Disney Closes LucasArts

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Nutso
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Disney Closes LucasArts

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The worst has happened. The second fatal aftershock of the Disney takeover of the Lucas property has been felt.

It is being reported that Disney, which acquired Lucasfilm and LucasArts last year in a $4 billion acquisition, has shut down the LucasArts division. This comes days after Disney pulled the plug on The Clone Wars TV series and the planned Star Wars Detours spin off.

Disney said the following in a statement to Game Informer:

After evaluating our position in the games market, we’ve decided to shift LucasArts from an internal development to a licensing model, minimizing the company’s risk while achieving a broader portfolio of quality Star Wars games. As a result of this change, we’ve had layoffs across the organization. We are incredibly appreciative and proud of the talented teams who have been developing our new titles.

Disney laid off the entire staff of 150 people this morning and both of the company's current projects--Star Wars: First Assault and Star Wars 1313--have been cancelled.

The publishers has had a checkered past indeed, although with a huge back catalogue of awesome games, Star Wars and non-Star Wars related, this is a bad move in my opinion. It is a crushing blow to fans of the LucasArts name and gamers everywhere. The company that helped define the modern adventure game genre is no more.

The most recent LucasArts project that we were aware of was the underground crime game, Star Wars 1313. However there have been scores of rumours for months now that the project had ceased development. This is now confirmed. All that is left is news about the fate of Star Wars: First Assault. This now looks very bleak too, as does the conclusion to The Force Unleashed.

Some of the most notable games from the publisher’s history were Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Star Wars: Battlefront and Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. Sadly, the last game published by LucasArts was Kinect Star Wars for the Xbox 360 last year.

Disney now seems set to move to an umbrella gaming company, one set on mobile gaming production. This is a dark day for Star Wars fans. We will monitor this story as it develops.
http://whatculture.com/gaming/disney-cl ... asarts.php

Dang. This is a surprise to me.
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Re: Disney Closes LucasArts

Post by Tsukiyumi »

Yeah, that sucks. They made some truly great games.
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Re: Disney Closes LucasArts

Post by Tyyr »

Hate to be that guy but... what have they made lately? What do they bring to the table that someone else couldn't via a licensing agreement? What really justifies keeping Lucasarts going? I have a great deal of nostalgia for the company but I can't think of a title of theirs that I've picked up in the last ten years that I've realy cared about. I've played a few ut nothing that grabbed me and kept me playing.
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Re: Disney Closes LucasArts

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You're not that guy. It's the suddenness that got me.
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Re: Disney Closes LucasArts

Post by stitch626 »

Tyyr wrote:Hate to be that guy but... what have they made lately? What do they bring to the table that someone else couldn't via a licensing agreement? What really justifies keeping Lucasarts going? I have a great deal of nostalgia for the company but I can't think of a title of theirs that I've picked up in the last ten years that I've realy cared about. I've played a few ut nothing that grabbed me and kept me playing.
Battlefront 3 (which was under a new name and had been in development purgatory for years now) and the dark Star Wars game set on Coruscant whose title escapes me. Those have been cancelled, not sent out to other companies. That's millions of dollars that have been tossed away on a whim. And both of those were highly anticipated since 2 (or more) years ago.
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Re: Disney Closes LucasArts

Post by Tyyr »

Great, never got to play either of them so it doesn't really mean anything to me. Also Disney isn't going to piss away millions of dollars for fun. Yes, they said, "canceled." Amazingly it's just a word. Not unlike "uncanceled," or "sold to XXXX". It's not like they walked in and burned the server farm down.
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