Lucasarts. Gone. - The Bear and Badger

Skerret

GooberTheHat wrote:

Brooks wrote:

Dark Forces motherfuckers.

Seconded

Thirded. This gun fills, like, half the screen!!

WorKid

Oh. 1313 cancelled (?)

Brooks

Skutbox that was just the Darktrooper gun, the rest were saner.

Skerret

As I recall.

Escape

krs wrote:

They were gone once Gilbert and Schafer had gone.

Gilbert and Schafer were gone once Gilbert and Schafer had gone.

mistercrayon

I_R wrote:

Sasukekun wrote:

Sorry, but if that were the case there's no way that Disney would have shelled out 4.05 billion for Lucasarts and Lucasfilm. What ip did they have? Indy and Star Wars? I doubt Indy commanded much of that total. So, if Disney don't think that the Star Wars name carries much any more, why shell out all that dough?

The games had acquired a reputation of not being very good. Disney know how to milk a franchise in almost every other medium, that's why they bought the brand, not to make games.

How much did Lucas arts pay to have swtor made by EA? Zilch. How much to they make? A fuck ton. Leverage the IP burden the risk on other people and profit.

Rev

Day of the tentacle was very good. And I played a lot of x wing and tie fighter as well.

Yossarian

Yes. DotT was arguably the pinnacle of 2D Lucasarts P&Cs, although I also want to make a mention of Full Throttle and Sam & Max as no-one seems to have done so yet.
Also: FFSDisneycanyouplzremakeGrimFandangoforaformatthatIownsoIcanfinallyplayitthankyouverymuch?

WorKid

Handy Manny eh EH?

[Deleted User]

dynamiteReady wrote:

Favourite Lucasart games?

So many good ones. But if I had to choose:

1. The Secret Of Monkey Island
2. Star Wars: Battlefront
3. Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis

[Deleted User]

Skerret wrote:

GooberTheHat wrote:

Brooks wrote:

Dark Forces motherfuckers.

Seconded

Thirded. This gun fills, like, half the screen!!

I'm a Jedi Knight the first kinda guy. Dark forces 2 was pimp.

davyK

Can't say I'll miss them.

Disney may create some fun thrill rides in their parks with the IP though.

Brooks

Have never actually played DFII. Probably should.

Scout

Sad to see them go. Monkey Island is probably my fav game ever. And as a Star Wars fan and PC gamer in the 90s I had an absolute blast with the the X-Wing and Dark Forces/Jedi Knight games. The Force Unleashed games weren't too bad either. For my shame I even played the Ewok slaughtering DLC.

[Deleted User]

Good riddance to bad shite. Started brilliantly tbf.

Still, fuck 'em.

Sasukekun

Did Lucasarts make the 16bit star wars platform games?

[Deleted User]

Internet says sort of.

monkey

Yep. They were really good at the time.

tigersgogrrr

Brooks wrote:

Have never actually played DFII. Probably should.

Definitely, that was a helluva game.

optimark_prime

Zombies Ate My Neighbors was one of my favourite SNES games.

GooberTheHat

optimark_prime wrote:

Zombies Ate My Neighbors was one of my favourite SNES games.

Was that the one with trampolines and water guns? That was a brilliant game. I used to play it with my brother all the time.

Dark Soldier

Yes, it was, and yes it was flipping wonderful. I traded Sonic 2 for it when a young 'un.

Chief

If you really think about it, all these "I loved Point and Click game X back in the 90s" and "I loved TIE Fighter/Dark Forces/Rogue Squadron/etc" comments really bring it home why LucasArts has gone now - nobody can mention anything from the last 6-7 years, aside from maybe The Force Unleashed, that has been of any kind of high quality.

The LucasArts of the 90s (and early 2000s) sadly never really made it to the current generation.

Mod74

I don't think that's why they're gone though.

Disney could easily staff up and crank out all sorts of tie-ins for the 3 new films and multitude of spin offs. They just don't want to. As a vehicle to produce StarWars themed games they'd have been perfectly viable.

Disney have gutted their own studios, for whatever reason the efforts they did make didn't work out so they're outta there.

WorKid

Because it's far easier to just license out the IP.

Mod74

Licensing it out has dramatical decreased its worth, imo. What do work for hire's care about the IP?

I'd have made the Lucasarts/StarWars name on a game mean something again. Then farm it out.

I_R

There isn't a guarantee of Star Wars games selling these days, not in the numbers you need to justify a budget in the tens of millions. The last two Force Unleashed games bombed hard and 1313 didn't look likely to do better considering it was only going to appear on new consoles and the PC and was apparently already a development disaster.

Publishers will pay them for the rights to make Star Wars Lego games and for the rights to games based on the next films and cartoons. No one will try an MMO, but EA or Activision might shell out for a FPS if they get into a real rut. It's not going to make Disney a fortune, but it's zero risk, easy money.

Chief

I think LucasArts has proven over the past few years that it isn't capable of making AAA games anymore. Disney probably realised this and decided to just dump the failing studio.

I'd have honestly preferred to see the studio cut down and streamlined/injected with fresh talent rather than a massive cut to jobs, but as has been said, licensing out IP is much cheaper and more profitable.

Look what happened to Metroid when Nintendo licensed it out - we got the critically acclaimed Prime trilogy. Okay, we then got the atrocious Other M but let's just forget about that one...

optimark_prime

Knights of The Old Republic was well received (at the time), so it's possible for other developers to produce decent Star Wars games.

Mod74

And then KOTOR II was a bit shit. It's all right licensing other studios to make games, but you want to be sure you're getting a Bioware not an Obsidian.*

There needs to be a fine balance between low cash risk and high reputational risk. And doing it yourself is I think the best way to manage that.

Disney could farm out their animation properties to any old studio. Would be a lot cheaper but when the quality starts to dive then you've got problems.

*although ironically the MMO proved the exact opposite.

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