LucasArts Run by "Psychopaths"

[Ragsnstitches]

Hah, nice article, you should read it before putting it all on LucasArts.

Meanwhile, Second Sight had finally entered full production. The project had changed hands from Eidos to Activision, and Free Radical were about to taste business Bobby Kotick style. "We got some way through it with Activision," says Ellis. "Then they had a day in November 2003 where they made big changes. They decided they didn't like UK development anymore, they didn't like external development anymore, and they didn't like developer-owned IP anymore. Bad for us, because we ticked every box! On that day I think they canned ten projects and in the process put some companies out of business."

"It was a troubled development," says Doak. "Because that's when we found out how Activision worked. Bobby Kotick really loves developers! He wouldn't even speak to us, and we never spoke to him. He's quite happy to have some people put us out of business, but only does calls with investors. That was like the night of the long knives. We stood up to Activision, we had good legal counsel and they told us the right things to say. It looked like it was going to put us under for a bit, but didn't."

Classic Activision xD

Free Radical's other project at this time was the last TimeSplitters game, Future Perfect. After TimeSplitters 2 EA had come sniffing around, and Free Radical was ready to listen. "EA Partners was this part of EA that was involved with third-party things," says Doak. "It was a bit like being groomed, you know. Here's all these friendly avuncular people that will give you all the love and attention you need to get your game out, and then after a while they go away and all the bad guys come around and it's like you're in borstal. Getting held down, beaten around the head with a cue ball in a sock."

"In retrospect, what happened after TimeSplitters 2 was that EA saw the Metacritic and came to us," says Ellis. "I don't actually think they'd looked at the game very much." The publisher demanded Future Perfect have a strong lead character in order that it appeal to the US market. "EA turned up with this stuff that was supposed to help us," says Doak. "And it was just big boards with pictures of Vin Diesel on them. Wesley Snipes was on one in his Blade outfit." Future Perfect ended up with Cortez, a cowardly and dumb marine whose catchphrase falls flat every time: "It's time to split!"

Future Perfect had the longest development of any TimeSplitters game, and there was a sting in the tail. "We had quite a frank conversation with EA," says Ellis. "Where they told us they weren't going to bother trying to market it very much. Because at the time they had their GoldenEye game [GoldenEye: Rogue Agent], and they said that for every dollar they spent on marketing that game they would get more dollars back. It didn't match up with their original promises."

"Throughout the development of Future Perfect we had EA people all the time coming to us saying 'yeah your game's alright, but not as good as this GoldenEye we're making.'" says Doak. "Continuously! 'Yeah I saw GoldenEye, it's awesome, you Brits had better raise your game!' And we asked to see it. 'No, no, you can't see it'. We killed ourselves getting Future Perfect done, only to find that they had made a total balls of GoldenEye to the extent they had to throw more money at it to market it, the money that they might have spent on Future Perfect. I mean, it's like fiction that it's a GoldenEye game, isn't it? I don't think the irony of what they were doing ever occurred to EA."

GoldenEye: Rogue Agent came out late in 2004 to a muted response, receiving a flat 60 on Metacritic. Future Perfect was released in March 2005, and while it received a warmer reception EA didn't push it, and it didn't achieve better sales than the series had under Eidos. "The problem is they never really got it," says Ellis. "That summarises it. And because they never really got it they tried to change it into something that they did get."

Classic EA xD

This... is disgusting. It's vile. They are bullies and hypocrites. If this is what is considered business, then I have seen more functional and fair systems in place at Playgrounds for infants.

EA, Activision, Lucasarts, Microsoft, Sony... they will be the death of the industry as we know it. They lack the foresight and ingenuity to make it out of the next decade. Mark my words, they will fall and they will fall hard.

 

[Dastardly]

This is the kind of thing that happens when a property gets so huge that "protecting" it is infinitely more important than doing anything with it. It's why companies like Disney sue the entire world at least twice a year, while most of what they do is churn out crap (or re-sell their old glory on blu-ray).

 

[w00tage]

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.

Kickstarter for Battlefront 3? To be executed by the former members of Free Radical?

 

[Freechoice]

LucasArts on one side, EA on the other.

Bioware is so fucked.

I feel like satirical porn of that would be very sad, yet strangely comical.

 

[V da Mighty Taco]

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.

Kickstarter for Battlefront 3? To be executed by the former members of Free Radical?

Fuck, I'd pitch in for that and I've never even contributed to a Kickstarter before. Unfortunately, I think Battlefront 3's IP rights still belong to LucasArts and I get the feeling that they won't let that happen even though they don't intend to actually make use of the Battlefront IP.

 

[The_Emperor]

when he says psychopaths hes probs not kidding, many psychopaths excel at running companies because they experience little emotion, making money hand over fist requires you to see your customers as cattle and most companies do.

the monetary system destroys everything it touches.

 

[MammothBlade]

Oh well, guess it came full circle.

I'm not surprised really, Lucas Arts has been going downhill for a while now and makes some very short-sighted business decisions.

However, I have a feeling that people aren't getting both sides of the story, even if they are money grubbing douchebags.

 

[RJ Dalton]

I had no idea that LucasArts was staffed by complete money-obsessed bastards . . .
Oh, wait. Yes, I did.

 

[F'Angus]

This sucks.. LucasArts suck... This is a disgusting way to do business

 

[RJ 17]

Gotta say this is pretty depressing...I've always been hoping that they'd make another SW:BF game as I really enjoyed the first 2...now I know why SW:BF3 will forever remain a pipe dream: anything that bears the name Lucas is shit. xP

 

[Bat Vader]

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.

Kickstarter for Battlefront 3? To be executed by the former members of Free Radical?

That would be pretty awesome. I think Lucas Arts owns the rights to the Battlefront series so it would have to be a completely new game.

On Topic: What Lucas Arts did was just low. I used to respect them but now I have nothing but hate for them.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

I don't think that's a condition exclusive to LucusArts, I think it's a pandemic that has infected the whole industry.

I cant agree more, this is very true, One company does it, the next sees they can save money and does it too, and so on and so forth... makes me sick.

Yeah, and the 2 biggest offenders are EA and Activision. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if one of them was Patient Zero. The really sad part is both of them used to produce really good stuff, so did LucasArts.

Well, EA started the whole "Project 10 dollar" thing, locking parts of the retail game because people did not buy it new, yea... Prototype 2 locks the challenges and even the avatar awards for those who did not buy new.

Yeah, I don't think the problem started there. I've been feeling like something has been off this entire console generation. Maybe that's just me though.

Cancelling a project is one thing, leading on a developer to work meaninglessly until they run out of cash and have to close doors is just fucking evil.

Yeah, I'm don't think even EA would do that, and I hate EA.

 

[MPerce]

Huh....if this is how things are at LucasArts right now, I better just stop hoping for that TIE Fighter re-release.

They'll just fuck it up.

 

[Something Amyss]

Destroyed a games company to save money. Well, aren't you just the smelliest turd in the pile, LucasArts.

Yes. They are the smelliest turd in the pile for doing exactly what every other company is doing right now. That makes sense.

 

[bjj hero]

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."

I'm going to have to take issue with that...
Jim Ward was decisively involved in cancelling Full Throttle: Payback/Hell on Wheels and Sam&Max: Freelance Police.

In his very short months with LucasArts, Rodriguez actually made a deal with TellTale Games to make the Monkey Island Episodes and he also greenlighted the Money Island 1+2: Special Editions and brought Loom, The Dig and Indiana Jones to Steam (he also greenlighted Lucidity - hey you can't get all of them right ). In fact he brought a lot of the LucasArts Lineup to Steam during that time (April 2008 - May 2010): http://store.steampowered.com/search/?sort_by=Released&sort_order=ASC&term=lucasarts
Don't you DARE badmouth him...

After he was replaced all was lost though...
http://kotaku.com/5533053/lucasarts-president-executives-out-as-publisher-shakes-up-top-brass

Very noble to release a back catalogue for minimum cost and risk. How does this stop his shutting down a developer with his parasitic legal team being a dick move?

And "Don't you DARE badmouth him". What are you, his partner? His parent?

Battlefront was a successful franchise much loved by the fans but it appears Rodders was more interested in making money than games and didn't care how many people he needed to step on to get there.

 

[Snotnarok]

Yep there was the end of Timesplitters (made by the Golden Eye guys).

 

[Lunar Templar]

Destroyed a games company to save money. Well, aren't you just the smelliest turd in the pile, LucasArts.

Yes. They are the smelliest turd in the pile for doing exactly what every other company is doing right now. That makes sense.

i think its the 'leading the on to drain the the studios money' that's pissing people off the most. but then, i don't really remember a good game from Lucasarts since .... >.> Metal Warriors on the SNES, but i believe their name was just on it cause one of the robots uses a Light Saber (and call it that)

 

[weirdee]

y'know, for every person who tells me that it can't really be that bad, and that the industry just works like this and they should deal with it, i hear another ridiculous story like this

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

As it turns out, this is why we can't have nice things.

 

[The Funslinger]

Is this really how it went down? Seriously, fuck LucasArts. I can't say that loud enough.

This. They wanted to renage on a contract because it was a bit risky (if they didn't like the risk, they shouldn't have signed it in the first place) although given Battlefront's popularity, I wouldn't say there was a risk. So they wanted to bail, and apparently that gives them the right to actually run a company into the ground and cost jobs.

This is one of the reasons we have a recession and such a bullshit job market. Because we've created a system where it's actually beneficial for a company to gut its competitor and just leave its corpse to rot. They don't even pick up the workers they fucked over.