Disney Closes LucasArts 299
An anonymous reader sends news that Disney is closing LucasArts. The game studio has been around since 1982, and brought us classics such as Labyrinth, The Secret of Monkey Island, X-Wing, TIE Fighter, and Star Wars: Battlefront. They also published Star Wars: Galaxies, Knights of the Old Republic, and Star Wars: The Old Republic. The company held a meeting today informing employees of the layoffs. "In some ways, the news is not a surprise. LucasArts had seemed directionless in recent years. The company's core business of games based on the Star Wars license have been largely disappointing in both quality and sales. While the company had some success with games like Star Wars: The Force Unleashed and the Battlefront series, both of those franchises seemed to have died on the vine. The cancellation of Star Wars Battlefront III was particularly ugly, which led to nasty public fingerpointing between LucasArts and developer Free Radical. ... LucasArt's other big franchise, Indiana Jones, has failed to make much of a dent in games in recent years, with the exception of Traveller's Tales LEGO Indiana Jones series that, once again, was not developed by LucasArts. Meanwhile, series like Uncharted and Tomb Raider, which are both heavily influenced by the Indiana Jones films, have thrived." If only they hadn't abandoned the X-Wing series of games. I would have bought a new one of those in a heartbeat. Update: 04/04 18:09 GMT by T : Dice.com's news service (Dice.com is the corporate parent of Slashdot) mentions one small silver lining for those employees who stuck it out to the end: the best kind of parting gift. "Soon after the acquisition, a number of people departed LucasArts, deciding the time was right to head out in search of a new job. Many others remained, encouraged to hang on as long as they could by talk of generous severance packages. Sources among those laid off say the packages were, indeed, generous."
Swtor (Score:4, Interesting)
I am a subscriber. Will the servers shutdown?
Grim Fandango (Score:4, Interesting)
No mention of Grim Fandango in the list of classics?
Good (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: instead of developing in house (Score:5, Interesting)
A new X-Wing series would have been an insta-hit (Score:5, Interesting)
I would have paid full price in a heartbeat for a new X-Wing series and a season Pass for the first 4 major DLCs.
What a cash cow that could be - selling E-Wings or Pirate Frankenfighters for .99 and eventually tying everything back to an MMO. LucasArts should never have ignored the fan's outcry for the past decade for a new reboot of that series on modern desktops.
I would just hope they would make sure not to piece it up too badly, as many games are these days... but the X-Wing series would have been a natural for the trend. Major DLC to add new missions and fleets would be a no-brainer.
Re:Sad day (Score:4, Interesting)
That sad day came a long time ago.
LucasArts has not done anything that great in a long time. I guess at least we can hope TellTale can get most of the franchises.
Re:First No! (Score:4, Interesting)
I remember the LucasArts games back in their heyday (titles like Outlaws, Dark Forces, Dark Forces II Jedi Knight, etc). One thing I liked about Lucasarts games is they tended to be very mod-friendly; I was part of a community that kept Jedi Knight alive long past its prime with everything ranging from simple weapon mods to custom maps to total conversions. The things that old game engine could do in the right hands were simply amazing.
Re: instead of developing in house (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, Knights of the Old Republic was a RPG using a modified version of the D&D 2nd edition rule set, not an action-adventure game. And since Rockstar is known for their sandbox games, and KOTOR wasn't even slightly sandbox in style, with planets roughly the size of a high school gymnasium, I'd say the similarities between KOTOR and the GTA games are pretty much limited to the fact that they're both third-person 3D.
Also, since Rockstar doesn't generally produce RPGs, they wouldn't be my first choice to reboot the series.
Re:Swtor (Score:4, Interesting)
Bioware is good. Bioware on EA is questionable. EA... I have choice words I shall choose to not repeat at this time.
BioWare: Knights of the Old Republic, Mass Effect
BioWare/EA: Mass Effect 2, Mass Effect 3, Star Wars: The Old Republic
EA: SimCity
Re:Swtor (Score:4, Interesting)
Bioware and EA both make good games
Bioware and especially EA have made some hit and miss games,
EA made Dead space, Mirror's edge, burnout, Timesplitters future perfect, rock band, Dragon age, walking dead, and Alice Madness Returns, all of which I enjoyed.
Quite wrong.
Bioware makes games. EA publishes games. EA may at times purchase development houses, but viewing EA as anything more then a publisher with a heavy hand for deadlines and DRM is giving them way too much credit. Some of Bioware's best games were either released or largely finished before EA got involved.
EA is a festering boil on the video game industry, and it's destruction would be followed by an ewok party an Endor moon.
Re:First No! (Score:4, Interesting)
Grim Fandango, Monkey Island, Sam&Max, the Maniac Mansions, Zack McCracken, Loom...
Especially Grim Fandango had stronger writing than any of the Star Wars movies themselves.
By the end of the 90ies if you couldn't come up with a good game mechanic you simply made an FPS. And by the mid 2000s when Lucas Arts couldn't come up with a new IP they simply made Star Wars.
They created a couple of good Star Wars games. There was X-Wing(which was stupidly brilliant), Tie fighter(which was even better) and the awesome tech demo Rebel Assault(although not much of a game). Speaking of Rebel Assault, they NAILED the rail shooter with that one one hardware that was barely capable to pull it off!
I remember playing Dark Forces for the first time and I remember being utterly unimpressed. It looked great. It had good level design. But it was just more of the same of what everybody else was doing. But like the RTS genre before that, that was what sold. And continues to sell.
In my book Lucas and Disney are a perfect match. And Lucas Arts was dead as a dodo for the last 15 years.
RIP Lucasfilm Games