The first video game by BioWare, a Canadian video game developer, was Shattered Steel, a mech simulation action game released in 1996. The game was a modest success, but BioWare's second title, Baldur's Gate (1998), achieved overwhelming critical praise and defined the company's future direction. A role-playing video game (RPG) based on Dungeons & Dragons, Baldur's Gate sold more than two million copies and became the most successful Dungeons & Dragons game ever at the time. BioWare was given the opportunity to work on another popular intellectual property, Star Wars, when LucasArts approached them at the turn of the millennium. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic released first on Microsoft's Xbox video game console in 2003. While it was not BioWare's first console game, it helped the studio break into the console market since Microsoft Game Studios wanted to partner with them on console exclusive titles, such as Jade Empire (2005) and Mass Effect (2007). In October 2007, American publisher Electronic Arts (EA) announced that it had acquired BioWare. Under EA, BioWare established the fantasy RPG series Dragon Age and continued to release games in their science fiction RPG series Mass Effect. (Full list...)