Electronic Arts, was losing interest in games and thinking about transferring his unbridled passion to, of all things, craft beer. Muzyka, senior vice-president and general manager of Electronic Arts’ BioWare label — spread across eight cities in three countries — was considering shifting his focus to impact investing. He wanted to put his good fortune toward for-profit social enterprise, working with socially responsible companies that would, in ways big and small, improve the world.

new trail spring 2014 17 Entrepreneurs can change the world in caught on to things very quickly,” says the retired teacher, who predicted a meaningful way. They can dream and Muzyka would end up in the tech field. imagine, they can work at problems from different “I was more surprised to hear that he went into medicine.” angles and they can create enduring change.” The opposite is true for Muzyka. “I always wanted to be a doctor. It never occurred to me that I’d be doing something related to technology,” he says. “That was more a hobby.” He and Zeschuk didn’t know it then, but years of balancing eye-reddening NEW ENDEAVOURS So, while his workspace has been hospital shifts during their residencies “Corporations don’t have to be scaled down, his dreams are anything but. with a few stolen hours for game faceless entities driven purely by From an early age, Muzyka showed development was preparing them for profit,” Muzyka says from his home incredible potential. His parents, both the realities of entrepreneurship. “We office, his loafers resting on a leather Edmonton public school teachers, were used to that lifestyle of working ottoman, an espresso in his lap. “They instilled in him a love of learning. He 100 hours a week. It was ingrained in the can be driven by profit, but also aim did school work at home that was medical training, like boot camp. You did for social goals at the same time.” three grades ahead and completed the your call, and it’s just what you did. There Almost two years after the London International Baccalaureate high school was no time to reflect,” says Muzyka. lecture and just under a year since he stream with the top mark in North Before and after hospital shifts, they’d and Zeschuk retired from BioWare, America, fourth in the world. As a result, burrow into Zeschuk’s basement to work Muzyka’s new headquarters is a room he could have skipped the first couple on new software. As their coding and in the basement of his south Edmonton of years of pre-med in university. But products got better, they incorporated home, plus a similar office in his second he preferred to take the undergraduate a company for their inventions. “We residence in Las Vegas. degree to give him more free time before didn’t put a lot of thought into it,” says His workspace is now occupied by entering medicine. Muzyka. “It didn’t occur to us that it cat trees instead of office water coolers. Muzyka’s interest in computers would be hard or that we’d fail. We just No more programmers, designers and began in Grade 7 at Kenilworth School did it.” They foresaw little impediment, artists — just Muzyka and his wife, Leona in Edmonton. One day after class, his other than capital. They needed enough De Boer, ’91 BSc(AgBus), a former math teacher, Carl Nishimura, ’63 BSc, to get their first game, , commercial banker. She admits it was ’65 BEd, ’71 Dip(Ed), ’72 MEd, said he a futuristic simulation on CD-ROM, initially a little bit weird having him wanted to show Muzyka something. to market. And the extra resources around the house all the time. “But it has Nishimura led him down the hall to needed to build BioWare would no worked out well,” she says. “We have this a small lab where the school kept an longer fit in a basement, so they each new endeavour to work on together.” Apple II computer. It looked like a TV pitched in more than $100,000 to The endeavour, Threshold Impact, atop some boxes atop a typewriter. get the business off the ground. is an investment company the couple Nishimura handed him a text adventure Yip exited BioWare early on, to created after Muzyka left BioWare to game on cassette tape drive. The first practise medicine full time. Muzyka fund social enterprise startups that strive three times Muzyka tried loading it, the and Zeschuk both sustained dual simultaneously for profit and social tape squealed and the screen flashed careers because they enjoyed medicine, good. Muzyka is also partnering with the “ERROR!” but Nishimura told him to keep especially emergency medicine for Ray U of A to help develop a new program trying. Finally, it loaded. “I was instantly and geriatric care for Greg. Muzyka that supports entrepreneurial ventures hooked,” Muzyka says. continued working as a general by students and alumni, the University Years later, in 1992, Nishimura would practitioner and filling in at emergency of Alberta Venture Mentoring Service. read in a newspaper that Muzyka and rooms in northern Alberta part time, “Entrepreneurs can change the world in two young medical students, Zeschuk usually on weekends, and dedicated the a meaningful way,” he says in his firm and Augustine Yip, ’90 BMedSc, ’92 rest of his life to BioWare. Somehow, and measured manner. “They can dream MD, had created a medical education he and Zeschuk also both squeezed in and imagine, they can work at problems software program (hence, the name executive MBAs at the Ivey School of from different angles and they can create BioWare) and sold it to the University of Business at Western University (Muzyka, enduring change.” Alberta. It didn’t surprise him. “[Muzyka] 2001) and Queen’s University in Ontario

18 newtrail.ualberta.ca (Zeschuk, 2004). “It was like my career He and De Boer have quietly supported and have donated repeatedly to multiple became my hobby,” Muzyka says. various animal-related charities, health and educational organizations While Muzyka says his career including recently adopting a black over the years, including the Royal changes have been largely “gut rhino in Botswana, leading the purchase Alexandra Hospital, the Stollery decisions,” he also prides himself on of 100 hectares of orangutan rainforest Children’s Health Foundation, the knowing when it’s time to make the sanctuary in Borneo, and funding the University of Alberta and the Red Cross. leap and not look back. By 1998, when development of the Sapphire & Webster BioWare released Baldur’s Gate, which Muzyka Cat Wing at the Edmonton RISE OF ‘THE HIVE BRAIN’ PC Gamer magazine called “every role- Humane Society, named after two of Zeschuk says although he and Muzyka playing gamer’s dream,” Muzyka was their deceased cats. They also focus on are very different people, spending 20 beginning to realize he could no longer philanthropy in health and education, years working together, often in the sustain dual careers. “I couldn’t give full- time medical practice the attention it was due.” He stopped practising entirely in 2001 during his MBA to focus fully on BioWare, though he continues to VMS Offers the Alumni Advantage maintain his medical licence to this day. In many ways, Muzyka and Zeschuk Lister Hall residences are the scene of a and other young grads,” says Sean Price, were the general practitioners of fair amount of matchmaking, so it was ’95 BCom, associate vice-president of BioWare. They knew enough about the perfect place to pilot the university’s Alumni Relations, the office that oversees programming, story narrative and Venture Mentoring Service. In December VMS. “They appreciate the opportunity ludology (game studies) to help navigate 2013, 10 fledging entrepreneurs entered to provide advice and give back, because each product to the shelf. Medicine also a room with twice as many seasoned they were all there once struggling with prepared Muzyka to cope with things business people for a speed-dating of the same questions.” that went wrong in the boardroom: as sorts — the would-be entrepreneurs were VMS chair and angel investor Ray a doctor, he roved around northern courting the veterans for advice. Muzyka, ’90 BMedSc, ’92 MD, knows Alberta hospitals — usually when the The proteges’ backgrounds were how welcome good advice can be. When local doctor was on vacation — and dealt as diverse as biotechnology, gaming he co-founded the gaming company with matters both urgent and mundane. and e-commerce. The volunteer BioWare at 25, opportunities like VMS “Nothing fazes him,” says his wife, De mentors were equally varied — experts were wishful thinking. “There’s a lot of Boer. “Unless our cats get sick. Then I in marketing, investing, law and great entrepreneurial mentorship and have to take the lead.” more, with more than 30 past and support now available that wasn’t there De Boer met Muzyka in 1998. She was present startups among them. when we started BioWare,” says Muzyka, a senior banker with TD Waterhouse, in Aside from an appetite for who is also a VMS mentor and is helping charge of a wide array of commercial entrepreneurship, the only common recruit others, including Fountain Tire accounts, which, thanks to Baldur’s ground was their alma mater: the chair Brian Hesje, ’69 BEd, ’73 MBA, and Gate, now included BioWare. She University of Alberta. Investopedia co-founder Cory Janssen, remembers Muzyka then, as he is now, as The U of A Venture Mentoring ’04 BCom. “It’s incredibly powerful to new exceptionally smart and very serious. Well Service, or VMS, is based on a program entrepreneurs to bring mentors together over six feet tall, he has a broad frame, of the same name at the Massachusetts to say, ‘It’s OK to make mistakes provided an analytical mind and a professional Institute of Technology, which has you learn from them. And we’re here as poker face. “He can be intimidating,” spawned more than 40 iterations mentors to help you.’” she says, “but I don’t think all people around the globe. U of A students and Muzyka stresses that the focus of realize how incredibly soft-hearted he is.” alumni with ideas for ventures of some the program is on building individuals Especially when it comes to both human sort — whether for-profit, not-for-profit and their entrepreneurial abilities, not social issues and environmental issues, or social enterprise — are matched with necessarily on building companies. If the including animal rights. a team of mentors. Through regular ventures fail — as many startups do — the Muzyka, a pescetarian, once stopped meetings, the mentors offer guidance and creators ideally will have learned skills a BioWare employee from flushing advice. The U of A’s program is open to that will help make their next pursuit an loaches — earthworm-like fish — down both current students and alumni. enduring passion. the toilet. After saving them, he kept “Alumni just love working with students Learn more at ualberta.ca/vms. them alive in his office for 15 years, well past their normal lifespan of five years.

new trail spring 2014 19 same room (“until two years ago, I spent empire. Impressed by the company’s two expanded into seven other cities: more time with Ray than my wife”), role-playing game franchises, Baldur’s Montreal, Austin, Texas, Fairfax, Va., has harmonized their characteristics. Gate and , LucasArts Sacramento, Calif., San Francisco, Los BioWare and other video game industry asked this upstart company, founded by Angeles and Galway, Ireland. colleagues nicknamed the partners the three MDs in a snowy Canadian city, to Muzyka stayed on as general manager Hive Brain because they’d often finish create the next game. and CEO of BioWare, overseeing its eight each other’s thoughts and sentences. But Star Wars: Knights of the studio locations. At each one, he was In his retirement blog, Muzyka Old Republic was just the beginning. responsible for spreading the creative acknowledged the importance of this Critically acclaimed upon its 2003 and professional culture that he and partnership in their success. “I could not release, it won Game of the Year from Zeschuk had established at home. This imagine navigating the past two decades the Game Developers Choice Awards. In was based, Muzyka says, on the “core successfully without Greg’s wisdom 2005, BioWare merged with Pandemic values of quality in our products, quality and counsel, his keen insights and his Studios, an independent developer in in our workplace, entrepreneurship, in a ability to see problems from a completely California, received significant private context of humility and integrity.” different perspective,” he wrote. equity financing from Elevation Partners Flynn was thankful for these values “They play well to each other,” says and released another success, Jade when he had to deliver the worst news Aaryn Flynn, ’96 BSc(Hons), ’00 Empire. Then came its 2007 masterpiece, of his career to Muzyka — that Mass BSc(SpecCert), general manager in Mass Effect. Set in the year 2183, the Effect 3 would have to be delayed by BioWare’s Edmonton studio, who took game put the fate of the Milky Way, no several months past its December 2011 release date, missing the industry’s blockbuster season. “How come?” asked Muzyka. “The quality’s not there, Ray. Too At BioWare, I was helping the world in a many bugs and too much to do,” Flynn different way, bringing people emotional recalls saying. “Have we explored every option?” engagement and happiness through story-based They had. Muzyka calmly asked that games. This new chapter is about trying to provide they sleep on it and decide on a plan the next day, which they did. a different kind of support and help.” Flynn was impressed by Muzyka’s response, but not surprised. “As a doctor, he’s had his hands in people. … You realize this isn’t life or death. At least you’re not dealing with someone’s eye hanging out.” over Muzyka’s duties for Edmonton and less, in the hands of players, who took “Humility,” reflects Muzyka, “is about Montreal after he retired. the role of Commander Shepard to admitting one’s mistakes and moving on.” Flynn was hired at BioWare as a protect all organic life from synthetic junior tools programmer a month before enemies. The New York Times named ‘JUST STRIVE’ writing his finals for his U of A degree. it Game of the Year. IGN, a gaming site Muzyka has always been a self-directed He vividly remembers the job interview with 40 million readers, declared it “a learner. In addition to gaming, he with Muzyka and Zeschuk and a couple new high mark for storytelling in games.” has taught himself to play top-level of other seniors from the growing That’s when Electronic Arts, the poker in Vegas and to shoot near- company. “Ray said something to me that world’s fourth biggest game company, professional photography. He can also has stuck ever since,” recalls Flynn. “He came calling, a dozen years after wax poetic about a cigar and wine, said, ‘You could do anything you want BioWare had launched its first game. its origin and its gastronomic notes. here. Everybody has this chance. And The $860-million deal with Electronic He doesn’t dabble in his passions; you can go as far as you want here.’ ” Arts in 2008 took seven months to he obsesses. As long as he has time How true those words became finalize. Muzyka and Zeschuk ensured to master something, he will. That’s when, later that year, BioWare got its that BioWare remained anchored in why he’s still putting off astronomy: biggest contract to that date. It came their hometown and that employees not enough time to do it seriously. from LucasArts, the games division would have a chance to thrive. Indeed, Travelling the world — from Botswana of the multibillion-dollar Star Wars they did. From 2007 to 2012, BioWare to Ecuador, Borneo to Antarctica,

20 newtrail.ualberta.ca sometimes for weeks at a time — also delivery service SPUD.com (Sustainable Muzyka is excited to be a part became a passion for Muzyka and De Produce, Urban Delivery); Lenddo, a of this entrepreneurial “ecosystem.” Boer. Their travels helped bring Muzyka microfinancing organization operating He’s also excited to share his good close to the many problems plaguing in the developing world that helps fortune and experience with other the planet, and he was searching for people who are working to develop a entrepreneurs through the U of A’s ways to make social change. His work new credit history and build banking Venture Mentoring Service, launched at BioWare had started to feel a little relationships to leverage their social last fall. The VMS volunteer program routine. And for Muzyka, routine is media reputations to obtain a loan; pairs successful alumni of varied antithetical to his belief in the Taoist and Basis Science, which produces entrepreneurial backgrounds with philosophy of self-improvement. His health-focused wearable technology. alumni and students looking for goal, whether in joining medical school (In March, Intel acquired Basis for an guidance. Each fledgling entrepreneur is or launching a gaming company, is undisclosed price.) Since October 2012, paired with several mentors to assist in simple: strive to be better than he was Muzyka has vetted some 200 startups pitching, fundraising, human resources, the day before. “Don’t seek an outcome,” through Threshold Impact. While he marketing, leadership or whatever he says, “just strive.” vets candidates for passion, humility, daunting skill they’re lacking. As chair The question, though, was strive creativity, leadership and business and of the program, Muzyka helped select toward what? finance fundamentals, his wife, De Boer, the first 15 entrepreneurs and the “I was wondering, what am I looks primarily at the finances. “I tend to first 30 mentors — including, of course, passionate about? What am I most be more conservative in our investment Zeschuk. [More on VMS, page 19.] interested in?” He thought back to his approach,” she says. Ashlyn Bernier, ’06 BSc, ’11 PhD, ’13 Hippocratic oath, to the self-discovery It’s too early to say what Threshold MBA, manager of the Venture Mentoring made possible through his games, to the Impact will grow to be. Education, Service, got to know Muzyka as they rush of his entrepreneurial days. The health care, social and animal rights, worked on the VMS pilot program. “Ray answer lay where all of these overlapped. the environment, entrepreneurial is surprisingly humble, considering his Not long after the 2011 lecture in mentorship, information technology and accomplishments,” Bernier says. “He’s London, Muzyka got to work on his medical innovations are all interesting going to be great as the champion of VMS.” resignation letter and an even more and important to Muzyka. For the The focus of the Venture Mentoring important letter for his colleagues. moment, he is “data gathering,” as Service — which is based on a program “I feel similar now to how I felt in he has been known to call the step at the Massachusetts Institute of the early days of BioWare,” he wrote in before deciding. He has also joined the Technology that has spawned some his retirement blog. “While I was still investment team as a venture adviser 40 incarnations around the world — is practising as an ER physician, back when at iNovia Capital, a North American less on the company and more on the I first realized that the world of video venture capital firm that funds new entrepreneur. It’s about building people. games was my next career ‘chapter.’ ” technology, which along with his And that, in a way, includes Muzyka, in This newest “third chapter” would be angel investing and mentorship with his ongoing quest for self-improvement. different and downright scary, he wrote, early-stage entrepreneurs has brought At just 45, Muzyka has had three but it “stems from the simple hope of him closer to the guts and glory of careers: doctor, game developer and helping the world to be a better place.” entrepreneurship he has missed since angel investor. Although each career Muzyka and Zeschuk would reunite leaving BioWare. is dramatically different, he can see once more before the game community, The startup world today is a lot how each chapter adds up to a single at the 2013 Game Developers Choice different from the one Muzyka and his story — that “simple hope” of helping Awards in San Francisco, where partners entered in the early ’90s, when make the world a better place. they were honoured with lifetime they had to max out their credit cards “In health care, you’re administering achievement awards. to get BioWare off the ground. Their medicine in a very personal way. At By then, Zeschuk had launched first office was so rundown that they’d BioWare, I was helping the world in a his web series, The Beer Diaries. And start the computers in a particular order different way, bringing people emotional Muzyka had found Threshold Impact’s every morning so as not to perturb the engagement and happiness through first investment: NPO Zero, a for-profit faulty electrical wiring. Today, even story-based games. This new chapter is venture that offers services such as in a modest city like Edmonton, there about trying to provide a different kind marketing and accounting to non-profits is a community of venture capitalists, of support and help.” so they can focus on their philanthropic entrepreneurs, incubators and co-work Will it be his last chapter? “I hope not,” efforts. Other Threshold Impact spaces, and multiple organizations to he says. “There’s still room for one or investments include the organic food help new companies. two more.”

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