By Beth F. Barely more than 150 days after Disney acquired LucasArts, the video game development arm of LucasFilm, the House of Mouse made a move that has dashed the dreams of all would-be-mighty-pirates: Disney has decided to shut down LucasArts.
According to Wired, LucasArts stated that "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." Unfortunately for fans of the epic adventure games like Monkey Island, Grim Fandango, and Indiana Jones, this closing of the studio means that any long-held dreams of reviving the genre of witty, puzzle-oriented adventure games have been dashed.
As has been previously discussed here on DBtC, TellTale Games has been licensing the rights to Monkey Island for several years to produce their short series of games. According to EmpireOnline.com, the licensing for Monkey Island will continue for TellTale, which it describes as LucasArt's "spiritual successor." Nevertheless, this fan hopes that Ron Gilbert, creator of Monkey Island, will get his wish to buy back the rights at some point. On his blog, GrumpyGamer, Gilbert gives a nostalgic farewell to Lucasfilm Games (he doesn't think of it as LucasArts), in which he holds out hope of acquiring the rights someday.
To this novice gamer, the news of LucasArts' closure is more than just a sad realization that we may never see another real Monkey Island sequel. Rather, it signals that the market for strictly adventure games (by which I mean games driven by story, dialogue and puzzles in which you can't die), is virtually nonexistent. It seems that today's gamers are more interested in complex worlds with difficult dungeons, advanced weaponry, and tough enemies. While I understand the demand for these games, I am saddened that the market for great games like Monkey Island is so small that it can no longer be sustained.
In the meantime, maybe LucasFilm will go back to selling fine leather jackets.
Beth, I was angry when I heard this. I was hoping employees were moved internally to other development branches of the Disney company, but to layoff all across the company and to put an end to an era is upsetting.
ReplyDeleteIf the company ever came back, the reincarnation would probably never hold the same fan-based weight as it's original run...then again LucasArts wasn't the company today as its peak 20 years ago.
As for the exiting game franchises, I can only hope Disney Interactive and 3rd party developers can pick up the pieces of where the former developers like Ron Gilbert left off. It could be a good thing for some of the games franchises, as the fan developers in 3rd party companies would ensure that quality, canon-following, future titles are produced. Then again, it could be a disaster like "Duke Nukem Forever".
What do you think?