hermes200 said:
]I think you are the one that needs a "refresher"... With the exception of remakes of games made by people they fired because its sword fighting didn't involve glowy sticks (Monkey Island), the only IPs they published that didn't include Star Wars or Indiana Jones were Lucidity (2009), Fracture (2008, now fired) and Thrillville (2006, now fired)... three mediocre games in five years, that is far from impressive. In the meantime, there has been no less that 30 games branded "Star Wars" or "Indiana Jones"...
You want to talk about milking a franchise? Forget Nintendo or Activision... LucasArt is, by far, the worst. At least Activision has a lot of B-rated franchises alive that support its 2 or 3 AAA. I know I am bashing them on a track record, but a 10 years track record is hard to forget on good will only. Until they show real signs that they want to change it, no amount of mea culpa is going to make me think they care.
Okay... so you don't like star wars I take it? You do know the universe of star wars is more then "glowy sticks" and some great star wars games don't focus on "glowy sticks". Lucasarts has more akin to nintendo, in that it's ultimately up the imagination (and budget) that determines what can be in a star wars game. There is fluff and lore that restrict elements just as there is archetypal games for Nintendo. But even they can be twisted for the sake of a fun game.
Personal prejudice against the brand means this debate is pointless, as it's the same as hating on CoD because it's an FPS. I can't argue against personal taste. Having no interest in star wars, means having no interest in Lucasarts... so why would you be complaining about them if you didn't care for the franchise it's built around.
I can however, argue against pessimism and rhetoric.
1st off, Lucasarts, just like Squeenix, EA, Activision, Valve etc. are out to make money. They each have their own approach, with varying degrees of success/failure. They don't care for the individual, group or even community, they care for the money. (Valve is considered an exception to the following). Don't delude yourself into thinking any of them actually care beyond a products reception and the pay off (and potential long term pay offs). The development teams are the ones that care about the quality (usually) and the reception from fans, but the distributors and publishers don't give a flying fuck (again, valve is an exception as all their games are made in internal studios). It's all money to them, or lack thereof.
So how does a company like EA get out of the rut it was in? Well, first they realise "oh shit, people aren't buying our stuff anymore". They then sit around a table with a bunch of people who likely don't know anything beyond business and discuss how to make people buy their shit. A result of this, is usually a mad-dash grab and snatch affair to find budding talent in studios (if they made something that sold well, it makes them very happy) and to layoff the ones not doing so well (based purely on recent returns). Once they find "talent" they look at the market to see what has been selling well or get ideas from the new guys. When everyone is happy or at least the guys signing the cheques are happy, they throw money at them in reasonable quantities and say "make us money!". Then cross their fingers for a 2-3 years (dependant on the project) and hope for a pay off at the end it.
Now whether it was by intelligent design, or a pure fluke, EA got it's payday... and there was much rejoicing. They now have a host of new, successful IP's to milk until the cows come home... which will ultimately lead to a similar drought unless they stay sharp.
Currently, albeit late to the party, Lucasarts are at the "oh shit" part. So again, it will be a while before we see the pay off... if they play it intelligently.
I have no doubt Lucasarts are doing a terrible job at the moment, it's freaking abhorrent how they made decisions in the last few years (despite you're round off, it has been far less then 10 years since Lucasarts started to crumble). But looking at their progress Objectively, they released quite a few well received games in the last 10 years (KotoR I + II, Jedi Knight II + Acadamey, Republic Commando, Battlefront, Galactic Battlegrounds, Rogue Leader, Lego Star Wars and so on) ... all star wars naturally, but they sold well on their own merits, not because of the brand. Short of the last 2 years, they have had at least 1 successful game for every year since 2001.
In addendum, yes lucasarts are bad, no they haven't always been bad, it's likely they don't care but who does and Star Wars is more then "glowy sticks".
F2* Good times... Good times... It's also nice to see another PlanetSide fan Ulkjen.
