Slashdot Mirror
LucasArts Aims for #1
The New York Times has an interesting profile of LucasArts, the game development house attached to George Lucas' company. They discuss some challenges with being so closely associated with Star Wars, and detail their role in the Lucasfilm company as a whole. From the article: "[Ward's] most challenging days may be ahead. The videogame industry has been in the doldrums for months; video game sales are lagging as consumers wait to buy the next generation of consoles, including the PlayStation 3. And perhaps most important, Mr. Lucas has no plans to make any more 'Star Wars' movies. That means LucasArts will have to work that much harder to come up with ideas of its own. 'We are not the Star Wars game company,' said Micheline Chau, president of Lucasfilm. 'And Jim knows what he has to do.'"
Was it just me or did this article expertly side step Star Wars Galaxies?
... doesn't anyone else want to serve Admiral Thrawn as much as I do?
I know that Sony Online Entertainment are the developers for SWG but I'm also interested in what the president of the licensing company has to say about that game. Actually, I'd like to see him interviewed in an "Ask Slashdot" much like John Smedley was a while back.
Among the questions I'd like to ask him would be:
How would you describe the decision making process that has gone into designing SWG?
Do you think that SWG is drawing nearer and nearer to a "true Star Wars Experience" or moving away from it? How? Give examples.
Do you expect to be a top five video game competitor with no MMORPG out and available? They seem to generate a lot of revenue compared to classic console games. EA has the Sims franchise while Microsoft generates Xbox Live monthly revenue.
What are your favorite and least favorite aspects of working with George Lucas?
--
I'm not sure why this article accents the fact that no more Star Wars movies are coming out. They've made quite a few off IV, V & VI--one would think they could make just as many off of I, II & III along with the coming TV series. And don't forget the expanded universe that the literature written would provide
My work here is dung.
But we'll kill a finished Sam & Max game in a second! They would do better to stop just releasing Star Wars games and little else if they want to change that perception. It's too bad most of their adventure gaming people have moved on to places like Telltale.
They might be aiming for #1, but lately all they've been producing is #2.
This guy's the limit!
Thank the gods of Kobol!
If they want to be #1, give us back the good-old 2D cartoon-style humor filled adventure games.
I never liked any of the star-wars themed games, but the adventures were fantastic.
No he doesn't. Jim needs to listen to his fan base.
Finish Sam and Max. Full Throttle 2. The next game in the X-Wing series. Tell SOE to go fuck themselves.
If you can't do it in-house, keep getting an outside development house to kick them out for you. No shame in that, as long as it's not SOE.
Update X-Wing and Tie Fighter.
Better graphics, online play, new missions.
Please, please, please!
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
Everything else has been Star Wars or Indiana Jones.
LucasArts used to be known for its Adventure games, but under Mr. Ward's leadership, they flushed that down the toilet in favor of more Star Wars. They got such bad press from the Sam and Max 2 cancellation that they removed the Press Release from their site. LucasArts can claim that the genre is dead, but when companies like The Adventure Company continue to make money off of them, it would appear that LucasArts is wrong.
The question is, will LucasArts put its money where its mouth is, or simply continue to be the Star Wars company?
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
Am I the only one who has wasted the last 15 years of my life for a sequel to Maniac Mansion and The Secret of Monkey Island?
Monkey Island 5
I loved all the Monkey Island adventure games.
I find it ironic that a year or two after they shut down work on the much-anticipated sequel to Sam & Max, they are now acknowledging they need original (read: "not Star Wars") titles. They laid off their staff, reorganized their business structure, and have been outsourcing games to other development houses for years. They wanted to only focus on the "lucrative" Star Wars market. Not the risky adventure games market that gave LucasArts their name in the early 90s.
Most of the original ideas in LucasArts (and before that Lucasfilm Games) came from a group of very talented adventure and action game designers. Lucasfilm Games was one of the first game companies to acknowledge that a game that doesn't try to kill your character at any turn -- or at all! -- can be much more enjoyable than when your character is in mortal danger at every step. The difference in enjoyment between Kings Quest and Monkey Island is immeasurable.. and not just because of this! The dialog was fresh. The puzzles were fun. The characters were fleshed out!
But those original ideas have long since gone as those designers have chosen to work on projects that have a hope of shipping.
You want original games again, LucasArts? Beg.. no.. plead for Tim Schafer (Day of the Tentacle, Full Throttle), Ron Gilbert (Monkey Island), and Steve Purcell (Sam & Max) to work for you again. Reconstitute the teams you used to have but neglected. Put these people in charge of the company. In no time you'd be pumping out original, funny, and interesting games that spoke to the heart of your frustrated fan base.
What if you can't come up with any more original ideas? Well, if you've got game material rights already, and they aren't Star Wars, or they haven't been milked to death as that already, do they count?:
* Bring back the X-Wing and TIE Fighter series, which was the best flight sim series I ever played. It was also the only Star Wars game I ever enjoyed. Update it for new graphics hardware and don't tie it to a Microsoft gaming service (anyone remember MS Zone? exactly.).
* Resuscitate all of your old titles so they can be played on new handheld hardware like the Nintendo DS. Use the DS's multiplayer to stage X-Wing battles on WFC or just over the local multiplayer features.
* Dust off Sam & Max 2, finish it, and ship it.
* Do a Monkey Island movie -- wait! Disney's already doing it. It's called Pirates of the Caribbean 2. MI fans: take one look at the voodoo scene from the PotC 2 and tell me it doesn't look like the outside of the International House of Mojo in MI2. (Oh, and Johnny Depp would've made a great Guybrush Threepwood.)
* Above all, don't let faithful sequels to these games die by stringently holding onto the rights and keeping other interested companies in moving the stories forward.
I haven't bought a lucasarts game in a long time. The last was the last Monkey Island game. Yes, it is true I enjoy adventure games, but I'm not a person who is stuck in the era of adventure gaming. I buy games with entertaining stories and compelling gameplay...things like Half-Life 2, Psychonauts, and even FEAR. But lucasarts has been shoveling games that lack the creativity that their earlier games had. Adventure games are somewhat unpopular now when compared to action games, however I expected LucasArts to lead the industry in finding the balance of good storytelling, deep puzzle solving that requires real thought, and the feeling of having wide open options, even if its an illusion. I had hoped LucasArts would take adventure gaming to the next level. Sadly, they abandoned the challenge as being nonprofitable and moved on. Its better to mimic others and make money than make unique games and lose money because you have trouble with marketing.
I think there is a space for someone to revitalize adventure gaming. Many have tried, and have really only created 3D interfaces to the classic sierra-style adventure game, and mixed in elements of Myst. There have been some japanese games that successfully mixed classic adventure gaming style with cutting edge 3D graphics, but not LucasArts.
And perhaps most important, Mr. Lucas has no plans to make any more 'Star Wars' movies.
So nobody's told LucasArts about the upcoming TV series? I'm sure something based on that will be thrown at us when the time comes.
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
That they are not a "Star Wars" game company. God knows that nobody is interested in Star Wars anymore.
Lucas Arts has made some pretty interesting and innovative games in the past, like Grim Fandango and Full Throttle. I wish they would bring back some of the talent behind those games, and ACTUALLY produce a non Star Wars game, then at least that statement wouldn't be moronic.
Anything to do with Lucas-X these days is so wrapped up in Star Wars, George needs some therapy because he can't let it go. A Star Wars television series? Endless tie in games and merchandising products?
When does someones obsession and love of something turn into a reason to go to the loony bin, I think George has long since passed that point.
Lucasarts will have to pull some gems out of their asses if they hope to ride out the current downturn in video games. We are nearing another video game drought, like back in the 80's with the Atari. Game are just not inventive and innovative anymore. Video gaming bottomed out in the 80's because Atari kept pumping out the same old tired titles. Stick figures bouncing around on a static screen with two bit sound effects. People got tired of essentially playing the same game back in the 80's.
People are getting tired of essentially playing the same game, now, in 2006. Quake 4, Doom 3, HL2, Star Wars: Whatever. MMORPGs that go no where. I actually think ALL next gen game consoles will bomb and the Xbox360 is off to a good start (for bombing that is).
Game companies have grown too complacent and used to the idea that by spinning off another game based on a successful franchise, your going to make millions in profit. Every MAJOR game developer currently is working on a SEQUEL. Smaller game developers are simply cloning big game franchise and offering some moderate twists and variations of a theme.
People are getting tired of the same old.
So, hopefully Lucasarts will find some new novel and innovative theme to focus on (not obsess over) and come out with some NEW gaming franchises. Until that happens, it is laughable to think that LucasArts ISN'T a Star Wars crap factory.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
Bring this skeleton back!
1) We have rumours being bandied about that SOE is going to lose the SWG license.
2) We have a massive shakeup in the Sony Online world - including Raph Koster leaving to head up a _new game studio_.
3) And, at the same time, we have BioWare announcing that they have opened a new division in Austion to produce what? A brand new MMORPG.
BioWare is now, as the above press release shows, hiring for all positions and already has one previous Sony Online Entertainment executive producer on the payroll. BioWare also mentions their highly successful games with SW: KOTOR being the first one mentioned in the list.
Now, let us take #1+#2+#3 and mix in all the other miscellaneous tidbits of information and supposition, stir well with the spoon of "what if" and ... VOILA! You have the makings of a brand new Star Wars MMORPG on your hands. IS this what BioWare is keeping under wraps? *shrug* Who knows?
I, for one, would love to see some of the best parts of the original SWG (intricate crafting, non-combat roles being valued - dancer, etc., MULTIPLE professions being possible and varied, and several other parts) being implemented in a much more Star Wars style universe than what the CU and *gag* NGE did to Sony's bastardization of Star Wars.
Dream as if you'll live forever.
Live as if you'll die tomorrow.
~Anonymous~
Rescue on Fractalus II.
No, seriously.
There are 0x40000000 types of people: those who understand 32-bit IEEE 754 floating point, and those who don't.
1) We have rumours being bandied about that SOE is going to lose the SWG license.
Dream as if you'll live forever.
Live as if you'll die tomorrow.
~Anonymous~
"[Ward's] most challenging days may be ahead. The videogame industry has been in the doldrums for months; video game sales are lagging as consumers wait to buy the next generation of consoles, including the PlayStation 3.
This statement has made the rounds from CNN to MaximumPC to Slashdot to probably Fox News.
Video game sales have decreased in retail markets. This is not an industry crisis; it is a paradigm shift. What hasn't been decreasing are revenues in areas which here-to-fore did not exist. Steam is not making less money than it did in 2000. People are willing to buy games online and download them. Even if CS:S turns your brain to mush and is addictive as sweet, sweet heroin. But, guess who didn't get a sale. Best Buy.
Another factor in Video Game sales is persistant subscription sales models. It is completely inexplicable that these people don't mention MMO profits. At 5 million subscriptions times $15/month each, and this warrants italics, Blizzard will make $900,000,000 [NINE HUNDRED MILLION] gross this year on WoW. That a nine, with 8 zeros behind it. That's a license to print money. And that's not counting EQ2, AO, DAoC, Eve, and others.
Yes, there is a slump in video game purchases right now. There aren't any must have games; everyone is waiting for X, Y, or Z. But THAT'S HOW IT'S ALWAYS BEEN. It's not the automobile industry; there's not a new model released every year. NES = 1985, SNES = 1992. Ish. What happened in the interum? A falloff of game sales. It goes in cycles. IT'S NORMAL. You know what happens when a Must Have Game comes out? People buy it.*
When you couple that with the fact that ONE IN 45 AMERICANS PLAYS WOW, you start to see what people are doing with their time. And most of the infants and nursing home patrons aren't playing. It's the coveted 18-34 demographic.
So, STFU & GBTW.
~W
*"Dragon Quest VIII was released in Japan in November 27, 2004 and sold more then three million units in its opening weekend. Shipments in North America have topped 430,000 since its release on November 17, 2005. European gamers can look forward to the game arriving in April." (Jan 30 2006). I have this game. It's great.
sig?
Nonetheless at one time they were a top game company producing quality titles that people fondly remember. Indiana and the Fate of Atlantis. X-wing. Monkey Island. Battle of Britain and Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe (not the crappy sequel).
Adventurs with a hint of flightsim seemed to be Lucasarts strong point.
Then things went a bit amiss. We got some weird strategy titles, "afterlife". A crappy FMV star wars game.
They also handycapped existing games. Was it Monkey Island 3 or 4 that had that weird 3d control system that made it pain just to walk around all because Lucasarts thought point&click was death? Point&Click didn't die. Mr Lucas killed it.
The x-wing series in my eyes went down hill as well after tie-fighter by turning it more and more into a missle sim instead of a dogfighting sim. They even add chaff for crying out loud.
Games like Jedi Knight were okay but again they seemed determined to destroy their own success. The first time it was a star wars skin for doom BUT it was Doom + Star Wars so that was okay. The second time they gave us an engine capable of creating the giantness that is Star Wars. Then the third time (not counting the expansion) they put is in a Quake engine. Yuck. Gone were the GIGANTIC enviroments.
To me lucasarts went from a A list company to another has been. Following Sierra but not entirely disappearing like MicroProse.
If this guy wants to be number 1 he needs to realise that once the company had that position, then find what made them loose it and reverse it.
Pity it would probably involve sacking himself.
For myself I pinpoint Lucasarts true declice the moment you started one of their games and got some third party game company logo during the intro. I believe it was in X-wing vs Tie-Fighter that this happened for the first time.
The current Empires at wars made me nostalgic for a x-wing upgrade. Gigantic space battles please. No missles. I want to duck and weave and blast ties and weave between star destroyers with artoo-detoo bleeping in my ear.
Will this happen? Offcourse not.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
These guys are working on a fan-made follow-up to LOOM, which was one of the most interesting games of it's (or any) time. They haven't released anything on this, so who knows if it'll be any good, but I like the idea.
If Lucasarts wants to be a top developer, they should probably be taking the hint from these guys, and building up it's portfolio of francises. It's kind of weird that they didn't, because as many here have pointed out, they had several excellent games, and most of the Star Wars games have been crap, especially the old ones.
Per ardua ad astra.
I cringe every time I see this phrase uttered in the media. It appears on Slashdot in every single story of this nature, and it is completely FALSE.
Game sales have been down for the whole of 2005 and 2004 was a declining year too. The decline is not tied in any way shape or form to the next gen systems. Take a look at the actuale sales numbers for 04 and 05, and 06 even. The solid titles have sold as they should and at the same rate as most other games of their type from years before. The problem is how few 1 million+ selling games have been made in recent time.
This statement that sales are down due to gamer anticipation has been proven false a number of times by a number of analysts. Let's stop clinging to this falsehood. Call a spade a spade, game sales are down because most everything made is derivative and shallow as well as so similar to the next game that demand is not there. The innovative titles are doing fine.
Nintendogs, Brain Trainer, Oblivion, Guitar Hero, etc. Marc Ecko's "Getting Up" is not... because it sucks ass... not because people are waiting to play Marc Ecko's "Getting Up, Again" in HD on Blu-Ray in their PS3.
http://teasphere.wordpress.com - A little spot of tea
Bring back Afterlife! That was the most amazing SimCity type game I've ever played! I still play it today, a decade later. It's no longer slow as hell to load on my dual Pentiums! In Afterlife, you play as the Demiurge of heaven and hell. You build an afterlife in the SimCity style, with 7 zones (1 for each deadly sin or blessed virtue). There's even a way to affect the planet; you can greatly influence the beliefs, virtues, and vices of an entire world. Imagine playing 2 games of connected SimCity simultaneously while laughing at the building descriptions, animated helper characters, and the terrific sense of humor of the game's designers (Love is never having to say 74% complete... LOADING). The PC version of this game is the 1 true canon here; the console versions were garbage in comparison. The mouse is a truly important element in controlling in any simulation type game.
Webmaster Wanted - Entropic Reactions
It's pretty sad when you leave a complete genre in the dirt in order to pursue a more generalized and clunky system for controlling characters. Adventure games weren't supposed to be platformers, or 3d fighting games, or any of the stuff that these companies tried to turn them into just before pulling the plug entirely, and then they wondered why all their legacy titles "new updated versions" didn't sell well.
Anyone that says that "point-and-click is dead" obviously never played the Sims...Which just happens to be a great selling title for EA and uses ALL point-and-click.
The fact remains that point-and-click, for 3rd person adventure games still remains probably the best method of control for a PC. Adventure games aren't supposed to be about navigating the environment in the same way as other games. The death of the quest for glory, kings quest, and indiana jones series were definitely when they stepped out of the genre of point and click, fun, light, mind adventures, into the world of 3rd person, poorly designed navigation. I actually still kind of liked the charm of QFG5's story despite the absolutely horrible controls and very cumbersome fight interface. They could've easily slapped on 3d engines to this relatively simple point-and-click model, but instead these companies tried to fit a stereotype and lost. The death of point and click adventures is something that is seriously tragic for PC gaming. And I believe it killed the reputations of both Sierra and Lucasarts.
Judges and senates have been bought for gold; Esteem and love were never to be sold.
The trouble with Adventure games is that they don't tend to be Million Sellers, instead, the good titles tend to have reliable sales in the 100,000-300,000 unit range.
In "The Escapist" Warren Spectre has been running a series of articles about problems he perceives in the gaming industry, and one of those is that there's now a huge funding gulf in the industry. You can do low budget titles ($10,000,000) and get funding, but its almost impossible to get mid-range titles funded (those in range of ($1-2million). Those numbers are production budgets BTW. Thus adventure titles fall right in the no-man's-land that's impossible to fund, a top notch adventure costing a couple million to produce, and then reliably netting two to ten times that number.
One of the things I find fascinating is that this problems is among the things Johnny L. Wilson (former editor in chief of CGW magazine) predicted in an editorial published in 1995. He was arguing it was one of the things we had to figure out how to avoid "now that gaming has gone mass market." As I see it, all of the things he warned against have in fact come to pass.
Oh, come on people! What's all this clamor for a new XvT or MI? We all know we're really looking for a new PipeDream title.
Prove it.
another indiana jones game with the same quality (but maybe more "2006") as fate of atlantis. that was one of the best games of all time imo... and that was a lucasarts game.
1. Grand Theft X-Wing
2. The Sims : Jedi Edition
3. Super Vader Kart
Sure, Windows PCs dominate the market. But so do cheap toupees.
These are the guys who right after (before?) Jim gave his interview with Game Informer about how Lucas Arts was now rededicated to bringing out Quality Games forced Obsidian to kick Knights of the Old Republic 2 out the door with the entire ending chopped off (much of it still buried away in the distribution!) and a severely disappointing half-assed ending tacked on.
And then of course there's Star Wars Galaxies but everyone's mentioned that. Lucas Arts is hardly the brown coffee stain of quality. They make crappy games that they hope the mass market will buy because of the Star Wars name. And occasionally a game that doesn't completely suck like Empires at War makes it out anyhow. Presumably because at least some of the developers have some pride and that didn't clash with the budget numbers.
I'd like to disagree.
MI3 was a most worthy game. I've played it through a few times now. I was hoping MI4 would be more of the same.
Monkey Island 4 was a dissapointment. The game did not need to be redone in 3D. There are other issues with the game, but the inability to easily navigate around the game soon got to me and I never really got into it. I'd still like to see a 2D version of MI4... and I hope they go 2D in MI5.
You have a sick, twisted mind. Please subscribe me to your newsletter.
Yikes! Don't sneak up on me like that!
I have been playing more adventures than ever lately...I hunt for point'n'click adventures in the style of Sam'n'Max hit the road, Monkey Island, Indiana Jones and the fate of Atlantis, Loom, Maniac Mansion, Day of the Tentacle, etc. Most of the better games of the genre are LucasArts games, and most successful point-n-click adventures innovations took place in the offices of LucasArts. I also liked X-Wing vs Tie Fighter and of course Dark Forces 1 & 2.
All of the above are old games...have I lost interest in Star Wars? yes, I have. As I grow up, the Star Wars universe seems more and more uninteresting, kiddy and plain ridiculus (mostly thanks to the recent movies). Have I got an interest in the gems of LucasArts? I absolutely have. I would buy Monkey Island 5, for example, the day it hit the shelves.
What does all the above mean? it means that LucasArts have forgotten how to make interesting games. And a lot of recent games are the same stuff we played last year, and the year before, only with better graphics and sound. It is not that there are not any good entertaining games any more; it is just the feeling of Deja Vu that maybe stops gamers like me (who are post college) who have the cash to buy new games and new consoles. And as I grow older, intellectual stimulation plays a far greater role than pretty graphics and immersive sound.
Another problem is journalism. Game reviewers are too forgiving these days. I will mention only one example of an overrated game: F.E.A.R. I have played the game carefully to the end. The game got an 8 (average) in most sites, magazines and game reviews. I would give it a 3. Absolutely boring game, totally repetitive; the horror thing seemed like something that did not belong there; there were no bosses, and the levels were 99% corridors. At times it felt like I was playing pacman in 3d. The weapons were totally uninteresting, and the plot was minimal.
Let's replace Lucas with an android. That way there will be more Star Wars movies, plus they might make sense (logic and all). Plus, robots hate George Lucas.
Seriously though, SWG could have been great, if SOE didn't completely suck at life. Crafting was cool, but it could have been much better. If people could actually make their own templates for schematics, rather than using mineral X to make part Y to put in slot Z the possibilities would be endless.
And starship combat could really be cool too. I can imagine a guild of say, 100 people whose main asset was their capital ship. There would be myriad stations and jobs to do to keep the ship working, operable and fighting. Solo players could have smaller ships, maybe invest in some automation, and go out on their own as merceneries, pilots-for-hire or bounty hunters, or simply explorers/adventurers.
I would love to see a good Star Wars MMO, and I'm sure many others of us who were disillusioned by SOE would give a BioWare version a try.