I received the following statement from a Lucasfilm spokesperson:
“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.”
Before the statement, news broke that 150 employees at LucasArts had been laid off this morning. Rumours about the future of 1313 have been swirling all day as well.
It’s another sad day, but not an unexpected move from the new corporate owners at Disney. The world of publicly traded companies is one of acquisition, layoffs, improving bottom lines. Disney for a long time has been outsourcing their games to other companies, why wouldn’t they do the same for LucasArts?
Over the years, LucasArts has created some of my absolute favorite games and I had hoped they would continue to do so, but the Mouse has been quite unforgiving to the current landscape of Star Wars fandom. The only reason I’m currently not worried about the books and comics since they’re not operated in house, they’re already licensed and licensing means money to the company no matter what.
We’ll see.