Disney Slams Door on LucasArts

Apr 4, 2013

It was announced today Disney has decided to slam the door on in house game developer LucasArts in a business decision to outsource Star Wars related games to licensees. I can understand the thinking behind the move because Disney has effectively closed the doors on all game development outside of Disney Infinity – which doesn’t look overly exciting in my book – by taking a page out of its Marvel Comics property by putting all the risk on other companies to develop titles the public will actually buy; Disney will still make it’s money through licenses. Video gaming saw a shocking dip in profits in 2012 as sales of new game disks dropped a staggering 23%.

Granted, the recent past hasn’t been overly kind to LucasArts as there were plenty more misses than hits over the last decade as the company became a mere shadow of the gaming pioneer the company had once been. That said, it’s too bad to see the futures of such titles as Star Wars: 1313 and First Assault are now in limbo while a company which developed such classics of my PC gaming such as Maniac Mansion, Day of the Tentacle, X-Wing, and Grim Fandango is no more…

The announcement:

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.

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Jeff McAleer

Founder/Editor-in-chief of The Gaming Gang website and host of The Gaming Gang Dispatch and other TGG media for fifteen years, Jeff takes on any and all sorts of games but is especially ready to tackle roleplaying games and strategy games. He's been involved with the hobby since he was just a wee grade school lad, over four decades ago.