Disney shuts down LucasArts

On the 21st of December last year, The Walt Disney Company made history by acquiring Lucasfilm for over $4 billion. Today, the multinational mass media corporation has pushed things even further and closed LucasArts, the game development branch of George Lucas' former enterprise.

Disney says that it has "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." This move has infuriated gamers of the Internet. Twitter is currently abuzz with talk of what will replace the great LucasArts as other publishers do not own the full rights to the Star Wars universe. One company even said that it was looking for talented game developers who need a home.

Founded in 1982, LucasArts has brought to light some of the greatest computer adventure games of all time. The developers behind this name crafted such classics as Star Wars: Battlefront and Labyrinth. There are hundreds of others, including those based on the Indiana Jones franchise and the Monkey Island puzzle game series.

Thankfully, Disney did inform Polygon that Star Wars 1313 still has a possibility of being released. "The studio will be handing game development to third party developers", said Tracy Lien of the gaming publication. "The studio confirmed that LucasArts will no longer be handling the development of Star Wars 1313, and it is exploring other avenues to release the game, although the future of 1313 and other Star Wars titles is currently uncertain."

The Walt Disney Company's official statement to Game Informer:

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.

As a child, I spent hours playing Star Wars: Battlefront and its sequel. To know that there will probably be no future development in the series dampens the spirits of the youngster who still lives in me.

Source: Game Informer