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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."
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?
Huh, that's a very misinformed or inaccurate viewpoint. Let's look at history:
Labyrinth: Outstanding game for its time
Monkey Island series (1 through 4): Great games, all of them
Sam and Max Hit the Road: Awesome game
Force Commander: Utter pants
Rogue Squadron: Godawful kindergarten shooter
Obi Wan: Terrible! Stop!
Starfighter: Fricken useless childish replacement for the older X-Wing/Tie Fighter games
I am government man, come from the government. The government has sent me. -- G.I.R.
Also:
Grim Fandango: Great
Maniac Mansion: Great
Loom: Great
The Dig: Great
So many great LucasArts adventure games. It came to a point that I'd almost buy any LucasArts adventure game without reading a single review (the same definitely cannot be said about Star Wars games).
From this point on, I think I must refuse to buy any more LucasArts games if they keep sacking all the good developers. It's going to kill me not playing KOTOR2, but I'm just so disgusted at LucasArts right now.
"However," replied the universe, "The fact has not created in me A sense of obligation."
No offense but as soon as LucasArt steps out of the starwars zone, they are plain aweful.
Lucasarts and Sierra were the two main developers advancing the adventure game genre for many years, and the list of best classic adventure games reads like a list of their titles. I'm not sure what non-Star Wars Lucasarts games you dislike so much, but I'm doubtful that you're thinking of their adventure games -- which FT2 and S&M2 would have been.
I can believe that Lucasarts published poor games at some point in time, but they have an extremely strong reputation in the adventure game arena. I do not know of any poor adventure games that they produced. Honestly, I cannot think of another game company that is as known for such long-term good leadership in their field. Perhaps id Software for FPS-style games.
Now, this doesn't mean that S&M2 and FT2 would have been good. It does, however, mean that any bias toward their new games based on their history should really be positive, not negative.
May we never see th
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
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