LucasArts Employees Hold Wake & Eulogy; Vader Still Roams

Dawn Kawamoto writes "LucasArts employees held a wake Friday night, days after Darth Vader Disney slayed their studio. Taking the high road, two LucasArts employees put together a eulogy that offers a retrospective on the culture, memories and accomplishments of the team. Most of us who've witnessed a blood bath at the workplace aren't as charitable. Darth Vader Disney is expected to strike again in the next two weeks at its studio and consumer product divisions."

Comments

I used to work at Disney World

[mark_reh]

about 30 years ago. It was the most degrading job I have ever had. Management treated employees like crap. Day one job training consisted of the boss showing you your locker and uniform, telling you to keep it clean and never take it out of the park, and do things the "Disney way" or get the hell out because there are 10 people lined up outside to take your job.

Re:I used to work at Disney World

[dadelbunts]

Well if working at Disney i would expect you to do things the "Disney way" or be canned. If i had employees i certainly would want them to do things the way i wanted and not however suited their fancy.

Re:I used to work at Disney World

[viperidaenz]

Oh no! you have to do what you're told when you're getting paid for it?
They don't let you steal uniforms either? No noes!

Re:I used to work at Disney World

[BitZtream]

I used to work at Disney too.

You're a whining bitch, to put it bluntly.

There is a REASON there are 10 people lined up outside to take your job, it is perhaps the best job you can find at a young age in central florida.

You should be doing it the Disney Way, the Disney Way makes their customers happy? Have you ever BEEN on a Disney vacation as an adult? You will not find a better service regardless of your tastes.

Yes, it was a shit job, as are all jobs for untrained/uneducated workers, like you know ... the majority of Disney's employees.

Working at Disney is no different than working at any unskilled labor position.

Disney doesn't want your dumb ass fucking up their image when you go do something fucking retarded like drink and drive, or go to jail for something and have a mug shot with their logo posted all over the news paper. If you can not understand why your uniform stayed on Disney property, you are indeed too stupid to deserve the job in the first place.

I don't recall the training being demeaning, nor has any of my friends ever mentioned the job as being demeaning in any way. We all have our stories about customers, but Disney is pretty much considered the cream of the crop places to work in the service industry. Any tipping position at the place gets more tips on average than outside of Disney. I could go on and on about how your statement is so unbelievably different from every other Disney employee I've ever known.

The only shitty part about working at Disney was that my dumb ass lived by the airport, which meant the drive was shitty on a good day with no traffic and using toll roads. On a bad day, with an accident or skipping the toll roads, that was shitty.

News at 11

[Eskarel]

Company which hasn't made anything of note in years shut down.

Seriously folks, LucasArts has made some of the greatest games I've ever played, but how long does that keep the lights on? It's not like the brand even has that much value anymore.

That eulogy

[OhANameWhatName]

Is self serving justification. "We sacrificied everything! We were so dedicated [sniff] it's not [sniff] [cry] FAAAIIIIRRR [sniff]"

The studio had the greatest franchise in the history of science fiction and failed. If the employees don't hold themselves responsible, I can see why it's been closed. Considering the epic failure of Kinect Starwars and the near complete disappointment of TOR .. it's pretty clear that LucasArts Studios has been on pump and dump for some years now. Thinking back, it's hard to recall a Star Wars game since X-Wing which has even come close to meeting expectations of the fans.

And I don't think you can blame the fans for having too high expectations. If TOR was even remotely like a an open ended MMO, people would have been glued to it like flies on shit. But despite the that being the only requirement .. well, the bar was too high. If the staff aren't the people responsible, who are?

I'd be the last person wanting to publicise my failure on a eulogy page, that's just flat out embarassing.

Re:That eulogy

[Opportunist]

You cannot milk a franchise forever, no matter how great it is.

What made the franchise great is that the way it started was new. And no, I'm not even talking about the FX. Yes, they were great. I'm old enough to remember what it was like to sit there in the cinema with people screaming (yes, screaming) at the opening of Episode IV. You know the scene? The Corvette flying overhead and everyone was "whoa, that's detailed, that's so real", and then that Star Destroyer coming in in pursuit... the audience did go wild.

The story was new, too. Before that, SciFi and magic didn't really mix. This was one of the first that catered to both audiences. You also had way more developed characters than was normal in SciFi back then. Sure, it was just a generic Percival theme, mixed with the old war hero that had some personal reasons to disappear into obscurity, the pirate-turned-hero and the young hero eventually saving the day, but the mix was right and novel at its time.

You also had characters that were more than one dimensional stereotypes. The heroes were not without flaws and the Evil (tm) had actually a reason to be evil. Not the usual "we want to destroy the earth just because, well, it's there" crap that was SciFi at the time.

From the 2013 point of view, nothing to write home about. In 1979, it sure was breathing new life into a stale genre. It can be said that it was the beginning of SciFi being more than flashy, gimmicky movies with little plot and storyline.

Sadly, with the new trilogy, they pretty much turned time back pre-1979. In the new trilogy, you have shallow, unbelievable characters who sometimes do things for no logical reason (not even any "human" reason) and plot holes big enough to send an armada of death stars through without them even coming close to their edges. Not to mention alienating the fanbase by tampering with the movies we grew up with and were fond of.

Seriously, movies 1-3 were nothing spectacular. Yes, they were quite watchable. They were decent, but nothing groundbreaking like the first trilogy. Based on those, there is simply no franchise to build. They don't come close to the status the first trilogy had. Not to mention that they really sometimes feel a lot like thinly veiled overlong ads for the merchandise. Seriously, am I the only one who thought Episode One was a too long ad for the podracer game?

What felled Lucasarts eventually was simply that they created an expectation they could not fulfill. The bar was put quite way up there with their original movies and games.

Re:Yeah...

[Anonymous Coward]

a friend of mine was always telling me I should get that job, because he thought it was the most magical place on earth and it must be wonderful working there.

Seriously the Cult of the Mouse is some scary shit. Makes Scientology look tame in comparison.

Mountains out of mole hills.

It isn't a cult, it isn't scary. Youre just a retard.

Disney is an empire and they do everything they can to protect its image because that's what Disney is, its an image. An image that earns them billions of dollars a year. And Disney world? You better believe they make sure everyone follows very strict guidelines because millions of families go through those parks each year all expecting to have a magical experience that the Disney name lends itself to.

Is mickey a cult? Don't be so melodramatic and idiotic. But youd be really stupid to think that they wont hold their employees to the same standards that's families have about Disney. A potato headed employee can much up a families vacation and ruin some childs image of it, so you better believe they expect you to behave. If you want a job where you don't have to treat the customers like they matter then go to walmart and shut up. No one forces anyone to work at Disney.

Re:Sierra's Chainsaw Monday

[rtb61]

It is all a result of those major movie studios never really understanding computer gaming and trying to buy up all those independent gaming studios to create the illusion of growing income within the expanding conglomerate (to inflate executive salaries and bonuses) only to find there is very little value in the old game titles that came with those independent gaming studios. The whole game publisher market with it's access to brick and mortar outlets is also coming under pressure with direct on-line sales in boxed format and digital sales.

Also foreign gaming is now coming in and unlike movie or TV content, if the gaming is good the language translation is fairly cheap and this is creating a new flood of content.

That old model of incompetent nepotism just buying up other companies and pretending that's revenue growth and management skill is falling apart. Why would Disney buy Lucas arts, only to shut it down, git rid of the competition? Those gaming licences just like media content licences have proven to be pretty much shit value because they just add enormous cost to new game development which often destroys the game before it gets out of the door for lack of playability. Cheaper to come up with a new 'theme' and a thin storey and focus on game play, which has proven to be far more profitable.