Disney Closes LucasArts
Disney has announced that they will be shuttering LucasArts, the development and publishing arm for interactive entertainment software. The move is a strategic shift "from an internal development to a licensing model" that will hopefully bring in successful new development partners. Sadly, with this closure there have been lay offs for approximately 150 LucasArts employees.
Though the fan community is up in arms over the loss of this unit, the truth is that LucasArts has had a troubled history full of mediocre products and broken promises. 'Star Wars 1313', the game that most fans have been looking forward to from LucasArts, had made a splash at E3 2012 last year. However since that preview, there hasn't been any forward movement as internal struggles bogged down the production process. This lent itself to rumors of the games stall and demise. The digital first person shooter 'Star Wars: First Assault' is another victim of the floundering LucasArts and was canceled as well. Star Wars Gamers had hope in Disney's purchase of LucasFilms Ltd that new life could be breathed into this division. Though some news sources are reporting that these games will just be footnotes of the lost company, GameInformer spoke with a LucasFilms Representative who is quoted with the following:
It is worth noting that we are looking for proven external partners who can help us provide video games to our fans. We still believe in the video game industry, we still will provide Star Wars games, we're just looking at different models rather than internal production...
It's not that Disney is letting these game concepts properties slip away, but instead wants an external partner that can develop them to their fullest potential. How do you feel about the closure of LucasArt? Leave a comment and let us know if you think moving to a licensed structure will be good or bad for Star Wars Gamers.
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ocarina wrote on Sat, 04/06/2013 - 09:52:
We are big gamers and the older LucasArts games are a huge favourite - so I can't help but feel sad about this. They had some interesting Star Wars games in the works, but then again the Star Wars Kinect game was absolutely dire, so who knows!
Kristen K. wrote on Mon, 04/08/2013 - 12:13:
4 out of 6 of us in my house are big gamers and most of them are okay with this. However, that comes with the caveat that Disney does actually pursue third party partners for these games. There is a little bit of fear that they will just let it go, and most of the message boards that they're on are very upset over the whole thing. I guess only time will tell.
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