Disney Closes LucasArts

I wish more companies would license out their titles like this, instead of buying out a studio, shutting it down, and holding onto the licenses. I would have liked to have seen a sequel to Gladius.
 
MavericK96 said:
I think all they wanted was the IP.
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Totally, Disney just wants to cash in on all of the sales rights on everything. I mean look at the franchise, even when they brought it back with the special editions and extended scenes Lucas Films made money hand over fist at minimal cost. Disney can now make all of that money and then some by selling the licences to developers and toy manufactures. They were in it to make a ton of money and now they will. They just cut all of the overhead from Lucas Arts by firing all of the employees.
 
I'm OK with this. Name one decent title LucasArts made in the last 10 years... I've been waiting for another Tie Fighter game, but all we get are stupid DDR games with Stormtroopers. No thanks. 1313 might have been OK, but I didn't care much about it. If it's cancelled, I think we'll all survive. Did I mention I wanted another Tie Fighter game? ;)

Some people seem to be missing the fact that they will just be licensing games and not developing them. That's fine with me, there are several decent developers out there who could do better things with their IP than LucasArts has been.
 
Piotrsama said:
14 years and they never cared to make another X-Wing game....
Hardly Disney's fault.
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Exactly. LucasArts has been making garbage for years now, with 1313 being the only thing people hoped might be good.

That being said, we don't know what the current state of 1313 is. For all we know, Disney could be avoiding the next ACM.

Whatever the case may be, Disney obviously had some reason to make the determination that they couldn't make LucasArts profitable in it's current state. Just because they made great games a decade ago, means absolutely nothing today with regards to what they're currently capable of. 1313 aside, their recent history has been pretty crap.

Lets look at the lucasarts games from the past 4 years.

Kinect Star Wars(are you kidding me?)
Angry Birds Star Wars(whoopdeedoo)
SWToR(terrible at launch, terrible 6 months later, probably still terrible)
Lego SW3: The clone wars(real innovative...)
SW: Force Unleased 2(mediocre at best)

Even if you go back another couple of years you just end up with a bunch of shovelware. 1313 would have needed to be an obvious "masterpiece" of a AAA game title for it to make any sense of Disney to keep LucasArts around, and apparently it wasn't. People need to take the nostalgia goggles off.
 
Smashing Young Man said:
Yeah, I don't get that line of thinking. I don't like how he handled the franchise (understatement), but it's his baby, so more power to him for making billions from it. The man has given millions of people joy through his work, all the latter disappointment not withstanding. It's not like Star Wars gives cancer now or anything. I'd say he's earned it.
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I think the point was that he made money from, in part, Lucasarts which appears to have been a complete pile of uselessness.
 
I wish someone would make a large scale, MMO type, universe sized tie fighter arcade simulator game. All the ships from Star Wars fully drivable/playable.
 
Oh, and I forgot to mention the obvious upside to this(well, not so obvious to some people I guess). With LucasArts out of the picture, we may see more companies wanting to purchase the SW license and take a crack at making some games. Getting some new blood into the development of SW games without having to hope that the right people kissed enough of Lucas' ass to have a say so over at LucasArts could turn out amazing.

Someone wants to make a new KoToR? Just pay Disney the licensing fees and go make your game. A studio somewhere wants to make a new xwing vs. TIE fighter type game? They can, just pay Disney and then make it. Next time someone has a new idea that they think will sell, they just buy the rights to use the SW license and then make it without Lucas and company looming over head
 
Merc1138 said:
Someone wants to make a new KoToR? Just pay Disney the licensing fees and go make your game. A studio somewhere wants to make a new xwing vs. TIE fighter type game? They can, just pay Disney and then make it. Next time someone has a new idea that they think will sell, they just buy the rights to use the SW license and then make it without Lucas and company looming over head
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Time to start a kick starter project.
 
One other thing, the people in this thread not understanding the phrase "made out like a bandit", wtf? Go read a book or something. It has nothing to do with thinking Lucas robbed anyone. Damn kids...
 
SOB

Reached for comment by Wired, a representative said that internal development on announced games, like the next-gen shooter Star Wars 1313, had been ceased but that the company was evaluating its options as regards having those games completed by an outside developer. However, Kotaku quoted an anonymous source inside the company that said such options had already been explored, and Disney found no takers. So it’s looking quite unlikely that 1313 will ever come out.


Nice Disney. Great. Kill the one SW game I've looked forward to in a long time....
 
LucasArts hasn't made a game worth playing in a long time. No big loss to the industry.
 
This is what happens when they stop making successful selling games and venture into the land of Indiana Jones games, and all those LEGO themed ones, or trying to take a small piece of pie out of the flooded MMORPG market. They should of listened to what the community has been asking for. A new Jedi Knight, Battlefront, Galactic Battlegrounds, and probably most importantly, KOTOR 3. Star Wars 1313 had promise, but apparently it was too late for the studio.
 
Man. I feel sad, like my favorite playground from my childhood was just bull-dozed for an overpass. :(
 
on the upside, betting these means they are more willing to deal with Ron Gilbert in him getting his license back for more Monkey Island games.

star wars has been dead to me for years, would rather see quality developers move in to license some of the other properties under the umbrella of LucasArts

don't get me wrong, proper melee lightsaber combat or a proper x-wing/tie fighter sequal would be orgasmic, but the devs that would take that risk probably aren't in the ballpark asking price for those licenses.
 
DogChainX said:
Man. I feel sad, like my favorite playground from my childhood was just bull-dozed for an overpass. :(
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Bulldozed to put down an even bigger playground is more like it.

Was Star Wars Kinect, the big LucasArts hit of 2012 really that popular with people here?
 
Merc1138 said:
Bulldozed to put down an even bigger playground is more like it.

Was Star Wars Kinect, the big LucasArts hit of 2012 really that popular with people here?
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Its just memories of the games they had done a long time ago. Full Throttle, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, Tie-Fighter/Xwing, etc. DOS games....

I don't think I played anything they put out in the past 10-15 years. :D
 
I actually liked the first Stars Wars Unleashed. I enjoyed the story. I felt that the movies should have been more like Unleashed.
 
LA developed Force Unleashed and Republic Commando. But the most recent lucrative LA titles were developed by other studios. (LegoSW KOTOR, Battlefront)

While I'm bawling that we'll never see proper sequels to X-Wing and TIE Fighter, Outlaws and never another Jedi Knight game....

Any publisher that puts out Star Wars Kinect deserves to go down.
 
And I still remember Ballblazer, Escape From Fractalus! PHM Pegasus and Strike Fleet too!
 
cocheese256 said:
I actually liked the first Stars Wars Unleashed. I enjoyed the story. I felt that the movies should have been more like Unleashed.
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I quite like Force Unleashed 1. It lacked in a few areas but for the most part was solid. Force Unleashed 2 was a giant turd that ruined it for me. I played them pretty much one after the other, so it wasn't nostalgia, it was genuinely crap.
 
Wait someone tell me that DISNEY purchased LUCAS ARTS and now they SHUTDOWN LUCAS ARTS for good ? what in the word that purchased it at first place.
 
MCRAYGSX said:
Wait someone tell me that DISNEY purchased LUCAS ARTS and now they SHUTDOWN LUCAS ARTS for good ? what in the word that purchased it at first place.
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They still own the IP and they can now hire other development studios to make the games for them ;)
 
MCRAYGSX said:
Whats an IP mate?
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Intellectual Property ... they own all the titles and elements of the various games that LucasArts made ... they can license those to other companies who wish to make games based on them ... Disney gets money but assumes little risk ... the developer has the risk since they must pay the licensing fees to Disney (even if the game bombs) ... if the game is successful they will pay even more licensing to Disney ... Win-Win for Disney :cool:
 
MCRAYGSX said:
Whats an IP mate?
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Intellectual Property.

Meaning that Disney doesn't have to rely on the crappy dev teams and designers that have churned out nothing but garbage for the past few years at LucasArts, and instead have other companies make SW games, or for that matter any of the other LucasArts properties.
 
MCRAYGSX said:
Whats an IP mate?
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Intellectual Property - basically ownership over the ideas and concepts.


In essence, Disney owns the knowledge required to make a clay pot, but has shutdown the physical factories which used the make them with the idea of granting production rights to interested thrid parties (meaning other companies) who will pay Disney for the ability to use the knowlege and (hopefully for them) earn a profit through the sale of whatever they produce.
 
Ok time for the Hard people to start a kickstart and purchase rights to Xwing and Tie Fighter and have the first game ever released by HardOCP.
 
In another article:

In a statement to GameInformer, Disney explained that it has been evaluating its position on games and has simply determined that LucasArts would better serve the company by licensing properties instead of developing them in-house. That shift is meant to reduce the risk involved with individual projects while simultaneously expanding the company's portfolio of Star Wars titles.
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In other words, Disney just wants to kill it, make more money, and then make a bunch of garbage they can sell in it's place. Corporate greed at its finest. There's goes 150+ legitimate jobs for people who were really pretty good (maybe not great) at what they did. Disney you evil, corporate leviathan.
 
thewooster said:
In another article:



In other words, Disney just wants to kill it, make more money, and then make a bunch of garbage they can sell in it's place. Corporate greed at its finest. There's goes 150+ legitimate jobs for people who were really pretty good (maybe not great) at what they did. Disney you evil, corporate leviathan.
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If the people are any good at their jobs then they will find employment at other development houses ... no business is a charity (unless they actually are a charity I guess :p ) so they don't need to employ people for the sake of giving them jobs ... there will be people employed making games based on the LucasArts IP (they just won't be Disney employees) ... you might also get better games ultimately since there are many good development houses who will work with licensed properties (Oblivion and KotOR comes to mind) :cool:
 
Merc1138 said:
Exactly. LucasArts has been making garbage for years now, with 1313 being the only thing people hoped might be good.

That being said, we don't know what the current state of 1313 is. For all we know, Disney could be avoiding the next ACM.

Whatever the case may be, Disney obviously had some reason to make the determination that they couldn't make LucasArts profitable in it's current state. Just because they made great games a decade ago, means absolutely nothing today with regards to what they're currently capable of. 1313 aside, their recent history has been pretty crap.

Lets look at the lucasarts games from the past 4 years.

Kinect Star Wars(are you kidding me?)
Angry Birds Star Wars(whoopdeedoo)
SWToR(terrible at launch, terrible 6 months later, probably still terrible)
Lego SW3: The clone wars(real innovative...)
SW: Force Unleased 2(mediocre at best)

Even if you go back another couple of years you just end up with a bunch of shovelware. 1313 would have needed to be an obvious "masterpiece" of a AAA game title for it to make any sense of Disney to keep LucasArts around, and apparently it wasn't. People need to take the nostalgia goggles off.
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Well, agree with your general point, but to be honest, SWToR was hardly "terrible at launch" and is hardly "terrible now". Let me guess, you're some bitter ex-swg vet asshole?

Truth is, game is pretty decent if you like story. Problem is with the gaming market being what it is, F2P is the future, and they launched with a pure sub model. That really screwed em once the buzz wore off (and it does for all games). They made the shift to F2P and as much as some idiots bitch about it, its where the market is going, and it ended up saving the game (first expansion launches next Tuesday).

On the whole MMOs aren't for everyone, but the general consensus in the game itself is a lot rosier than all the doom-sayers out there in forum-land.

That said, I agree with the sentiment that LA was well past its prime and I don't mind if it is licensed out to better studios for better games.
 
I feel bad for the people out of their jobs(that's always sad) however, bring on the new dev teams.

I haven't played a good Star Wars game in a long time.:eek:
 
kbrickley said:
If the people are any good at their jobs then they will find employment at other development houses ... no business is a charity (unless they actually are a charity I guess :p ) so they don't need to employ people for the sake of giving them jobs ... there will be people employed making games based on the LucasArts IP (they just won't be Disney employees) ... you might also get better games ultimately since there are many good development houses who will work with licensed properties (Oblivion and KotOR comes to mind) :cool:
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There is a difference between "giving someone a job" and firing people just to absorb their apartment and make more money. I don't think there is really any point in defending disney after everything they've done lately to pretty much trash the star wars/lucas arts legacy. Disney has made it pretty blatantly clear that they just want to own another franchise. It's all about the money, period.
 
I could care less about anything Star Wars except the Pod Racing game's. Been over a decade since that game hit.


Disney has been shutting down other studio's. Last ones I heard was Junction Point (epic mickey) and Black Rock (split second velocity).

How long before they start stuffing Star Wars in THE vault :p
 
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