negativeliberty on 2/9/2010 at 20:53
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http://kotaku.com/5614577/rumor-lucasarts-cancels-force-unleashed-3-begins-culling-developers)
Quote:
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 (though we're not sure exactly how many) 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". Those changes are down to the departure of Blackman, who as work was winding down on Force Unleashed II had been leading development on this secret project.
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 after the upcoming LEGO: Clone Wars, as those have all been 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.
As a longtime LucasArts fan (before..) I don't know what to make of this. It's not like they're making great games at the moment; I never played it, but I know TFU was mediocre, although to axe the team just as TFU2 is finished seems fairly cold. More worryingly, Meegan's stopped all external Star Wars development, and SW:TOR will be the last external Star Wars game.
I don't have high hopes for The Old Republic, but I was looking forward to a 'proper' KOTOR 3 somewhere down the line, and considering LA's in-house development is the exact polar opposite of what it was when they created classic after classic, this should come as decidedly bad news. So we may be looking at a new Bobby Kotick here, or this might be the start of the revival of LucasArts. I'm still sort of leaning towards the former until proven otherwise (by a great LA game, for example).
EvaUnit02 on 3/9/2010 at 03:36
What makes the axing of the TFU team + cancellation of TFU3 even odder is that it would've been a license to print money. TFU1 was actually the biggest selling Star Wars game of all time, surprisingly enough.
Matthew on 3/9/2010 at 10:14
That makes me sad considering it is the worst Star Wars game I have ever played, and I've played plenty of them. Maybe Meegan was also horrified by the terribleness of TFU (I wish).
Shadowcat on 3/9/2010 at 14:22
Quote Posted by EvaUnit02
What makes the axing of the TFU team + cancellation of TFU3 even odder is that it would've been a license to print money.
Maybe. If it was a crappy game, it will be interesting to see how many people come back for a second helping.
Quote:
TFU1 was actually the biggest selling Star Wars game of all time, surprisingly enough.
That's impressive. Mind you, it's all relative to the size of the market (which I would presume increases over time) and size of the marketing budget. TFU got a pretty big push, and was released on all major consoles and PC, so I'm not too surprised it sold a bunch of copies.
Will most people pay to see a sequel if they thought the original was rubbish? They sure did after "The Phantom Menace", but games are a tad pricier, so I'm not sure that it's a valid analogy.
Anyone have some statistics on this sort of thing? :)
Zygoptera on 3/9/2010 at 21:44
TFU didn't just get released on major consoles, it got released on everything with a userbase that retained a pulse, plus had a host of multimedia tie ins in addition to the advertising. I don't think it came close to the highest selling SW game on any individual platform.
LucasArts is a mess, every time they get a new guy in charge they completely change their strategies. After KOTORs they weren't going to do any internal development, now they aren't going to do any external development...
demagogue on 3/9/2010 at 21:53
Maybe it's just me, but plunging morale and productivity don't strike me as a very promising signs of good things to come.