Staff were informed of the shutdown this morning, according to a reliable Kotaku source. Some 150 people were laid off, and both of the studio\u2019s current projects\u2014Star Wars: First Assault and Star Wars 1313\u2014were cancelled. Disney will still use the LucasArts name to license games, but the studio is no more.<\/p>\n
Publicly, Disney is saying their current games could be licensed out to a different publisher or developer, but according to our source, that\u2019s unlikely. Our source says Lucas has pursued the option for \u201cone or both games,\u201d but nothing happened. \u201cWith the teams now basically being dispersed I think both games are effectively dead forever,\u201d our source said.<\/p>\n
A second source also told Kotaku this afternoon that the chances of Lucas licensing out 1313 are very slim. The odds are \u201ceffectively zero,\u201d the source said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter evaluating our position in the games market, we\u2019ve decided to shift LucasArts from an internal development to a licensing model, minimizing the company\u2019s risk while achieving a broader portfolio of quality Star Wars games,\u201d LucasArts parent company LucasFilm said in a statement. \u201cAs a result of this change, we\u2019ve had layoffs across the organization. We are incredibly appreciative and proud of the talented teams who have been developing our new titles.\u201d<\/p>\n
This comes after weeks and months of rumors involving the studio, which was acquired by Disney last fall. In September, LucasArts put a freeze on all hiring and product announcements, which many staff saw as the beginning of the end. In February, we started hearing rumors that the studio might be shuttered. Today, it\u2019s official: the iconic development house is gone.<\/p>\n
The company was acquired as part of a mega-merger last year where Disney acquired LucasFilm and its sibling company from Lucas. Maniac Mansion, one of LucasArts\u2019 first self-published titles, introduced the \u201cSCUMM\u201d game engine driving several well known point-and-click adventure titles the company published throughout the 1990s. The Secret of Monkey Island, created by Ron Gilbert and co-written by Double Fine\u2019s Tim Schafer, is one of the publisher\u2019s best-known graphical adventures using the engine.<\/p>\n
The publisher\u2019s apogee was certainly in the 1990s, when a wave of Star Wars-themed titles for the PC\u2014such as Dark Forces, X-Wing and Rebel Assault\u2014were supplemented by games like the strategy title Afterlife, the Sam & Max series, and Schafer\u2019s Full Throttle.<\/p>\n
Full article: http:\/\/kotaku.com\/di \u2026 -lucasarts-468473749<\/a><\/p>\n