Disney shuts down LucasArts

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Deleted member 13524

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The worst has happened, as feared by many:

http://kotaku.com/disney-shuts-down-lucasarts-468473749

“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," LucasArts parent company LucasFilm said in a statement. "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.”
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Consequently, Star Wars 1313 and First Assault are officially cancelled.


I hate you, Disney.
 
...But you'll get a new star wars movie every summer, penned by a guy whose biggest screen credit is the little mermaid. You should be HAPPY!!
 
Protest with your wallet. It's the only thing that matters to them.
 
It's sad though when a studio with such legacy gets shut down so casually and callously by a new owner though. The legendary releases of lucasarts (going back to lucasgames prior to the name change, pioneering titles like Ballblazer on the Atari 800 with its split-screen multiplayer and so on) are too many to mention really. 1313 also looked to show great promise from a story point of view (IMO anyway), even though the gameplay looked very consoley in nature from what little we were shown.

It's like george selling his studio to a soulless corporation like disney was a final fuck you from him to all the people who at one time cared about his early works. Not sure why disney couldn't wait with the shutdown until after current titles were finished and released, or transferred them to external teams instead of just cancelling everything.

Fucking assholes, that's what they are.
 
Grall said:
It's sad though when a studio with such legacy gets shut down so casually and callously by a new owner though. The legendary releases of lucasarts (going back to lucasgames prior to the name change, pioneering titles like Ballblazer on the Atari 800 with its split-screen multiplayer and so on) are too many to mention really. 1313 also looked to show great promise from a story point of view (IMO anyway), even though the gameplay looked very consoley in nature from what little we were shown.

It's like george selling his studio to a soulless corporation like disney was a final fuck you from him to all the people who at one time cared about his early works. Not sure why disney couldn't wait with the shutdown until after current titles were finished and released, or transferred them to external teams instead of just cancelling everything.

Fucking assholes, that's what they are.
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Wow what a rant. It was already a soulless corporation so who cares? Now it is just a new soulless corporation. Medium sized studios are going to way of the dodo I guess.
 
As long as they have the licence... Disney might not renew it, it seems that they want to create a lack of Star Wars before the movies to create more demand.
 
Rodéric said:
As long as they have the licence... Disney might not renew it, it seems that they want to create a lack of Star Wars before the movies to create more demand.
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We'll see. The intent is to profit just by licencing out their ip ... I think we'll see more rather than less, but it's possible that development efforts will be pulled in sync with the movie releases for sure.
 
I really hope the team behind 1313 stays together and keep developing the game through a new publishing deal. If licensing it to Disney is not worth it, it could even be re-branded as an original Sci-Fi game. A-la Super Mario Bros. 2.
Given how little of the was shown so far, that would not take so much effort. Mostly everything that is not clearly Star Wars related could be kept intact. Only those 4 seconds of gameplay seen so far would need to be morphed into something else, and whatever resembles the few pictures of concept art. I´d bet many characters and places aren´t even named after anything else outside the game, so that already saves them from a lot of re-doing voiceovers and stuff.
Its not even a problem if the re-brand is fairly obvious, as long as the game is good, star wars fans would still pick it up and try to go: "oh, who this character was supposed to be if this was still within the SW universe?" "Oh look how they changed the troopers armor here! Interesting".
Instead of losing the franchise´s fan following, it would actually add in another layer of fiction with fans speculating about the parallels and all. And for people that don´t care (like me) there would still be a good uncharty game there to be played regardless if their weapons are called "light sabres" or "generic laser sword". Actually, the more shameless of a rebrand it is, the better, as that avoids having the game be perceived as a deceptive lie, and more as a winky inside-joke. Given the situation, we all would understand it, and laugh it out with them while playing. Only an asshole would complain about that.
And speaking of assholes complaining, if Disney does, claiming copyright this and plagiarism that, NeoLucasArts can call it a parody and be done with it. Its a great way to retribute the fuck-over.
 
I thought Mass Effect started as a KOTOR 3 that wouldn't get a licence.
 
as much as I love old LA they haven't been the same studio in about a decade. What was the last good game they even made ?
 
Pressure said:
I feel somehow 'Escape from Monkey Island' from 2000 makes the cut :)
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Man, I thought there wasn't a single person that liked that game. If you ignore the terrible RE1 tank like gameplay and the rest of the series, it was an goodish adventure game, with very clever writing and humor. But compared to the other games before it, it basically took a shit on all the style, setting and story of the series. Also, I've had that game bug out on me all the time, I even lost some a lot of progress because guybrush got stuck in the swamp at one point and I accidentally saved there instead of loading! A game as simple as an adventure game has no excuse for bugs.
 
And the knife gets twisted:

Disney and Electronic Arts today announced a multi-year licensing agreement that will give the game publisher exclusive rights to make titles based on the Star Wars universe, including the upcoming films. While Disney will retain the rights to games in the "mobile, social, tablet and online game categories," EA will be the only publisher publishing "new Star Wars titles for a core gaming audience, spanning all interactive platforms and the most popular game genres."

The sudden announcement was light on details, including any financial relationship between the companies. EA did say that Knights of the Old Republic developer Bioware, Battlefield developer DICE, and Dead Space developer Visceral would all be working on Star Wars games under the agreement.

It seems like an odd move on the surface, since Disney has its own game publishing arm that could theoretically benefit from last year's $4 billion purchase of Lucasfilm and the Star Wars license. Still, the move isn't so surprising considering that Disney decided to shutter long-lived game studio LucasArts last month, and the company canceled work on cinematic shooter Star Wars 1313.

It's not like Disney CEO Bob Iger didn't telegraph the move either. During the Lucasfilm acquisition, he said that Disney was "likely to focus more on social and mobile than we are on console" and that "we'll look opportunistically at console, most likely in licensing rather than publishing."

EA has a long history developing and publishing Star Wars titles including Bioware's massively multiplayer game The Old Republic, which has struggled to retain subscribers since its launch in late 2011.
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