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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.'"
They might be aiming for #1, but lately all they've been producing is #2.
This guy's the limit!
How would you describe the decision making process that has gone into designing SWG?
I'll take "What is a train wreck?" for $200, Alex
I agree. I would love to see a sequel for Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, or more monkey island games. 3D Action games get boring after a while.
A little off-topic, but I've realized one thing while playing Silent Hill 3: The textures are realistic, and the control is user-friendly. Why not make a detective game (Sherlock Holmes, Hercules Poirot?) with that engine? It would rock if you could interrogate suspects and examine items, etc.
Anyway my point is, we need more story / plot / brain in today's games. The Indy graphic adventures contained all of these elements, and this is why they succeeded.
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.