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Disney Closes LucasArts
An anonymous reader sends news that Disney is closing LucasArts. The game studio has been around since 1982, and brought us classics such as Labyrinth, The Secret of Monkey Island, X-Wing, TIE Fighter, and Star Wars: Battlefront. They also published Star Wars: Galaxies, Knights of the Old Republic, and Star Wars: The Old Republic. The company held a meeting today informing employees of the layoffs. "In some ways, the news is not a surprise. LucasArts had seemed directionless in recent years. The company's core business of games based on the Star Wars license have been largely disappointing in both quality and sales. While the company had some success with games like Star Wars: The Force Unleashed and the Battlefront series, both of those franchises seemed to have died on the vine. The cancellation of Star Wars Battlefront III was particularly ugly, which led to nasty public fingerpointing between LucasArts and developer Free Radical. ... LucasArt's other big franchise, Indiana Jones, has failed to make much of a dent in games in recent years, with the exception of Traveller's Tales LEGO Indiana Jones series that, once again, was not developed by LucasArts. Meanwhile, series like Uncharted and Tomb Raider, which are both heavily influenced by the Indiana Jones films, have thrived." If only they hadn't abandoned the X-Wing series of games. I would have bought a new one of those in a heartbeat. Update: 04/04 18:09 GMT by T : Dice.com's news service (Dice.com is the corporate parent of Slashdot) mentions one small silver lining for those employees who stuck it out to the end: the best kind of parting gift. "Soon after the acquisition, a number of people departed LucasArts, deciding the time was right to head out in search of a new job. Many others remained, encouraged to hang on as long as they could by talk of generous severance packages. Sources among those laid off say the packages were, indeed, generous."
Noooo!
I am a subscriber. Will the servers shutdown?
http://saveie6.com/
It's now a redundant (meaning duplicated) department. This does not mean the games will stop, it means that they will be made by Disney.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
When there's fingerpointing and one of the two dies suddenly...
the other guy wins, right?
Finger pointing followed by death usually implies force lightning.
"I zero-index my hamsters" - Willtor (147206)
No mention of Grim Fandango in the list of classics?
Now other developers can buy into the star wars license and make good games without the license holder holding back out of fear of competition. Waiting for someone to license and start production on a good star wars mmo.
Disagreeing with you does not make me a troll.
IIRC, there's this classic Loom.
They should outsource to Rockstar Games. GTA set in a Star Wars universe could be fun.
I would have paid full price in a heartbeat for a new X-Wing series and a season Pass for the first 4 major DLCs.
What a cash cow that could be - selling E-Wings or Pirate Frankenfighters for .99 and eventually tying everything back to an MMO. LucasArts should never have ignored the fan's outcry for the past decade for a new reboot of that series on modern desktops.
I would just hope they would make sure not to piece it up too badly, as many games are these days... but the X-Wing series would have been a natural for the trend. Major DLC to add new missions and fleets would be a no-brainer.
That sad day came a long time ago.
LucasArts has not done anything that great in a long time. I guess at least we can hope TellTale can get most of the franchises.
That way I can always shoot first.
Regarding Star Wars titles, Knights of the Old Republic was great, part 2 was clearly rushed and unfinished, but still very enjoyable. Somebody (not EA) should put some effort into a part 3 (and not involve EA in any way whatsoever) and I'd buy that! (Did I mention I wouldn't buy it if EA had anything to do with it?)
I think Freespace 2 still has a pretty active modding community.
Apparently wizard is not a legitimate career path, so I chose programmer instead.
LucasArts hasn't *created* anything in nearly a decade. It's been a licensing wing of Lucas for years, and Disney's being financially smart to roll it into their other licenses. However, it's a strong name in the gaming industry for a reason, and for historical reasons, they'd have done better to keep the name while rolling it into another division.
All kings is mostly rapscallions. -Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
I am going to take business advice from a person who can't actually read and hasn't got a clue about the company he is talking about?
For your information, Lucasarts THRIVED when it developed games internally, it was when they outsourced development that the rot set in. So... the history of Lucasarts 100% invalidates your rant and proofs you are a silly person nobody should listen too.
You must be a Romney voter because logic just doesn't exist for you does it? It is generally accepted that first party titles for consoles are the must haves, the once of most reliable high quality.
You can spot the downfall of Lucasarts when during the opening graphics of X-Wing vs Tie-Fighter between the iconic logo's, there was a silly little bi-plane animation of a the 3rd party studio that got involved. And while the game offered some intresting new features, it just couldn't hold a candle to the solid quality of its ancestors. Some more disasters followed until the company was reduced to ordering totally unrelated companies to produce mods for other peoples games.
Inhouse = Solid quality and must buy titles each and everyone of them
Outsourced = meh
You might make fun of government employees, while you pay a fortune to save the privately run industries like the car and banking industries saying Romney was cheated because people like the editors of financial news papers just didn't get his policies and recommended right wingers vote for a left wing black guy.
Oh and to get back on topic, the only GOOD Disney game, was an inhouse title as well, Stunt Island. Google it, it was amazing for its time and is still unique.
In reality, in house means putting the interest of the company, YOUR company first and the intrests of your company are the customers. For 3rd party developers, the customer is the publisher NOT the plebs in the shops.
Just see what happened to Bioware when it stopped being a publisher and had to dance to EA's tune instead of listening to customers.
Hell, all the most respected studio's are those who develop their own games. Unreal, Id, Blizzard etc etc. It is the publishing houses and their slave companies that everyone looks down upon.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Well, Knights of the Old Republic was a RPG using a modified version of the D&D 2nd edition rule set, not an action-adventure game. And since Rockstar is known for their sandbox games, and KOTOR wasn't even slightly sandbox in style, with planets roughly the size of a high school gymnasium, I'd say the similarities between KOTOR and the GTA games are pretty much limited to the fact that they're both third-person 3D.
Also, since Rockstar doesn't generally produce RPGs, they wouldn't be my first choice to reboot the series.
Sean Daugherty "I have walked in Eternity -- and Eternity weeps."