LucasArts Run by "Psychopaths"

Greg Tito

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Sep 29, 2005
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LucasArts Run by "Psychopaths"



After key people left, the executives killed all game development.

Back in the heyday of the 1990s, LucasArts was one of the good guys. Titles like X-Wing, Jedi Knight and Monkey Island were pillars of PC gaming, but then something happened. Star Wars Battlefront, an FPS with third person elements released in 2004, was an extremely successful game for LucasArts and the 2005 sequel performed equally well. But after Jim Ward left the company, the plans for a technically ambitious Battlefront 3 from the British studio Free Radical went sour. Free Radical bosses David Doak and Steve Ellis say every effort was made to sabotage development by the people running LucasArts in 2008.

"We went from talking to people who were passionate about making games to talking to psychopaths who insisted on having an unpleasant lawyer in the room," said Doak.

"For a long time we talked of LucasArts as the best relationship we'd ever had with a publisher," said Ellis. "Then in 2008 that disappeared, they were all either fired or left. Then there was a new guy called Darrell Rodriguez, who had been brought in to do a job and it was more to do with cost control than making any games. And the games that we were making for them were costly."

The plans for Battlefront 3 were radical, pardon the pun, and the development cost a lot of money. Somewhere along the line, LucasArts decided they couldn't afford to make the game former studio head Jim Ward wanted to make. But they couldn't just cancel the game because of the contract in place, so instead they just tortured Doak and Free Radical until their spirits broke.

From Free Radical's point of view, the studio was delivering milestones for Battlefront 3 on time, but LucasArts quibbled over the game assets being actually ready. "If a publisher wants to find something that is wrong with a milestone, it's very easy for them to do so as there are so many grey areas within a deliverable. If the contract says, 'Graphics for level X to be release quality,' who can say what's release quality?" asked a Free Radical employee.

In this way, LucasArts refused to pay Free Radical for more than six months, until the developer ran out of money. That ended up being a very successful tactic because Doak couldn't afford a long legal battle. "If we wanted to fight about it, they were quite happy to fight about it, but it would be on their terms, on their turf, and we would lose not because we were wrong, but because... well, we wouldn't be able to ante up.

"In many ways it was a depressing farce talking to them," said Doak. "They had an agenda motivated by purely financial considerations. Their goal was to stop doing it. And it didn't matter that we had a contract that protected us."

Finally, after many deals including the GoldenEye remake fell through, Free Radical went into administration, laid off 140 people and was eventually purchased by Crytek.

It just goes to show that publishers can engage in some very tricky tactics when tens of millions of dollars are on the line. It's not about the games or the developers, then, just the bottom line.

Source: Eurogamer [http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-05-04-free-radical-vs-the-monsters]

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Bolt-206

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Dec 6, 2010
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I suddenly Despise LucasArts as much as EA...

They couldn't have even the smallest amount of faith that Battlefront 3 would more than make up for it's costs? 'cause it would have.
 

Fappy

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Is this really how it went down? Seriously, fuck LucasArts. I can't say that loud enough.
 
Apr 28, 2008
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So... Lucasarts played a big hand in the demise of the developers of Timesplitters? And the death of Battlefront 3?

All my hate... they get all my fucking hate.

Activision and EA to a lesser extent as well. Mainly because it's just par for the goddamn course with them.
 

V da Mighty Taco

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Wow, just wow. Battlefront 3 was game I anticipated for ages but lost hope a few years ago due to all the development hell going on. Now I'm hearing that LucasArts deliberately put it into development hell because they didn't want they game to get finished. I honestly hope this shit isn't true, but after seeing the likes of EA and Activision... *le sigh* and to think that I still have Battlefront 2 and have been thinking about picking up the original sometime. <:(

EDIT:
Bolt-206 said:
I suddenly Despise LucasArts as much as EA...

They couldn't have even the smallest amount of faith that Battlefront 3 would more than make up for it's costs? 'cause it would have.
Basically what this guy said. Though I still try to live up to my policy of "never hate" and am one of those bronies who actually believes in the whole "love and tolerance" motto (before I even got into MLP *hipster shades*), shit like this does push me a bit.

This does explain though why LucasArts stopped being even remotely relevant years ago, so I guess there's a small silver lining in this after all. I'm still very upset buy this, however.
 

Dahaka27

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Apr 20, 2009
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If this is how it really went dowm, that just downright scummy on Lucasarts part, legal technicalities and loopholes being expolited like this should carry the death penalty or something.
 

matrix3509

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Sep 24, 2008
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Please people, don't act surprised at this. We've already been told that this is how publishers act on a regular basis by Brian Fargo. There is only one way to fight this bullshit. You know which way I'm talking about.
 

Kae

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Nov 27, 2009
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Lose 1d20 sanity points.
Well that's another Free Radical game I'll never get to play, how sad, specially considering how awesome it looked and how much I liked the Pandemic Battlefronts, but I guess it's not really that surprising.
 

Hollyday

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Mar 5, 2012
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How sad that a company that I used to admire so much is now just as shitty as the rest of them. To essentially destroy a studio - people's jobs, something people had put time, energy and their souls into... there are no words for how despicable this is.

matrix3509 said:
Please people, don't act surprised at this. We've already been told that this is how publishers act on a regular basis by Brian Fargo. There is only one way to fight this bullshit. You know which way I'm talking about.
I can't help but be surprised. If I got to the stage where I expected this I'd never be able to buy another game again.
 

GeorgW

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Aug 27, 2010
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Fuck you LucasArts. Just fuck you!
Battlefront 3 would have sold at least 10 million copies, I can guarantee it! With its loyal fanbase, the growing market and the FPS boom going on right now, it would have made its money back no matter how expensive the development was, even if it was only a mediocre game.
There are not many publishers I like, but this has placed LucasArts as the definitive winner of the title as the shittiest publisher ever.
 

lancar

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Aug 11, 2009
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I had been hearing bad things about lucasarts for quite some time now, but i guess it wasnt just a case of a publisher going stale and unimaginative. They were actually actively tormenting people due to them not wanting to keep their own word.

There is a term for these kind of people:

Scum
 

Ldude893

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Apr 2, 2010
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[HEADING=2]YOU MANIACS. YOU BLEW IT UP.[/HEADING]

[HEADING=2]DAMN YOU, LUCASARTS. DAMN YOU ALL TO HELL.[/HEADING]
 

Formica Archonis

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Nov 13, 2009
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Wow, another notch in the Lucas franchise murder gun.

You know, in light of that video recently released to the people who donated to Double Fine Adventure, this seems slightly less surprising. Still shocking, but "in character". (To over-summarize, Tim Schafer doesn't think the Lucas empire has a very high opinion of video games or the people who make them.)
 

T'Generalissimo

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Nov 9, 2008
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I'm not sure you can necessarily take things like this enitrely as presented, we are very much being given one perspective here, and this could potentially be a situation where incompetence is being mistaken for malice. That said, this is a story that screams "If you want to be a game developer, go indie!"
 

Sneezeguard

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Oct 13, 2010
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why? WWWWWWHHHHHHHHHHHHYYYYYY?????????

It could of been strong enough to of been as successful as CoD.

It was the greatest 3rd person shooter ever made and still is.

Did Battlefront 2 not sell well enough?

Did you think despite the major successes of the first two games it wasn't going to make enough money to cover the development of the third???

Do you want me throw money at you? I will!