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LucasArts Reduces Staff After Cancellations
cordsie writes "In a move that should come as a surprise to absolutely no one at this point, the once venerable LucasArts has laid off thirty of its staff. The brief article implies that the layoffs were due to the recent cancellation of the sequel to Sam and Max and the Full Throttle follow-up." S!: Ferrago has a story noting this reduces the LucasArts staff count "to about 389", still a significant number, and an earlier International House of Mojo story regarding the layoffs has a commenter alleging: "Among the people let go were... [the] Director of The Dig, Escape from Monkey Island and most recently Full Throttle 2... as well as both the Lead Engineer and Producer of the late Sam and Max 2 game."
... may the force be with you!
I can just imagine the board meeting:
"If it doesn't say 'Star Wars' in the title it won't make cash. Sack everyone who's not working on a Star Wars console game."
I am government man, come from the government. The government has sent me. -- G.I.R.
No offense but as soon as LucasArt steps out of the starwars zone, they are plain aweful.
Which brings back to the original statistics. What percentage of gamers nowadays are devoted starwars fan that'll buy anything starwars related. It's a much smaller percentage, now that the market is saturated with starwars garbage.
For a time, lucusarts was a pretty unique entity. Many development houses find themselves under the thumb of a publisher, but with the staff at lucasarts was the developer *and* publisher for many of their titles.
With Sam and Max and FT2 cancelled, coupled with the resignation of president Simon Jeffrey and the firing of the director of some of the great adventure titles, I have a sinking feeling I know what has happened. Lucasarts has decided to put all of its weight behind Star Wars Licensing. The suits have taken over: why make novel titles when you can put out a star wars game that will make way more money?
I'm not happy, they're not making X-Wing games anymore. KOTOR is all well and good but it's not the same genre. And don't get me started on all these console games! Ack!
I am government man, come from the government. The government has sent me. -- G.I.R.
No, it's the fact that there is nobody to balance out the idiocy of George Lucas. No Harrison Ford, no Lawrence Kasdan; nobody to keep him from going off the deep end with lame dialogue that even the best actors can't deliver without sounding wooden, and from destroying the flavor of why people loved Star Wars in the first place.
Among the people let go were... [the] Director of The Dig...
... I can't even find it on the Lucas Arts website (though, I have to admit I didn't try super hard). I have to admit it is hard to beleive they would make a sequel to a game that you can hardly even find on Google (although I have to admit I did play the game through completion when I got it 8 or 9 years ago).
Is this (or rather, _was_ this) the sequel to the 1995 DOS game "The Dig"? A quick search of this (the 1995) game on Google shows remarkably little
Sorry, but all the flight games after TIE Fighter were crappy at best... The only people making a Star Wars space flight sim right now is Sony Online, which makes me want to vomit.
KOTOR was great, and KOTOR2 will also likely be great (Obsidian has great talented people who are used to working with Bioware tech on new, spin-off, and sequel titles). KOTOR was almost enough to make me forget about how horrific the last few years have been for Star Wars in the movie theatres, but not enough to excuse how god awful those movie tie-in console games all are.
Lucas is such a commercial whore now.
XWing: Alliance was great! Same engine, solid storyline, and the first time you get to see a super-star destroyer. Not to mention that it had much better graphics on the same trustworthy engine.
Instead of continuing with this great and under-used engine, they decided to make Starfighter. Now Starfighter really sucked.
I am government man, come from the government. The government has sent me. -- G.I.R.
The firing of some of the most well-known adventure game producers from LucasArts should present some new opportunities. These producers can either start their own companies, or be hired by existing adventure game developers or publishers. LucasArts' loss is someone else's gain. Just you wait... Although they won't be allowed to make sequels to games that have rights belonging to LucasArts (or Sierra), I don't think some fresh gaming ideas and stories would hurt the industry (take Syberia for example). Let's stay positive... just think of this whole LucasArts and Sierra saga as corporate reshuffling and industry reshuffling. These talented individuals will find good work. They will continue to produce games that they love and be proud of.
What are sales figures for Lucas Arts' latest games? Was Monkey Island 4 unprofitable? I wish the were a boxofficemojo.com for games...
I beg to differ. Ewan McGregor, Christopher Lee, Samuel Jackson, Frank Oz and even Natalie Portman are all well established actors who have all delivered excellent performances.
Why then do the performances suck in the first two episodes? Because the script is bad and the direction is worse. The actors are fighting with blue screen (not MS) sets and Lucas really getting his hands in and asking for wooden dialog. He's choosing cuts with some of the worst performances. Why he does this is a complete mystery. If left to themselves, I am certain that the actors could turn that script into some real magic.
I am government man, come from the government. The government has sent me. -- G.I.R.
This is sooooo sad... this means LucasArts is dead. I mean, who cares about Yet Another Star Wars Franchise Game (tm), except for Star Wars fans ? It seems to me they've laid off all of the remaining creative people at LucasArts, the last hopes for good adventures are really dead. When Sam and Max 2 was cancelled there at least a very slim hope that they would finish it someday (the game was almost ready for RTM, AFAIK), but this move shows that LucasArts has no interest whatsoever to do something creative and unique...
Sigh, just look through their press releases section and see how many times they mention Star Wars. While they have had some really good Star Wars games, there are lots of low quality ones that counted on the Star Wars name to sell. I have seen some of these that despite their low scores, they managed to end selling enough copies to be re-released at a cheaper price though programs like Sony's "Greatest Hits" series.
And it looks like their innovation and originality dying even more, they recently announced Mercenaries which is a generic 3rd person military unit behind enemy lines preventing North Korea from releasing nukes. Gee, I wonder where they got that *brilliant* plot, who would have ever thought about one involving North Korea and nuclear weapons in this day and age?
Even with their recently released original titles things haven't been going well. I wonder if those who canned Sam & Max 2 were also responsible for giving RTX Red Rock and Wrath Unleashed the ok. Plus games like Gladius and Armed and Dangerous probably could have done better if they were given more time. Now it looks like Lucasarts is going to take the safe and easy route by releasing cliches and Star Wars titles.
I can understand the canceling of Full Throttle 2, it was not living up to the original(I recall some game magazines who got to play some of it were disappointed ) and they didn't want to disappoint the fans. But I can't really deal with their canceling of Sam & Max 2 when things seemed to be top quality. Even Steve Purcell thought it was good, and I trust him more then Lucasarts with how Lucasarts has been doing for the last few years.
I think it was about two years ago the company head was going on about how they were going to restore things back to Lucasarts past history of releasing high quality and original titles, and look at how *well* they have accomplished that. While the games were original, they did not have the old Lucasarts quality and game play wise were quite poor. They have pretty much failed at producing high quality original titles, their releasing anymore adventure games seems unlikely, and are pretty much producing just Star Wars games. Thus for now I have given up with Lucasarts, unless they under go through some drastic changes I don't see anything worth my while being released by them.
No offense but as soon as LucasArt steps out of the starwars zone, they are plain aweful.
I realize when trolling it's always best to throw in at least one typo to hook all the spelling nazi's but there's such a thing as pride in your work. By making such an obvious mistake, your trollish intent becomes clear. Far better to misspell using a homonym or some such whenever possible.
I mean, come on.. everybody knows it's "into" not "out of"
That Jesus Christ guy is getting some terrible lag... it took him 3 days to respawn! -NJ CoolBreeze
I would tend to agree, for no other reason than that the story is exceedingly simple in theme (like the Original Trilogy). And of course, that's one of the things that makes (or made, depending on who you ask) Star Wars great: the simple premise allowed for fantastically creative characters and settings while remaining accessable. Of course, it's accessability also stemmed from the fact that the dialog and acting in the Original Trilogy, for the most part, was fun and light-hearted.
The New Trilogy falls flat because it seems to be constantly aware of itself and all the actors appear to be amazingly self concious. I can almost hear them thinking "better not mess up this Star Wars movie!" while in the original, I can hear Luke yell "Carrie!" without batting an eye.
XWing: Alliance was great! Same engine, solid storyline, and the first time you get to see a super-star destroyer.
The SSD had previously appeared in Balance of Power, the X-Wing vs. Tie Fighter expansion disk.
X-Wing: Alliance was good, but it suffered from some tedious missions (most of the "family" stuff), as well as the usual X-Wing series "oops, you just played a half-hour mission and made a tiny mistake at the end, now you have to do it all over again" syndrome.
At least it wasn't as poorly balanced as the original... I never did get past the fourth mission of X-Wing without cheating.
So, with Lucasarts in decline does this mean that the adventure genre is in decline and on it's last legs? Are there still gamers out there that still demand games of an adventure genre or are they all console 3D gamers now?
I guess if the lead for Sam And Max got canned, then the protestors can fold their flag and go home.
I'm not surprised to see Lucasarts pulling their support from the adventure titles. They see it as a dead genre and want to focus more money and development on guaranteed sellers like Galaxies and Jedi Knight. I only wish they would realize how wrong they are.
Dear Sirs,
:)
:D
Please try to consider this an opportunity. We are loyal fans who love your games. It is sad to see the ones who made such amazing games as "the dig," "sam and max," and "full throttle," let go like this.
Your art, directing, and style are magnificent. Dont ever forget this.
The reason you were let go was because of shitty, poor management. You should be HAPPY to get away from these people.
Now, A request. Dont stop making games. We love your sense of humor, your writing abilities, and your direction. If you guys release another comedy adventure game WE WILL BUY IT.
In fact, Ive stopped buying lucasarts games recently due to the stagnation your old fuckhead management seems to love so much. So, what I'll do is spend that money on YOUR games instead.
Were waiting!
no
LucasArts can re-release "Rebel Assault" on DVD with a special preview of Episode 3.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
Aaarrgghh! You just reminded me that I have Loom laying around on 5 1/4" floppies, and I don't have a 5 1/4" drive anymore!
The sadness. Loom was probably my first introduction to adventure games (along with LSL1.)
If you're gonna count stuff lke Labyrinth:
Rescue on Fractalis: Also outstanding for the time
Eidolon: A little slow, but fun
Ballblazer: Absolutely fantastic! Too bad the souped-up Playstation version was not so hot...
Night Shift: Total pain in the ass, but a cute puzzle game.
"There are people who do not love their fellow human being, and I _hate_ people like that!" - Tom Lehrer
I can understand cancelling adventure games... while it's sad news, adventure game simply aren't being made anymore. To be the only company still investing in it could be 1) Disasterous if the game doesn't sell. 2) Awesome if the game sells well. Lucasarts adventure games, while drawing hardcore fans, were never their main source of income. Call it lack of marketing plus being risk averse.
What I can't understand is why they don't develope the X-Wing/TIE Fighter series more. They made Lucasarts lots back in their day, and gamers dating back from the 90s have been screaming for more. Plus it ties into the Star Wars franchise...
Any idea if X-Wing Alliance sold well? Or is Lawerence Holland just tired of the Star Wars scene in general?
I never thought about it like that before, but you're right. There was a casual attitude around Star Wars that made the actors very relaxed, you could tell, at least in the first movie, that they were all enjoying themselves. If you look at the Holiday special, you can see that they were also enjoying themselves there, with the aid of some crack, but then that's what fame does to a series.
I am government man, come from the government. The government has sent me. -- G.I.R.