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."
First No! (Score:5, Funny)
Noooo!
Re:First No! (Score:5, Funny)
Noooo!
First I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened.
Re:First No! (Score:4, Funny)
and then I realized...nothing really important actually happened.
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.
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Seriously, fuck Disney!
Someone sold them to Disney. What did you expect?
Re:First No! (Score:4, Insightful)
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I remember the LucasArts games back in their heyday (titles like Outlaws, Dark Forces, Dark Forces II Jedi Knight, etc
Rebellion.
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titles like Outlaws, Dark Forces, Dark Forces II Jedi Knight, etc
Maniac Mansion and Day of the Tentacle
Re:First No! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:First No! (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, fuck Disney! I remember the LucasArts games back in their heyday
The article at Wired.com sums it up best: "The LucasArts that died today is not the one you loved, and it was never going to be again."
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
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Especially Grim Fandango had stronger writing than any of the Star Wars movies themselves.
Much as I admire Grim Fandango, that is setting the bar pretty low.
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http://nooooooooooooooo.com/ [nooooooooooooooo.com]
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Nice impression of Darth.
I also would've accepted "do not want!".
Re:First No! (Score:5, Funny)
Swtor (Score:4, Interesting)
I am a subscriber. Will the servers shutdown?
Re:Swtor (Score:4, Informative)
I think SW:TOR is a BioWare thing, with LucasArts just owning the IP.
Re:Swtor (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Swtor (Score:5, Insightful)
Run by Bioware and EA so not affected. Probably the thing of the future instead of developing in house Disney will sell the Star Wars license to whoever wants to pay.
Which will probably result in better games anyway.
Re:Swtor (Score:5, Insightful)
> Run by Bioware and EA ...
>Which will probably result in better games anyway.
Said no one ever.
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i like how you decide to cut out the big section of one of your quoted post, that reffered to Disney selling out the licenses, or disney themselves developing
ah internet~
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Re:Swtor (Score:5, Funny)
Ya, because they have been doing great things with the universe recently. -> Angry Birds: Star Wars
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(ducks)
No, seriously, they do (ducks again). EA has done some unforgivable things with DRM, that's what's despicable about them, not quality. Bioware and especially EA have made some hit and miss games, but this is true for almost every other company out there, except maybe for Valve. Their failures are only spectacular because of how much money they pumped into developing them. Sim City the recent one, Spore, they were huge games that were utter crap when delive
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EA doesn't make games, they make money-collecting Rube Goldberg applications. Any similarity to games is entirely intentional.
Whatever they offer you, don't feed the plant.
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: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: instead of developing in house (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: instead of developing in house (Score:4, Funny)
That way I can always shoot first.
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They should outsource to Rockstar Games [rockstargames.com]. GTA set in a Star Wars universe could be fun.
Grand Theft Android? I might buy that.
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with free electric sheep!
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GTA set in a Star Wars universe could be fun.
I was going to make a joke involving the Hot Coffee incident, Natalie Portman as Padme, and hot grits, but I decided that was way too much nerdiness for one post.
So I'm simply going to say that I'd prefer vice versa, Star Wars set in a GTA universe.
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.
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you have to be connected to the Internet and have a special hardware coin acceptor box to get it to run. You have to feed a quarter to that sucker every 10 minutes.
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To be fair, "bioware" that did SWTOR is formely known as mythic. And many of the failures of SWTOR come copy-pasted from mythic's previous games.
Sad day (Score:3)
Sad day. Everyone be sure to raise a grog in their honor.
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Sad day. Everyone be sure to raise a grog in their honor.
In the "Do or do not, there is no try" department, Disney didn't "Do"
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.
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Totally Games still exists at least on paper. There last game was an iPhone game in 2010 though.
Chris Roberts is also still around, and just did a Kickstarter where he raised more than 8 million dollars to make a new game. It will contain a single player campaign that will be Wing Commander in everything but its name. The game will also have a Buy to Play online multiplayer component that might be any Wing Commander Privateer fans biggest wish.
There have been a few idie space combat games released recent
Not shocking. (Score:5, Insightful)
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I don't see disney developping good games like monkey island ...
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the star-wars bullsh*t however ...
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Which raises the question: what happens to Telltale Games? Will they be allowed to keep making games based off the old LucasArts franchises?
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Which raises the question: what happens to Telltale Games? Will they be allowed to keep making games based off the old LucasArts franchises?
Plural? Their ONLY game based on a LucasArts franchise is Tales of Monkey Island. Sam & Max are owned entirely by Steve Purcell, not LucasArts, and I've yet to hear news of new Telltale releases based on Maniac Mansion, Loom, Full Throttle, Grim Fandango, etc, etc...
Re:Not shocking. (Score:4, Insightful)
I am throwing money at the screen, why is it not working?
Someone make these games, I will buy them, so will many others.
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I think you're supposed to use a credit card. Never tried it your way.
I bet your roommates like you.
Re:Not shocking. (Score:4, Funny)
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Google Stunt Island (Score:2)
Just Google Stunt Island, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stunt_Island [wikipedia.org]
That was Disney. They make more then shovel ware movie license games. Well, they used to. Same as Lucasarts really.
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Whatever they touched, they mastered. And they did very little Star Wars because that franchise was not yet revit
lucasarts stopped being a developer long ago (Score:3)
disney produced some ok stuff back in the day.. experimental even.
now I'm just wondering why the fuck lucasarts is referred to as a games studio in this article when they haven't been a games studio in ages? a games studio makes games.. a publishing company publishes and a middleman just skims money from the deal because they own the ip. now there was a time in the nineties when lucasarts was the developer and someone else was the publisher but lucasarts switched that around about the time lucasarts stopped
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The Force Unleashed titles were seen as above average (although not spectacular) games and they were developed by LucasArts internally. So really, they have been a games studio, albeit one with a pretty spotty track record over the last 13 years. (The outsourced games you mention of course have been in varying degrees of quality, but it doesn't invalidate that they had an internal development team.)
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The games have already stopped, this just makes it official.
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Why did they bare the risk? And how was it that the abstract concept of possible loss or harm was able to wear clothes in the first place?
Must have hired Lindsey Lohan [thehollywoodgossip.com].
Grim Fandango (Score:4, Interesting)
No mention of Grim Fandango in the list of classics?
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Re:Grim Fandango (Score:5, Informative)
or Day of the Tentacle, or Secret Weapons of hte Luftwaffe
Gamers these days.
No sense of heritage.
Here we go. the full list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_LucasArts_games [wikipedia.org]
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Here's hoping GOG or Steam can get their hands on some of these old titles and re-release them.
Re: Grim Fandango (Score:3)
Or Rescue On Fractallas! An old favorite on my Atari 800xl.
Good (Score:4, Interesting)
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Waiting for someone to license and start production on a good star wars mmo.
There have already been two of those, and I don't think either of them did as well as was planned. I wouldn't expect another one to pop up for at least 5 years.
Loom (Score:4, Informative)
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"Ask me about Loom"
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.
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I grow a massive boner when I fantasize about a new X-Wing [vs Tie Fighter] game. That's the only game I've ever used a DOS emulator to play.
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Hopefully, the games can still be made. Disney paid for the IP, I hope it wasn't just to make movies.
lucasarts hadn't been actually making any games in years .. disney will still license the ip or produce games - that much is certain. they just don't need a bunch of suits sitting in an office labeled lucasarts. lucasarts track record for the past 10 years is publisher, publisher, publisher and the development houses they chose to make the games almost all were never heard no history development houses they paid bottom dollar for.
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Give me KOTOR 3! (Score:4, Insightful)
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Just a (maybe mistaken) restructuring decision (Score:5, Insightful)
LucasArts hasn't *created* anything in nearly a decade. It's been a licensing wing of Lucas for years, and Disney's being financially smart to roll it into their other licenses. However, it's a strong name in the gaming industry for a reason, and for historical reasons, they'd have done better to keep the name while rolling it into another division.
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It did do a lot of licensing, but they also had an in-house development division, which is the ~130 people who were laid off today. The last game I can think of that game from them was Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II [wikipedia.org] (2008), which didn't do that well, though. They were also in the process of developing two new in-house titles, Star Wars 1313 and Star Wars: First Assault, both of which are presumably now cancelled (unless they shovel the in-progress work over to a licensee).
I really wanted to like x-wing (Score:2)
I bought x-wing when it first came out, but ended up abandoning it due to the poor targeting graphics. The target would turn a dark red, and like many males I have red/green colorblindness, which caused the targeted object to pretty much disappear. Had they left the object brightly lit and put a bracket around it, like Wing Commander or Comanche, I would have been more interested. I liked the degree of control of your ship's resources (something nobody else had at the time) and really wanted to like the
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I bought x-wing when it first came out, but ended up abandoning it due to the poor targeting graphics. The target would turn a dark red, and like many males I have red/green colorblindness, which caused the targeted object to pretty much disappear.
To be fair, you would also have a hard time with being an actual pilot. That said, it would be nice if more companies gave some thought to the colorblindness issue: I remember Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri had problems as well.
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I bought x-wing when it first came out, but ended up abandoning it due to the poor targeting graphics. The target would turn a dark red, and like many males I have red/green colorblindness, which caused the targeted object to pretty much disappear.
To be fair, you would also have a hard time with being an actual pilot. That said, it would be nice if more companies gave some thought to the colorblindness issue: I remember Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri had problems as well.
Agreed. But I didn't want to be a pilot necessarily, just wanted to play the game. And interestingly enough, I didn't have the same problem with Falcon 4.0 or Strike Commander.
You're absolutely right. There's cool looking, and then there's playability. and the second is more important.
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Honestly, "Tie Fighter" was vastly superior to the older "X-Wing" game.
Better graphics, a decent story (in comparison), better targeting, more controls (match speed), etc.
While I look at "X-Wing" somewhat fondly, it's "Tie Fighter" that really steals my heart. That game is literally in my top 3 favorites video games of all time.
"X-Wing Alliance" was alright, but it still wasn't as fun as "Tie Fighter"
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Honestly, "Tie Fighter" was vastly superior to the older "X-Wing" game.
Better graphics, a decent story (in comparison), better targeting, more controls (match speed), etc.
While I look at "X-Wing" somewhat fondly, it's "Tie Fighter" that really steals my heart. That game is literally in my top 3 favorites video games of all time.
"X-Wing Alliance" was alright, but it still wasn't as fun as "Tie Fighter"
Good to know. If I find one in the cutout bin I might pick it up if it's cheap enough.
https://thepiratebay.se/torrent/6030945/Star_Wars__Tie_Fighter_%5BDOS-Carey%5D [thepiratebay.se]
https://thepiratebay.se/torrent/5289979/Star_wars_Tie_fighter_(TIE95)_collectors_edition [thepiratebay.se]
I doubt you will find it anywhere unless it's a place that sells old use PC games.
Great, I can see the new Disney titles now.. (Score:2)
Jar-Jar vs. tie-fighter
Interplanetary Karaoke with Jar-Jar Binks
Jar-Jar Dance Revolution
Jar-Jar's Cajun Cuisine Database
Typing Tutuorial Featuring Jar-Jar Binks with Free McDonalds Happy Meal
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Star Wars: Clone Wars 2: Rise of the Disney Princesses.
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in the beginning (Score:2)
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Okay, that cracked me up.
(It was 'Behind Jaggy Lines'. Or, on ports to other systems, 'Rescue on Fractalus'.)
Too bad... (Score:2)
I remember absolutely loving Day of the Tentacle.
I had always hoped they would bring out more such games.
Not surprising. Nothing good in 10 years... (Score:2)
I can't say I'm surprised at this announcement. Really, what has LucasArts done in at least 10+ years that has been good?
They used to be known for not only their movie-related games, but also creative original ones like Grim Fandango, Full Throttle, etc. But they stopped doing all of that when Episode 1-3 came out. At that point it was just a string of shovelware Starwars games. Even their once successful space-sim games like Xwing and TIE Fighter were abandoned.
Can you imagine how awesome a modern Starwars
Re:I guess Free Radical is exonerated (Score:5, Funny)
When there's fingerpointing and one of the two dies suddenly...
the other guy wins, right?
Finger pointing followed by death usually implies force lightning.
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How appropriate, you fight like a cow.
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Buy indie games direct from developers through GOG or Steam. It's win-win-win-lose (for big studio make-nothings like EA). Consolidation of the big players only cements the indie inroads. Like the music industry, they sealed their own fate long ago and can only acquire, not create, products of value.
Re:Free the Code!!! (Score:4, Informative)
Right... can you actually read? (Score:4, Insightful)
I am going to take business advice from a person who can't actually read and hasn't got a clue about the company he is talking about?
For your information, Lucasarts THRIVED when it developed games internally, it was when they outsourced development that the rot set in. So... the history of Lucasarts 100% invalidates your rant and proofs you are a silly person nobody should listen too.
You must be a Romney voter because logic just doesn't exist for you does it? It is generally accepted that first party titles for consoles are the must haves, the once of most reliable high quality.
You can spot the downfall of Lucasarts when during the opening graphics of X-Wing vs Tie-Fighter between the iconic logo's, there was a silly little bi-plane animation of a the 3rd party studio that got involved. And while the game offered some intresting new features, it just couldn't hold a candle to the solid quality of its ancestors. Some more disasters followed until the company was reduced to ordering totally unrelated companies to produce mods for other peoples games.
Inhouse = Solid quality and must buy titles each and everyone of them
Outsourced = meh
You might make fun of government employees, while you pay a fortune to save the privately run industries like the car and banking industries saying Romney was cheated because people like the editors of financial news papers just didn't get his policies and recommended right wingers vote for a left wing black guy.
Oh and to get back on topic, the only GOOD Disney game, was an inhouse title as well, Stunt Island. Google it, it was amazing for its time and is still unique.
In reality, in house means putting the interest of the company, YOUR company first and the intrests of your company are the customers. For 3rd party developers, the customer is the publisher NOT the plebs in the shops.
Just see what happened to Bioware when it stopped being a publisher and had to dance to EA's tune instead of listening to customers.
Hell, all the most respected studio's are those who develop their own games. Unreal, Id, Blizzard etc etc. It is the publishing houses and their slave companies that everyone looks down upon.
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Really? ID and Epic are notorious for releasing games that are little more then tech demos for their latest engines, which is where those two studios have traditionally made most of their money. The best games developed using ID tech engine have been 3rd party games; Doom engine gave us Hexen and Strife, Quake engin
Re:Right... can you actually read? (Score:5, Insightful)
because he said something you dont like he must be a romney voter? dude. let it drop. your bias is both obvious and misplaced. you spew vitriol at every opportunity it seems. you tie everything back to an election you already wona nd (mis) characterize people based on completely seperate and unrelated topics. give it a rest
signed, a fellow obama voter
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BioWare was never a publisher. The two Baldur's Gate games, Shattered Steel, and MDK were published by Interplay, Neverwinter Nights was published by Atari, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic was published by LucasArts, and Jade Empire was published by Microsoft Game Studios (for the Xbox) and 2K Games (PC version).
I don't disagree with your larger point, though.
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For that matter, neither Epic (developers of the Unreal titles) or id Software, both of which you mention, publish their own work, either.
id dabbled in self-distribution in the days of the original Doom days (which was mail-order only), but for most of their history they relied on third-party publishers. Mainly Activision (who handled all their releases from Quake 2 through Doom 3), until they were finally acquired by ZeniMax and became a second-party studio there.
I'm not as familiar with Epic, but I don't
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Oh and to get back on topic, the only GOOD Disney game, was an inhouse title as well, Stunt Island. Google it, it was amazing for its time and is still unique.
You make a few good points, but this is NOT one of them.
The best Disney games were outsourced to Capcom in the early 90's.
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All the XWING Games were developed by Totally Games not Lucas Arts, Xwing vs Tie Fighter was just the first one that their logo was attached to.
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WTF? Did QOTD get misplaced or something?
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I am rubber, you are glue.
No... maybe this one - "Uncle!"