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LucasArts Restructures, Moves More Development Off-Site

Posted by simoniker on from the gunganned-down dept.

Thanks to LucasArts for its press release indicating a significant restructuring of the company's internal development teams. It's explained that "31 people from the development studio were laid off as the company will be concentrating on fewer titles", and GameSpot has further details, noting "the publisher has farmed out development on its as-yet-untitled Episode III game to [recent Indiana Jones developers] The Collective", and "an informed industry source said the team attached to the early stages of development on Knights of the Old Republic 3 was let go in yesterday's layoff." We previously reported on earlier layoffs at LucasArts in April.

3 of 20 comments (clear)

  1. Fewer titles? by mbourgon · · Score: 5, Insightful
    I had to do a double-take on this quote.
    31 people from the development studio were laid off as the company will be concentrating on fewer titles.

    Fewer? Fewer?! Fewer??!?!?!

    Hell, pretty soon I'll be working on more titles than they are. And I don't.
    --
    "Sometimes a woman is a kind of religion, she can save your soul & set you free from all your sins" - Bad Examples
  2. Loss of talent... by dmayle · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It must have Jar-Jar, because people don't seem to want to work at LucasArts any more. They lost Tim Schafer, noted for "work on Day of The Tentacle, Full Throttle, and Grim Fandango" who's currently doing work on Psychonauts. (I'm eagerly anticipating this.)

    I'm of the opinion that LusArts ditched what they were good at so they could try to milk the Star Wars franchise. Whatever happened to DOTT, and Loom, and Full Throttle? I used to eagerly await LucasArts new releases, and nowadays it's YASWG (Yet Another Star Wars Game)...

  3. Death of Lucasarts years ago by MemoryDragon · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I think LA has been creatively dead for almost 10 years now. Face it, the best people left the company around the mid nineties. The once creative company just put out one garbage star wars game after the other. The spark of creativity which once kept this company running was lost back then.

    They tried to revive older franchises with mediocre sequels instead of getting the old peopled on board (monkey island) and the only good game in the last years was done by the ex Black Isle division which has reformed under another name (Obsidian)

    I think the doom of this company was the day when Tim Schaefer and others left the company. The final nail onto the coffin was the day they decided to focus on mediocre Star Wars games. (The ones which came out after X-Wing and Tie Fighter, which were both excellent)