R.I.P. LucasArts: 1982-2013
Today, Disney informed LucasArts' 150 staff members that their jobs are no more and cancelled all of their upcoming projects, including Star Wars 1313 and Star Wars: First Assault. LucasArts was acquired by Disney just last fall.
The name "LucasArts" will live on to license games, but the LucasArts studio is now a thing of the past.
A LucasArts statement reads: "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."
What this means is that third-party developers will be making Star Wars games instead of the development team at LucasArts. This means that Star Wars games will still come out, but instead of being made by the LucasArts development team as they always have been, they will be made by various third-party developers under the LucasArts name.
As for Star Wars 1313? It is very unlikely that it will ever see the light of day.
LucasArts was a big part of many gamers' childhoods in the late '80s and early '90s, bringing them now-classics like The Secret of Monkey Island and Maniac Mansion. Sadly, all good things must come to an end. Let's just hope that the new Star Wars games aren't complete garbage.
