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LucasArts no more....


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Source: http://kotaku.com

Disney Shuts Down LucasArts, Cancels Star Wars 1313 And Star Wars: First Assault

 

Disney has laid off the staff of LucasArts and cancelled all current projects.

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's current projects--Star Wars: First Assault andStar Wars 1313--were cancelled.

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. Today, it's official: the longrunning studio is no more.

 

 

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Please tell me that this is an April Fool's joke that people've just been late finding out about.

Sorry, no such luck.  The announcement was made official earlier today.  Although the rest of the industry kind of saw it coming back around the time of the purchase.

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Here is the actual statement from Disney.

"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."

 

Basically...while 1313 and First Assault have been cancelled, it sounds like they may license the property to other companies.  So while we may see Star Wars games in the future, they will be from 3rd parties.

 

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EDIT

 

Update:

 

according to this article http://www.insidegamingdaily.com/2013/04/03/disney-shutting-down-lucasarts-future-of-game-properties-uncertain/

 

While yes the company is gone, and will be licensing the development to 3rd parties....

The fates of 1313 and First Assault are, for now at least, a bit murky.  It is possible the games could still come out, but with development being finished by other companies.  However, personally I think this would kill the production value of both games and/or require the developing company to start all over.

Edited by CrimsonStrife
update
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Hopefully this will turn out to be a good thing eventually. I thought Lucasarts licensed games to 3rd party companies anyways? (i.e. Raven, Pandemic, Bioware, etc.)

Not recently, I think their general consensus was to move to internal development.  But even when they did outsource, I am not entirely sure that they were not also working on the project themselves, more like partnerships, or in some cases, partially owned the studio (I think this was the case with Raven, and at one point with Bioware).  In this future scenario, the entire development process would be done by a 3rd party.

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Were not most SW-games made by third-party developers anyway?

 

 

Not recently, I think their general consensus was to move to internal development.  But even when they did outsource, I am not entirely sure that they were not also working on the project themselves, more like partnerships, or in some cases, partially owned the studio (I think this was the case with Raven, and at one point with Bioware).  In this future scenario, the entire development process would be done by a 3rd party.

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heres a question. with the shutting down of lucasarts... will the JK2/JKA servers be shut down soon as well?

While I am sure at some point LA was hosting some of the servers, pretty much all the servers nowadays are privately hosted by people who also play the game.

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