Disney Closes LucasArts

[bl4ckh4wk64]

God damnit, I thought if we elected Obama, the Chinese would somehow get the rights to Star Wars and keep it, and LucasArts, safe!
Sorry, South Park joke.

OT: I kinda saw this coming. Yeah, it's sad but I guess it allows for a whole new reset of a few of their games. I'm still hoping for both a Republic Commando 2 and a Battlefront 3.

 

[Scorpid]

Yeah proud enough to fire 150 of them I see. That said yeah I'm not too sad about losing LucasArts. The guys that made it great in the 90's had long since been sacked or moved on only to be replaced by nitwits that didn't know how to make a videogame.

CAPTCHA: Cut and Run
indeed it was CAPTACHA. Thanks for adding.

 

[Clive Howlitzer]

I want to get upset but Lucasarts hasn't done anything decent in over a decade. I could look at this as a mercy killing. It sucks about the job losses though.

 

[Nurb]

LucasArts has been sick for a while. It needed for us to just let it go.

Remember the good times, and know that with LucasArts games in your game library, they're never truely gone.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, dirige nos Domine Domine

 

[Carnagath]

Telltale Games! Can you hear me?!

Please, grab the IP rights to Grim Fandango! You know you want to. Now's your chance!

Nobody who isn't called Tim Schaffer can do Grim Fandango.

 

[grey_space]

It was time to put the old dog down.

Indeed.



I loved a lot of the old games, KOTOR is still a game I replay from time to time, and I wasted a lot of my life as a teenager on Tie Fighter. But sure what have they done lately? Do not mention that mutated mess of a kinect game to me.


I was looking forward to the remastered Monkey Island though. Here's hoping Disney lets some good indie developers (or indeed ANY developers) at some of the awesome titles in Lucas Arts stable.

 

[Ishigami]

It is kinda sad from a historic perspective. After all Lucas Arts was great with their adventures and their space action games such as Tie Fighter.
However as already mentioned their recent track record is not really note worthy.
I think it is still regrettable that their latest title in development StarWars 1313 will never see the light of day. It could have been a great opportunity to reclaim some of the old glory before leaving the stage. Not to mention it might have a nice recommendation for some of the employees that have to go now.
That is if it turned out good.

Well good bye Lucas Arts.

 

[LordLundar]

I'm neutral on this.

It sucks for the 15 people that were sacked, but consider this: LucasArts has only been focusing on SW titles for some time now and even with those it was more licensing out to other studios than making the titles themselves.

As well, Disney already has a game studio that actually does develop their own titles. LucasArts was more likely redundant than anything.

 

[Kyrian007]

They'd pretty much been just a licensing arm for a while (most of their well remembered games were developed by others) but still, this is sad enough. Some of my favorite games...

Ride into the sunset Lucasarts, we'll miss you.

 

[Darren716]

Good-bye Lucas Arts you created one of my favorite games of all time, Star Wars Battlefront 2 and it'll be a damn shame if we will never be able to see a third entry or one that lives up to the legacy of number 2. I hope all those who were laid off find new jobs quickly and that they have success in the future.

 

[FURY_007]

Ooooooooooh right in the child hood!

 

[Bat Vader]

Well, i hate Disney now. Star Wars 1313 looked like it could have been interesting and awesome but apparently Disney hates those two things. There goes any chances of ever getting a Battlefront 3. What about the Star Wars game Obsidian wants to make? Hopefully they are still able to make that.

I hope everyone that was let go is able to find work.

 

[Ishal]

Beat you to it by 8 minutes Andy. Don't worry, we can always go back and edit it to look like you posed first...

Anyways, as I said in t'other post, I wonder how this will affect TOR. I know EA were financing that, but I imagine as a Star Wars game, Lucasarts had a lot of control over it. Will Disney now be stepping in to fill that role?

I have to say, Disney do seem to have turned rather ruthless following the Lucasfilm purchase. The ink wasn't even dry, and they'd already announced a new trilogy of films. Then they announced that they were making additional spin-off films. And now they're shutting down the gaming division in order to minimise losses.

They certainly want to make their money back ASAP, rather than play the long game. Can't say it fills me with confidence...

I think Disney has a master plan for the Star Wars IP. Right now I would say they are consolidating the brand.

Call me crazy, but Star Wars hasn't exactly been dishing out quality products the past few years, and the best titles were developed outside Lucas Arts. KOTOR I & II etc. I think they want to wipe the slate clean and start building their own image and direction for the franchise.

Looks like Chris Avellone might be busy working on Tides of Numenera as well as project eternity if the guys at inxile bring him on board. So we might not get that obsidian game pitched to Disney for a while. I think thats ok, better to wait and see what happens. Its not all doom and gloom... yet..

 

[Soviet Heavy]

We might not be done yet, guys. 1313 could still be kicking.
http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2013/04/03/lucasarts-rep-says-star-wars-1313-might-be-saved.aspx

 

[Easton Dark]

Good-bye Lucas Arts you created one of my favorite games of all time, Star Wars Battlefront 2

Pandemic made Battlefront 2. They've been gone for a good while.

Lucas Arts has been doing pretty much nothing of note for the last decade.

 

[Kinitawowi]

Yeah, stopped caring about LucasArts after they stopped caring about the games of theirs that I actually enjoyed. I don't want another seven million Star Wars games, I want a new Sam And Max and a Grim Fandango movie.

So yeah. Great sympathy for the 150 more people on the jobless scrapheap, move all the adventuring properties to Telltale, get Ron Gilbert back in the boat to do that Monkey Island game he's had in his head since Revenge, make that Day Of The Tentacle sequel they've been promising for years, and goodbye to a company that was big in my formative years of gaming but I care significantly less about now.

 

[Ishal]

We might not be done yet, guys. 1313 could still be kicking.
http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2013/04/03/lucasarts-rep-says-star-wars-1313-might-be-saved.aspx

I think once Disney gets situated and comfortable piloting this new brand, we'll see some good (or at least interesting) stuff start coming down the line.

Who the hell knows about Battlefront or that first assault game, but I think 1313 will still be around. They'll get their shit together first, then see where the gaming industry is at and decide where to go from there.

 

[likalaruku]

Good thing TellTale bought the rights to Sam & Max & Monkey Island before the buyout. I hope Double Fine has the rights to Maniac Manson & Grim Fandango. Nothing disappointing Disney does surprises me.

 

[BabySinclair]

And if Disney wished to kill any goodwill they had with the fan base, this was a good way to do it. I know they haven't released a real game in a few years but there were two anticipated games in the works, 1313 and First Assault, and they knew that getting a BF3 game into market would be akin to printing money. What good Marvel games can I think of since they were purchased? None. What good do I think of handing their games away, especially since now EA can bid on making Star Wars games? None, and this fear will turn me towards the Dark Side.

 

[AzrealMaximillion]

god dammit Disney! why would you do this?

Because LucasArts has been creatively dead since 2006? All the while losing money? Sounds like good reasons to me. Why keep a company that for the most part, puts out constant below average efforts.

Name recognition. Poor creativity, poor product, and bad management isn't inherent in a company, it's caused by the management team. A take over by Disney removed Lucases direction at the very top, and with some more shakeup they could have turned it back into a decent developer.

Even development has managers within the company. We can't continue to blame publishers for every studio shut down. That LucasArts themselves did publish games so the onus is still on them for their reputation. They made good publishing decisions with the KOTOR games via Bioware.

In fact most of LucasArts' games were them publishing the game or them developing AND publishing. So no, I can't blame faceless management teams for the mediocrity that came out of LucasArts for the most part. That's a cop out way of not putting responsibility on the management team of LucasArts.

Not saying I'm proud to see them die off, but I'm not to surprised or hurt all things considered. Their still around for licensing so its not like we won't see Star Wars games made better by outside companies. In fact, most good Star Wars games were developed by other companies.

Really hammer's in the point of the mediocrity that came from LucasArts.