LucasArts Reduces Staff After Cancellations

cordsie writes "In a move that should come as a surprise to absolutely no one at this point, the once venerable LucasArts has laid off thirty of its staff. The brief article implies that the layoffs were due to the recent cancellation of the sequel to Sam and Max and the Full Throttle follow-up." S!: Ferrago has a story noting this reduces the LucasArts staff count "to about 389", still a significant number, and an earlier International House of Mojo story regarding the layoffs has a commenter alleging: "Among the people let go were... [the] Director of The Dig, Escape from Monkey Island and most recently Full Throttle 2... as well as both the Lead Engineer and Producer of the late Sam and Max 2 game."

Stepping out of starwars

[superpulpsicle]

No offense but as soon as LucasArt steps out of the starwars zone, they are plain aweful.

Which brings back to the original statistics. What percentage of gamers nowadays are devoted starwars fan that'll buy anything starwars related. It's a much smaller percentage, now that the market is saturated with starwars garbage.

Kind of a shame, really

[nobodyman]

For a time, lucusarts was a pretty unique entity. Many development houses find themselves under the thumb of a publisher, but with the staff at lucasarts was the developer *and* publisher for many of their titles.

With Sam and Max and FT2 cancelled, coupled with the resignation of president Simon Jeffrey and the firing of the director of some of the great adventure titles, I have a sinking feeling I know what has happened. Lucasarts has decided to put all of its weight behind Star Wars Licensing. The suits have taken over: why make novel titles when you can put out a star wars game that will make way more money?

Re:Stepping out of starwars

[obeythefist]

Huh, that's a very misinformed or inaccurate viewpoint. Let's look at history:

Labyrinth: Outstanding game for its time
Monkey Island series (1 through 4): Great games, all of them
Sam and Max Hit the Road: Awesome game

Force Commander: Utter pants
Rogue Squadron: Godawful kindergarten shooter
Obi Wan: Terrible! Stop!
Starfighter: Fricken useless childish replacement for the older X-Wing/Tie Fighter games

Re:Stepping out of starwars

[NeuroKoan]

Also:

Grim Fandango: Great
Maniac Mansion: Great
Loom: Great
The Dig: Great

So many great LucasArts adventure games. It came to a point that I'd almost buy any LucasArts adventure game without reading a single review (the same definitely cannot be said about Star Wars games).

From this point on, I think I must refuse to buy any more LucasArts games if they keep sacking all the good developers. It's going to kill me not playing KOTOR2, but I'm just so disgusted at LucasArts right now.

Re:Stepping out of starwars

[0x0d0a]

No offense but as soon as LucasArt steps out of the starwars zone, they are plain aweful.

Lucasarts and Sierra were the two main developers advancing the adventure game genre for many years, and the list of best classic adventure games reads like a list of their titles. I'm not sure what non-Star Wars Lucasarts games you dislike so much, but I'm doubtful that you're thinking of their adventure games -- which FT2 and S&M2 would have been.

I can believe that Lucasarts published poor games at some point in time, but they have an extremely strong reputation in the adventure game arena. I do not know of any poor adventure games that they produced. Honestly, I cannot think of another game company that is as known for such long-term good leadership in their field. Perhaps id Software for FPS-style games.

Now, this doesn't mean that S&M2 and FT2 would have been good. It does, however, mean that any bias toward their new games based on their history should really be positive, not negative.

Does anyone know?

[Roman Levin]

What are sales figures for Lucas Arts' latest games? Was Monkey Island 4 unprofitable? I wish the were a boxofficemojo.com for games...

Re:Stepping out of starwars

[silicon not in the v]

I have played a few LucasArts games, but not many of the ones you mention. Of the adventure ones, I have only played Full Throttle. I did like that one a lot and am a bit disappointed in the cancellation of FT2.

Of the others I've played:
Jedi Starfighter on X-Box - I thought it was OK, but it seemed like they added way too many "features" that it was hard to keep track of, much less actually use.
Rogue Squadron on PC - I really loved this one. The game control with a joystick is excellent, and it had some great hidden extra ships that made it a lot of fun (Naboo fighter, TIE Interceptor, Milennium Falcon). It also let you play some of the classic missions, like Death Star Trench run and the Battle of Hoth.

How can you people forget Pod Racer??? I haven't seen it mentioned yet, but that is one of the best multi-player racing games I've ever played. There is good variety in the pods to choose from, so it can cater to different people's racing styles or to the particular track you're on.

I never got to play Grim Fandango or Sam and Max, but I would like to check them out.