matrix3509: Please people, don't act surprised at this. We've already been told that this is how publishers act on a regular basis by Brian Fargo. There is only one way to fight this bullshit. You know which way I'm talking about.
Dexter111: In his very short months with LucasArts, Rodriguez actually made a deal with TellTale Games to make the Monkey Island Episodes and he also greenlighted the Money Island 1+2: Special Editions and brought Loom, The Dig and Indiana Jones to Steam (he also greenlighted Lucidity - hey you can't get all of them right :P). In fact he brought a lot of the LucasArts Lineup to Steam during that time (April 2008 - May 2010): http://store.steampowered.com/search/?sort_by=Released&sort_order=ASC&term=lucasarts Don't you DARE badmouth him...
All of which, from his point of view, was a low investment/high return cash grab.
LucasArts have been the weirdest fucking publisher about for a while now. This doesn't surprise me. I mean, EA and Activision are pretty shitty, but I don't know if I'd consider them outright 'weird'; there's at least a line of internal reasoning that's quite easy to follow when looking at their crap decisions.
In his very short months with LucasArts, Rodriguez actually made a deal with TellTale Games to make the Monkey Island Episodes and he also greenlighted the Money Island 1+2: Special Editions and brought Loom, The Dig and Indiana Jones to Steam (he also greenlighted Lucidity - hey you can't get all of them right :P). In fact he brought a lot of the LucasArts Lineup to Steam during that time (April 2008 - May 2010): http://store.steampowered.com/search/?sort_by=Released&sort_order=ASC&term=lucasarts Don't you DARE badmouth him...
I'm still waiting on Monkey Island 3's Steam rerelease! And I could badmouth him for the TellTale Monkey Island games, good grief whoever wrote the script for those shouldn't be allowed to hold a pen if you can't even make the Monkey Island cast feel in-character. I couldn't even finish the first scene of Tales of Monkey Island because everything and everyone felt off.
(And thus, to this day I am fairly sure that everyone who calls Telltale a wonderful adventure game developer never actually played the classics)
New Lucasarts president Paul Meegan certainly isn't wasting any time. Barely two months into the job and we hear he's already swinging the axe and cancelling high profile sequels.
If you were wondering why it was strange that Force Unleashed II creative director Haden Blackman would leave mid-project, this may explain things: according to sources at Lucasarts, Meegan has cancelled a third Force Unleashed game that was already in development, and members of Force Unleashed II's team will be shown the door once that game ships.
Another unnamed project, due to ship next year, has avoided the axe, but has been "put on hold" while developers have been told to "expect management and reporting changes".
These sources say "morale and productivity are at all-time lows" since Meegan took over, with most Lucasarts developers only finding out about Force Unleashed II's cancellation on the PSP by reading it on gaming news sites.
We've also been told that another sweeping change made by Meegan is that the majority of "external" development of Lucasarts properties is coming to an end, with BioWare's Old Republic MMO to be the last game not developed internally at Lucasarts. That would presumably mean, for example, no more LEGO Star Wars or LEGO Indiana Jones titles, as those were handled by Traveller's Tales.
So, yes, if this is all indeed correct, big changes are afoot at the house that Star Wars built. Lots of them bad news for the developers currently there, but looking at the big picture, the silver lining could be that such drastic shake-ups could be exactly what's needed at a publisher and developer that, courtesy of its licenses and history, should be doing a lot better both commercially and critically than it currently is.
Bolt-206: I suddenly Despise LucasArts as much as EA...
They couldn't have even the smallest amount of faith that Battlefront 3 would more than make up for it's costs? 'cause it would have.
I never thought I'd say this, but I don't think even EA would stoop this low. When they kill a developer they at least get as many games out of them as they can first. They'd never slowly bleed a popular developer to death while they were in the middle of making a game that would have almost certainly been profitable.
EA are dicks, but LucasArts are dicks that don't event work properly.
All that's needed now is for THX to fumble and produce a movie that sounds like it's being played down fifty feet of garden hose and Lucas' legacy officially curls itself around a Glock.
nathan-dts: So LucasArts pretty much killed one of my favourite developers ever? Never buying a fucking product from them ever again.
considering their latest game has a god damn dancing minigame, I dont think you are alone in that sentiment.
Seriously, I Loved Battlefront because at the time it was the closest thing to Battlefield for the console. Fuck LucasArts, I hope their games sit on discount shelves for a decade before being put in a landfill.
after playing the force unleashed i knew they lost it.
they should had developed jedi Knight 4.
but its a good example how (in an almost perverted way) the publishers are absolutely alienated from their products. its almost like the dilber episode where dilbert had to find a name for a product that did not exist and based on that name, invent the product.
well publishers, start fearing the little ones. because they will consume you.
Greg Tito: Then there was a new guy called Darrell Rodriguez, who had been brought in to do a job and it was more to do with cost control than making any games. And the games that we were making for them were costly."
In his very short months with LucasArts, Rodriguez actually made a deal with TellTale Games to make the Monkey Island Episodes and he also greenlighted the Money Island 1+2: Special Editions and brought Loom, The Dig and Indiana Jones to Steam (he also greenlighted Lucidity - hey you can't get all of them right :P). In fact he brought a lot of the LucasArts Lineup to Steam during that time (April 2008 - May 2010): http://store.steampowered.com/search/?sort_by=Released&sort_order=ASC&term=lucasarts
Here's the thing though, everything you cite seems to match up perfectly with the article. The new Monkey Island games from Telltale are FAR cheaper than Battlefront 3 would be to develop, and re-releasing old games on Steam again is extremely cost effective without them putting out any sort of cash. Does that make them bad decisions, no certainly not, but it does kind of reinforce the image that the article paints, this guy was just trying to make as much money with as little risk as he possibly could.
This thing with lucasarts, and apparently EA and Activision as well is just depressing. Sadly as many have said its business as usual in the gaming industry.
canadamus_prime: I don't think that's a condition exclusive to LucusArts, I think it's a pandemic that has infected the whole industry.
I cant agree more, this is very true, One company does it, the next sees they can save money and does it too, and so on and so forth... makes me sick.
Yeah, and the 2 biggest offenders are EA and Activision. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if one of them was Patient Zero. The really sad part is both of them used to produce really good stuff, so did LucasArts.
canadamus_prime: I don't think that's a condition exclusive to LucusArts, I think it's a pandemic that has infected the whole industry.
I cant agree more, this is very true, One company does it, the next sees they can save money and does it too, and so on and so forth... makes me sick.
Yeah, and the 2 biggest offenders are EA and Activision. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if one of them was Patient Zero. The really sad part is both of them used to produce really good stuff, so did LucasArts.
Well, EA started the whole "Project 10 dollar" thing, locking parts of the retail game because people did not buy it new, yea... Prototype 2 locks the challenges and even the avatar awards for those who did not buy new.
Cancelling a project is one thing, leading on a developer to work meaninglessly until they run out of cash and have to close doors is just fucking evil.
I had been getting the feeling LucasArts was being stupid lately, but not to this extent. I have put in at least 300 hours into Battlefront 2, and always had a shred of hope for a 3rd, even though I knew it had been cancelled or at least "put on hold" a few years ago. Guess that dream has died.
Dexter111: Hah, nice article, you should read it before putting it all on LucasArts.
Meanwhile, Second Sight had finally entered full production. The project had changed hands from Eidos to Activision, and Free Radical were about to taste business Bobby Kotick style. "We got some way through it with Activision," says Ellis. "Then they had a day in November 2003 where they made big changes. They decided they didn't like UK development anymore, they didn't like external development anymore, and they didn't like developer-owned IP anymore. Bad for us, because we ticked every box! On that day I think they canned ten projects and in the process put some companies out of business."
"It was a troubled development," says Doak. "Because that's when we found out how Activision worked. Bobby Kotick really loves developers! He wouldn't even speak to us, and we never spoke to him. He's quite happy to have some people put us out of business, but only does calls with investors. That was like the night of the long knives. We stood up to Activision, we had good legal counsel and they told us the right things to say. It looked like it was going to put us under for a bit, but didn't."
Classic Activision xD
Free Radical's other project at this time was the last TimeSplitters game, Future Perfect. After TimeSplitters 2 EA had come sniffing around, and Free Radical was ready to listen. "EA Partners was this part of EA that was involved with third-party things," says Doak. "It was a bit like being groomed, you know. Here's all these friendly avuncular people that will give you all the love and attention you need to get your game out, and then after a while they go away and all the bad guys come around and it's like you're in borstal. Getting held down, beaten around the head with a cue ball in a sock."
"In retrospect, what happened after TimeSplitters 2 was that EA saw the Metacritic and came to us," says Ellis. "I don't actually think they'd looked at the game very much." The publisher demanded Future Perfect have a strong lead character in order that it appeal to the US market. "EA turned up with this stuff that was supposed to help us," says Doak. "And it was just big boards with pictures of Vin Diesel on them. Wesley Snipes was on one in his Blade outfit." Future Perfect ended up with Cortez, a cowardly and dumb marine whose catchphrase falls flat every time: "It's time to split!"
Future Perfect had the longest development of any TimeSplitters game, and there was a sting in the tail. "We had quite a frank conversation with EA," says Ellis. "Where they told us they weren't going to bother trying to market it very much. Because at the time they had their GoldenEye game [GoldenEye: Rogue Agent], and they said that for every dollar they spent on marketing that game they would get more dollars back. It didn't match up with their original promises."
"Throughout the development of Future Perfect we had EA people all the time coming to us saying 'yeah your game's alright, but not as good as this GoldenEye we're making.'" says Doak. "Continuously! 'Yeah I saw GoldenEye, it's awesome, you Brits had better raise your game!' And we asked to see it. 'No, no, you can't see it'. We killed ourselves getting Future Perfect done, only to find that they had made a total balls of GoldenEye to the extent they had to throw more money at it to market it, the money that they might have spent on Future Perfect. I mean, it's like fiction that it's a GoldenEye game, isn't it? I don't think the irony of what they were doing ever occurred to EA."
GoldenEye: Rogue Agent came out late in 2004 to a muted response, receiving a flat 60 on Metacritic. Future Perfect was released in March 2005, and while it received a warmer reception EA didn't push it, and it didn't achieve better sales than the series had under Eidos. "The problem is they never really got it," says Ellis. "That summarises it. And because they never really got it they tried to change it into something that they did get."
Classic EA xD
This... is disgusting. It's vile. They are bullies and hypocrites. If this is what is considered business, then I have seen more functional and fair systems in place at Playgrounds for infants.
EA, Activision, Lucasarts, Microsoft, Sony... they will be the death of the industry as we know it. They lack the foresight and ingenuity to make it out of the next decade. Mark my words, they will fall and they will fall hard.
This is the kind of thing that happens when a property gets so huge that "protecting" it is infinitely more important than doing anything with it. It's why companies like Disney sue the entire world at least twice a year, while most of what they do is churn out crap (or re-sell their old glory on blu-ray).
matrix3509: Please people, don't act surprised at this. We've already been told that this is how publishers act on a regular basis by Brian Fargo. There is only one way to fight this bullshit. You know which way I'm talking about.
Kickstarter for Battlefront 3? To be executed by the former members of Free Radical?
matrix3509: Please people, don't act surprised at this. We've already been told that this is how publishers act on a regular basis by Brian Fargo. There is only one way to fight this bullshit. You know which way I'm talking about.
Kickstarter for Battlefront 3? To be executed by the former members of Free Radical?
Fuck, I'd pitch in for that and I've never even contributed to a Kickstarter before. Unfortunately, I think Battlefront 3's IP rights still belong to LucasArts and I get the feeling that they won't let that happen even though they don't intend to actually make use of the Battlefront IP.
when he says psychopaths hes probs not kidding, many psychopaths excel at running companies because they experience little emotion, making money hand over fist requires you to see your customers as cattle and most companies do.
the monetary system destroys everything it touches.
Gotta say this is pretty depressing...I've always been hoping that they'd make another SW:BF game as I really enjoyed the first 2...now I know why SW:BF3 will forever remain a pipe dream: anything that bears the name Lucas is shit. xP
matrix3509: Please people, don't act surprised at this. We've already been told that this is how publishers act on a regular basis by Brian Fargo. There is only one way to fight this bullshit. You know which way I'm talking about.
Kickstarter for Battlefront 3? To be executed by the former members of Free Radical?
That would be pretty awesome. I think Lucas Arts owns the rights to the Battlefront series so it would have to be a completely new game.
On Topic: What Lucas Arts did was just low. I used to respect them but now I have nothing but hate for them.
Brad Shepard: I cant agree more, this is very true, One company does it, the next sees they can save money and does it too, and so on and so forth... makes me sick.
Yeah, and the 2 biggest offenders are EA and Activision. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if one of them was Patient Zero. The really sad part is both of them used to produce really good stuff, so did LucasArts.
Well, EA started the whole "Project 10 dollar" thing, locking parts of the retail game because people did not buy it new, yea... Prototype 2 locks the challenges and even the avatar awards for those who did not buy new.
Yeah, I don't think the problem started there. I've been feeling like something has been off this entire console generation. Maybe that's just me though.
Thoric485: Cancelling a project is one thing, leading on a developer to work meaninglessly until they run out of cash and have to close doors is just fucking evil.
Yeah, I'm don't think even EA would do that, and I hate EA.
Greg Tito: Then there was a new guy called Darrell Rodriguez, who had been brought in to do a job and it was more to do with cost control than making any games. And the games that we were making for them were costly."
I'm going to have to take issue with that... Jim Ward was decisively involved in cancelling Full Throttle: Payback/Hell on Wheels and Sam&Max: Freelance Police.
In his very short months with LucasArts, Rodriguez actually made a deal with TellTale Games to make the Monkey Island Episodes and he also greenlighted the Money Island 1+2: Special Editions and brought Loom, The Dig and Indiana Jones to Steam (he also greenlighted Lucidity - hey you can't get all of them right :P). In fact he brought a lot of the LucasArts Lineup to Steam during that time (April 2008 - May 2010): http://store.steampowered.com/search/?sort_by=Released&sort_order=ASC&term=lucasarts Don't you DARE badmouth him...
Very noble to release a back catalogue for minimum cost and risk. How does this stop his shutting down a developer with his parasitic legal team being a dick move?
And "Don't you DARE badmouth him". What are you, his partner? His parent?
Battlefront was a successful franchise much loved by the fans but it appears Rodders was more interested in making money than games and didn't care how many people he needed to step on to get there.
Hookah: Destroyed a games company to save money. Well, aren't you just the smelliest turd in the pile, LucasArts.
Yes. They are the smelliest turd in the pile for doing exactly what every other company is doing right now. That makes sense.
i think its the 'leading the on to drain the the studios money' that's pissing people off the most. but then, i don't really remember a good game from Lucasarts since .... >.> Metal Warriors on the SNES, but i believe their name was just on it cause one of the robots uses a Light Saber (and call it that)
y'know, for every person who tells me that it can't really be that bad, and that the industry just works like this and they should deal with it, i hear another ridiculous story like this
I completely agree