This morning more than 150 employees of LucasArts were laid off by Disney. Disney had this to say:
“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.”
So basically the games from LucasArts are just not going to be developed by LucasArts anymore. Games like Star Wars: BattleFront and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic weren’t even developed by LucasArts anyway, so I don’t see a big change coming.
The Communities Reaction
I’ve seen comments mentioning how awful an idea it is to not make Star Wars games anymore, when Disney is saying that they are just going to contract out Star Wars games to other developers. This in my opinion gives us a better chance of a great Star Wars game in the future. They may have cancelled development on Star Wars 1313 and Star Wars: First Assault on their end but that doesn’t mean its not going to be contracted out to the next great developer.
Disney taking LucasArts down to a licensing model is a good move.
Think about it, when was the last time you played a purely LucasArts game and enjoyed it fully? Anyone remember Star Wars: Rogue Squadron for the N64? That was the golden age of LucasArts in my mind. Maybe It was just because I was so young and naive, but I remember that being a great game.
We are sorry to see those great talents and minds lose their jobs and our best thoughts are with them.
