Disney Closes LucasArts

[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.

 

[Darren716]

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.

You are right I think I got confused because Lucas arts was the publisher and because they were the ones who tended to work on most Star Wars games

 

[Frostbite3789]

Cue the shitstorm.

LucasArts has made some of my most favourite games, the KotOR, Battlefront and Jedi Knight series respectively, and been part of the greatest MMO concerning personal and overall story and environmental design ever, Old Republic.
It appears my dislike of Disney's Star Wars acquisition continues to rise steadily.

Published. They published those games. KotOR was Bioware/Obsidian. Battlefront was...Pandemic? Jedi Knight was Raven Software.

Just because the publisher shut down doesn't mean these IPs suddenly disappear. It doesn't mean devs suddenly won't be making Star Wars games. It just means the (much maligned of late anyways) publisher is gone.

 

[Frostbite3789]

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.

Name the last game LucasArts actually developed.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

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.

Name the last game LucasArts actually developed.

The Force Unleashed 2. Last in house production until 1313.

 

[Frostbite3789]

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.

Name the last game LucasArts actually developed.

The Force Unleashed 2. Last in house production until 1313.

Yeah...that doesn't raise my confidence at all in them. So the last game they developed was pretty well disliked for being a short mess. And I've seen an awful lot of bitching on these forums about their practices as a publisher.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

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.

Name the last game LucasArts actually developed.

The Force Unleashed 2. Last in house production until 1313.

Yeah...that doesn't raise my confidence at all in them. So the last game they developed was pretty well disliked for being a short mess. And I've seen an awful lot of bitching on these forums about their practices as a publisher.

I don't think you were asking for a vote of confidence. The last GOOD game that was developed in house was Republic Commando.

 

[Frostbite3789]

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.

Name the last game LucasArts actually developed.

The Force Unleashed 2. Last in house production until 1313.

Yeah...that doesn't raise my confidence at all in them. So the last game they developed was pretty well disliked for being a short mess. And I've seen an awful lot of bitching on these forums about their practices as a publisher.

I don't think you were asking for a vote of confidence. The last GOOD game that was developed in house was Republic Commando.

Oh I wasn't. But there's a lot of bemoaning this move when...why? It's like THQ, these IPs aren't just going away.

 

[Glaice]

Disney was long dead before this stunt, so this is just a nail in their coffin to me.

Screw Disney.

 

[Squilookle]

It's a sad day seeing Lucasarts fall from grace and become a smouldering carcass of the glory it once had.

That is.. it WAS a sad day... seven years ago.

R.I.P. LucasArts- 1982-2006

 

[Lovely Mixture]

It's a sad day seeing Lucasarts fall from grace and become a smouldering carcass of the glory it once had.

That is.. it WAS a sad day... seven years ago.

R.I.P. LucasArts- 1982-2006

Couldn't have said it better.

A once enjoyable studio and publisher at the beginning of gaming became a tyrant in the modern age of gamig.